It would be interesting to discover how many young people go to university without any clear idea of

what they are going to do afterwards. (1)If one considers the enormous variety of courses offered, it is not hard to see how difficult it is for a student to select the course most suited to his interests and abilities.(2)If a student goes to university to acquire a broader perspective of life, to enlarge his ideas and to learn to think for himself, he will undoubtedly benefit.(3)Schools often have too restricting an atmosphere, with its timetables and disciplines, to allow him much time for independent assessment of the work he is asked to do.(4)Most students would, I believe, profit by a year or so's exploration of different academic studies, especially those "all-rounders" with no particular interest.They should have longer time to decide in what subject they want to take their degrees, so that in later life, they do not look back and say, "I should like to have been an archaeologist. If I hadn't taken a degree in Modem languages, I shouldn't have been up as an interpreter, but it's too late now. I couldn't go back and begin all over again."

(5)There is, of course, another side to the question of how to make the best use of one's time at university.(6)This is the case of the student who excels in a particular branch of learning.(7)He is immediately accepted by the university of his choice, and spends his three or four years becoming a specialist, emerging with a first-class Honour Degree and very little knowledge of what the rest of the world is all about.(8)It therefore becomes more and more important that, if students are not to waste their opportunities, there will have to be much more detailed information about courses and more advice.Only in this way can we be sure that we are not to have, on the one hand, a band of specialists ignorant of anything outside of their own subject, and on the other hand, an ever increasing number of graduates qualified in subject for which there is little or no demand in the working world.