GRE Issue Task 2

Statement
In any field of endeavor, an individual’s best critics are the individual’s own colleagues or other peers in that field.

In your view, how accurate is the foregoing statement? Develop and support your viewpoint with relevant reasons and examples and by considering ways in which the statement may or may not be true.

Essay
It is reasonable that someone have to develop and improve themselves in order to survive in his life, including in his occupation. To ascertain that he is progressing, an individual must have critics from others. Are not self-critics enough? Apparently, anyone has an inclination to see what they want to see only, missing many things essential to his evaluation. To lose this subjective manner is exactly why everyone need to be evaluated by other individuals. Now, the remaining question is whether critics from those engaged in the same field or critics from the rest of the humanity is the best.
I can see why someone goes straightly to his peers from the very same pool of professional when he needs some critics or encounters any problem, especially when he is dealing with a very specific field being understood only by particular parties—physics, computer programming, pharmacy, etc. Undoubtedly, a pharmacist can not ask a businessman if there is something wrong with the new formula of the sleeping pill he just made since this “simple” question requires an understanding which takes years of reading and experimenting.

In different cases, critics from common people are more enlightening than those from someone’s colleagues of the same field. For instance, a marketer can learn why his last campaign failed by consulting a number of individuals among his targeted market. It is better than spending his whole time with his colleagues, wondering about what people think about his methods that led to no avail. A politician, similarly, may generate evaluations from the citizens—his people—about his achievements. They will be far more objective from his peers who want to tackle him down or merely laud him for a better seat. Despite the fact that they have limited professional knowledge of marketing and politics, these “outsiders” are to who the marketer presents his products and for who the politician works.

From the given arguments above, it is clear that people of some fields depend on their peers to get critics. Nevertheless, listening to common individuals can be more useful to professionals of other fields. In the end, by contemplating these critics, an individual can improve himself and become a lot better in his endeavor.