A few days ago, after the opening ceremony of the freshmen in 2019 of the College of Geophysics and space information, I was invited to give a report on "I talk about university life" as the first lesson of their freshmen education. In the past two years, I have made important amendments and supplements to this report, focusing on "general education". It warns the students who are eager for knowledge that in their four-year college life, they must learn to make use of the "Humanities and Social Sciences" teaching resources of the University and the surrounding universities (we have the mechanism of seven universities of the Ministry of education to choose courses from each other), strengthen the "general knowledge learning", and pay attention to the "balanced development of generalists and professionals", so that you will become a useful talent who is "at ease" in the face of a pluralistic society.

In 2005, when Premier Wen Jiabao visited Mr. Qian Xuesen, he said with emotion: "the students who have been cultivated for so many years have no academic achievements comparable to those who were cultivated in the period of the Republic of China." Mr. Qian then asked, "why can't our school always produce outstanding talents?" This is what we often call "Qian Xuesen's question?". We always complain about why it is difficult to cultivate scientists like Tu youyou and Yuan Longping who are rooted in China. If we list the outstanding achievements in some domestic academic institutions and technology research and development units, we will find that most of these outstanding achievements in science and technology have gone abroad to study for postgraduates or engage in scientific research, such as the four alumni of the school of mathematics of Peking University who are proud of winning the world prize. Some of them have received systematic scientific research training in first-class universities and research institutions in Europe and the United States, paid attention to the diversity of knowledge, and received guidance from famous teachers.

This gives us a simple and straightforward question: what is the quality of undergraduate education that our students have experienced in domestic universities? I think there must be different opinions and opinions, and we can not simply use "good or bad" to evaluate. Some people praise the quality of our undergraduate education, especially the quality of professional education, while others think it's a mess. My understanding is that neither of the two extremes is practical, because the former may be based on professional education, while the latter may be based on general education. From different perspectives, the results are naturally quite different.

We can review the development history of universities in China since the founding of new China. At the first national higher education conference held on June 6, 1950, an expert from the Soviet Union, Alfred, brought his "Soviet model". He said: "the characteristic of higher education in the Soviet Union is to train engineers, doctors and agricultural experts for the country, rather than large and useless people like liberal arts students.". During the period of the Republic of China, there were only 18 industrial colleges and universities, and after the adjustment of the departments, there were 31 new ones, such as steel, geology and chemical engineering. The proportion of engineering students in universities increased from 17.8% in 1947 to 37% (from "Chinese university education, liberal arts students, it's too miserable", tide studio, June 4, 2019). Since the founding of new China, the state has made a large-scale adjustment to the pattern of university education in the period of the Republic of China. Higher education has transplanted the education mechanism of the former Soviet Union characterized by "specialized (industry) Universities" and established a large number of colleges characterized by specialized education. Among them, the first is the "eight capital colleges" located in Xueyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing, involving aviation, medicine, geology, iron and steel Oil, coal, forestry and agricultural machinery. At that time, I was proud to be a member of Beijing Institute of Geosciences. These industrial universities have trained a large number of practical talents for China's economic and social development, thus laying the foundation of China's industrial economy in the 1950s-1960s.

Since the reform and opening up, the globalization of economic development has greatly promoted the reform of higher education. The original University with industry education characteristics can not meet the needs of modern higher education for innovative talents training. Although we have changed the name of a large number of colleges with professional characteristics to "University", in fact, we have "changed the soup without changing the dressing". These universities are seriously short of "general education" which reflects the important characteristics of high-level universities, such as "humanities", "Social Sciences" and interdisciplinary knowledge education. We are short of teachers who can understand and teach the concept and connotation of general education. In recent years, although a large number of our turtles have returned home to enrich the teaching staff, most of these turtles have completed undergraduate education in China and engaged in doctoral education and postdoctoral research abroad. They are still not out of the category of "professional knowledge education". Some of them did not pay attention to enjoy the high-quality "general education" resources of famous universities. Therefore, it is difficult for turtle professors to shoulder the burden of "general education" in China's universities.

The lack of general education in China's universities is mainly manifested in the following aspects: 1. Teachers and students do not attach much importance to knowledge learning outside textbooks, especially in Humanities and social sciences. I have repeatedly warned graduate students of Peking University that if they do not pay attention to the rich resources of Humanities and Social Sciences in Peking University, for example, if they do not choose to listen to the academic reports of many humanities and social scientists at home and abroad, they will be wasted as graduate students of Peking University. A friend of mine once studied and communicated at the University of California Riverside. His tutor warned him: you should pay attention to listen to the academic reports of experts other than your subject. Although you can't understand some contents, you can learn English expression, learn their speech style, and expand your knowledge. 2. Lack of independent and questioning spirit, traditional education and related measures. We are used to the "golden mean", "harmony", "Hello, I'm good, everyone". Some students have become associate professors or even professors, but they still hope to get the protection of Niu's tutor and rely on a big tree to enjoy the cool. We dare not question the authority, even more dare not question the teacher, otherwise we will carry on the back "deceive the teacher to destroy the ancestor", arrogant name, without reason to set up obstacles to their own academic path. In fact, the debate on scientific issues in academic exchanges is the driving force to promote scientific progress. As Bruce Alberts, former editor in chief of science, said, "young scholars should dare to question! This kind of query is to ensure the correctness of science, and science has been popularized in the query. Questioning is not about individuals, but about science. ".

It is an important way for our university to invite experts and scholars from inside and outside the university to make diversified and colorful reports to improve "general education". However, although some reports are rich in content, the audience is few. In 2016, I saw a report entitled "reading is a kind of creation" in Zhuhai Campus of Sun Yat sen University, which was very attractive. Many of our students and teachers only focus on the academic reports closely related to their own majors, ignoring the humanities and social science reports that can improve their "personality quality". The social science and art majors in some industrial universities only focus on the cultivation of professional and technical talents, and do not give full play to the role of these disciplines in creating a humanistic and social science environment for the University, enriching college students' out of class knowledge and improving their comprehensive quality and personality. The president of Harvard University said: "college students get more knowledge out of class than in class." obviously, "general education" should be an important part of knowledge out of class. We should take the professional teaching plan as seriously as arranging students' knowledge teaching outside the classroom. Richard Levin, former president of Yale University, said: "if a student has some professional knowledge and skills after graduating from Yale University, it is the biggest failure of Yale education. The core of undergraduate education is general education, which is to cultivate students' ability of critical independent thinking and lay the foundation for lifelong learning. The university does not teach knowledge and skills, but can make people competent for any subject and occupation, freely play their personal potential, freely choose the direction of learning, and make contributions to the progress of society and mankind.

"I don't think Chinese students are willing to challenge professors," said Hamilton, President of Oxford University, in response to "the difference between Chinese and Western University Education". Only when students are willing to challenge academic authority and think creatively can they contribute to the knowledge of the world and enrich their personality. I think this is the biggest difference I think. How can I be like you? He made his famous answer: "alternative thinking". I think that "alternative thinking" means not following the rules and not blinding the former people. General education should be the basis of "alternative thinking", which goes beyond the scope of professional knowledge. General education cultivates people's life-long learning concept, humanistic quality and noble feelings, independent scientific thinking, rational critical spirit and humility through the basic courses of humanities, social sciences and natural sciences and related activities.

Mr. Guo Daohui, former Vice Minister of the Propaganda Department of Tsinghua University, said in his article "a brief discussion on Tsinghua's Centennial major policies and policies": "the old Tsinghua's consistent educational policy is" general education "(or general education) and" talent education ". Some old Tsinghua professors mostly hold this idea. Such masters as Mei Yiqi, ye Qisun, pan Guangdan, Feng Youlan, Liang Sicheng and Chen Daisun all emphasized this point. Professor Liang Sicheng put forward in an article: "science and engineering and humanities are interlinked knowledge, which can not be neglected. People who only know science and engineering but don't understand humanities, or who only know humanities but don't understand science and engineering, can only be regarded as "half a person.". Professors of Tsinghua University in the period of the Republic of China believed that if engineering students were only immersed in their narrow majors and had no humanistic quality, they could only be "senior craftsmen" at most. I think this may be the fundamental reason why Mr. Qian Xuesen praised the universities in the period of the Republic of China for cultivating many masters.