TOEFEL ESSAYS ( Universities should give the same amount of money to their students’ sports activities as they give to their university libraries.)

Universities should give the same amount of money to their students’

sports activities as they give to their university libraries.

 
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Some people claim that universities should give the same sum of money to their students' sports activities as to their university libraries. They point out that universities should attract more students to exercise, because a healthy body can make a student bear the heavy studies. On the other hand, most people, like me, strongly disagree with it. In the following paragraphs, I will explain some main reasons.

In the first place, an obvious advantage to spend more money on libraries is that enormous libraries can help us save a huge amount of money, paper resource and the time to seek study materials from a far bookstore. As we all known, the prices of books are more expensive than before, while we have to read more books to catch up with the high-tech era. Moreover, now many students are still too poor to go to school, therefore libraries become the cheapest places to provide useful knowledge for them. Just imagine these poor persons can enjoy a varieties of books in a comfortable environment with enough light and a quiet study atmosphere. How happy they are!

Secondly, another reason why I disagree is that the chief goal of university education is to teach students working skills. Obviously, libraries provide more useful information to students than sports activities do. For example, more and more libraries are also equipped with computers which can encourage students to surf the Net to widen their horizons. Without the Internet, there will be less chances to make friend with the foreigners and catch the latest worldwide information. On the contrary, sports activities are just limited in a small area and a few of friends in some degree.

However, I don not deny that sports activities can provide chances to develop some good characteristics, such as cooperation. But frankly speaking, it is a bit wasteful to spend too much money on sports activities, when we can attain enough free exercises, such as running, which gain the same advantages as well. Furthermore, students are easily obsessed by the activities and overlook their studies. For instant, I once used so much study time to play basketball that I failed to go up to the next grade. Although I earned some awards of basketball matches at that time, I feel very regret. In fact, numerous students have the similar stories because of the attraction of the sports activities.

In conclusion, I firmly disagree with the idea that universities should give the same sum of money to their students' sports activities as they give to their university libraries. Nevertheless we are sure that both universities libraries and proper sports activities are valuable. Anyway, to avoid students playing overtime and ignoring their homework should be concerned. Is it wise to spend more money on universities libraries?

I disagree with the statement that universities should offer the same amount of funding for sports activities as they provide for studies. The word 'studies' means a wide range of activities that a student should follow in order to be graduated at a university or a college (in this case). Studies include reading for new knowledge, conducting experiments with invaluable equipments in high-tech labs, finding literature, writing research reports, etc.

In contrast, sports are not a must for students who study another specific subject stream. Therefore, it should not require that much of dedicating work and money because it is actually based on physical training that can be achieved during the spare time of such a student. It is obvious that the sports activities are essential for well-balanced healthier life not only for students, but also for each and every human. However, if we balance the cost and benefit of regular studies and sports, studies always rank first because of its high cost as well as the higher benefits than achieving through sports.

Undoubtedly, studies require large amounts of money to support a student. For an example if we take a student who study biotechnology. She/he should conduct her research in air-conditioned labs with fine equipments. The chemicals used to run a gel, such as polyacrylamide gel are very expensive. She/He will have to use these expensive chemicals many times. Moreover, the uses of energy for high-tech equipments are very high. Let's assume that the university scholarship bear all these expenses. But the point is that if the university gives the same amount to practice basketball for that student, it is a waste of money because the student's major concern is his/her studies than practicing basketball. The important conclusion is that this student does not need to study basketball in depth because she/he is not reading for a sports technology degree. If one student needs to follow such a degree it doesn't matter to fund him/her in big amount for sports. Therefore my opinion is that university should have flexible criteria to provide only the adequate amount of money for a specific program without assigning the same amount for both most and least important programs.

In the world there are many poor students who have excellent abilities in different fields of studies. Universities can absorb those intelligent students if they have good plans of funding that are mainly focused on studies while assigning only an adequate/less amount for sports. Administrative officers should be aware of all these factors when they spend money on students' support.

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