Needs of Universities

Today, the first need among universities everywhere (though it has been less talked about and perhaps less thought about in America than in Europe), is learning power, which is native ability plus the will to learn. An able person, intellectually inquiring, reflective and industrious – with learning power can make himself educated, cultivated, and wise in this era of free public libraries, museums, and archives. A great teacher can speed the process. But if learning power is not there, the greatest teaching is only of partial value. A student cannot be lifted beyond the limits of his/ her ability.

A great teacher may, and often does, inspire an individual student who has lacked the will or full opportunity to learn, and so sets his student on the road to education. But if large numbers of students arrive at the university without a solid academic foundation on which to build, the quality of university education must suffer.

4. Answer the questions:

1) What made you choose University rather than another higher educational institution?

2) What subjects are included in the first-year curriculum at the Faculty of Philology and Journalism?

3) What subject is the most interesting; the least interesting; the one you think the most important; the one you find the most difficult?

4) Was it easy for you to get accustomed to the University system of lectures and seminars after the school system of classes and home tasks?

5) Which are more useful in your opinion – lectures or seminars?

6) Do you have to work much after your lectures and seminars are over?

5. Read the text and translate it into Russian.