The other day I just joined a course called "Vocational Education and Training" as a compulsory class for student teachers in Taiwan. The class was good, but one remark particularly set me off: college education should provide more practices for its students, vocational college and academic college alike.

I'm not so sure about this idea, because it somehow does not really sound right. Or it's right, as it is something I myself will sometimes wonder, but it for some reason is not something I appreciate at heart. Despite all the complaints colleges receive, there seems to be this one job colleges should provide, which is to teach students to think critically. But training and stuff like that, it seems to me like training students to be machine-like.

I wonder what you think of this issue. Maybe it's just because I'm rather inexperienced in the job market, thus having thoughts like the above. But as someone about to graduate from college and enter the schools, I feel particularly unnerved regarding rhetorics arguing that colleges should train students and brace them for their job in the future.