Recommended versus Required

It’s come to my attention that some otherwise highly-intelligent people are not aware that there is a difference between the two. The definitions of these two words along with some examples of their differences follow.

Recommended is defined as to advise or counsel.

Required is defined as needed; essential or obligatory.

It seems pretty obvious to me that there is a difference, but let me give you a couple of examples on how these are misused. Example number one involves textbooks. Professors give us a list of textbooks for our classes and most of the books on the list are required. When you get to class and the professor tells you that a $150 book is just for reference, you get more than a little pissed off. In my reality, a required text is one that the teacher is going to assign readings out of and maybe even homework.

Let me give you another example. The University requires that I work no more than 15 hours a week. The MBA program recommends that students not work during this very intense program. I work about 12 hours a week, so everything is fine right? Well the College is now frowning on my work ethic. I need to leave campus by 4pm on Thursday and Friday, but the program is trying to make a big deal of this. I’ve requested early morning classes for the next session, so we will see how they respond to that. Just wanted to vent a little and let people know that supposedly educated individuals have no clue what they are talking about.