Making the right choice

Does the university you attend or the major you choose determine your success in the future?
是学校还是专业决定了你未来的出路？

According to a recent survey done by China Youth Daily, 48.6 percent of participants believe that the university one goes to plays an important role in shaping their future. On the other hand, 33.8 percent of people hold the view that it’s what you do in the university that matters.
《中国青年报》近期的一项调查显示，48.6%的受访者认为大学学校能决定奋斗的起点。另一方面，33.8%的受访者觉得在大学里怎么学才更影响毕业出路。

For Fu Chenxi, an economics major at University of Alberta, Canada, a prestigious university does bring many unseen benefits. “Without access to academic training, lectures and experiences of different clubs in college, I wouldn’t have successfully got my first internship in a leading commercial bank,” he said.
对于加拿大阿尔伯塔大学的经济系学生傅宸熹而言，名校的确能带来许多隐性优势。“如果没有校内的学术训练、讲座以及不同社团的经历，我也不会成功获得在大型商业银行实习的机会，”他表示。

Yet the 21-year-old doesn’t think majors matter in one’s career path. In his opinion, various and versatile talents are much more in demand. Generally, ambitious graduates would enhance their core abilities through internships or academic activities to make them capable for a job or further study, no matter which major they choose.
但这位21岁的同学并不认为专业在职业道路上至关重要。在他看来，社会更需要多种多样的全能型人才。有志向的毕业生们通常都会通过实习以及学术活动增强他们的核心技能，从而有利于就业或者进一步深造，不论他们选择了什么专业。

However, Chen Yufei, 20, who studies Japanese at Tianjin University of Science and Technology, believes that choosing the right major has much more weight than choosing a good university.
但天津科技大学20岁的日语系学生陈雨菲却认为，选择正确的专业比选择一所好大学重要多了。

After getting lower scores than expected in gaokao, Chen missed the chance to study her desired major – Chinese. “Lacking interest in Japanese, I was miserable taking Japanese classes in the first year,” Chen said. She became interested in Japanese after learning the country’s culture through books and animated films.
陈雨菲在高考中并未取得理想分数，最终不能选择自己想去的中文专业。“我对日语没什么兴趣，第一年上日语课的时候觉得很痛苦，”陈雨菲说道。后来她通过书籍和动画电影了解了日本文化，这才对日语产生了兴趣。

“Different majors will lead to different career paths which ultimately lead to different incomes. Disparities in salaries are substantial”, Chen added.
“不同的专业会通向不同的职业道路，带来不同的收入。工资上的差距是实际存在的”，陈雨菲补充道。

She thinks that even students who major in Japanese at well-known universities will most likely not get as high of a salary as students who major in computer science or business.
她认为，哪怕是名校的日语系学生，也不大可能拿到和计算机科学或者商科学生一样高的薪水。

Both the university and one’s major are important, but they don’t necessarily determine your life, according to Chu Zhaohui, a researcher of the National Institute of Education Sciences. It’s what one has learned and cultivated that’s most important. “For undergraduates, personal development is closely related to their overall performance in the university,” Chu told China Youth Daily.
中国教育科学研究院研究员储朝晖认为，学校与专业都很重要，但都无法决定人的一生。最重要的是所学所悟。“对于本科生而言，个人发展与校内的总体表现密切相关，”储朝晖在接受《中国青年报》采访时如此表示。

以上文章内容选自《21世纪学生英文报高中版》，详情请见《21世纪学生英文报高中版》高三721期