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  • cultivate excellent individuals/professionals
  • develop excellent individuals
  • create excellent individuals
  • foster excellent individuals
  • churn out excellent individuals

I want to express a certain idea - of 'creating' (essentially) individuals of a certain quality or individuals of a certain class (e.g. 'professionals') (through a certain process, such as school), but I don't know what is a good word to use or what it is a good expression for it.

In particular, is 'cultivate' a suitable word to use? Or is it misleading or not really right in some way?

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    Generally professionals are "trained". Cultivate is really a weird word to apply in that situation. "Certified" would also imply that the professionals met some qualifications such as training, experience and passing a test. – MaxW Dec 21 '15 at 6:06
  • yes, 'trained' - I forget about this word, I think that this is more apt as you have suggested; still, I am not sure if I can just say 'train excellent individuals' so how about 'train individuals into excellence' or something... I think it could work but I wonder if there is a word that could be used in the same given construction, but I suppose maybe not – Max Dec 21 '15 at 7:17
  • Certified trained professional, highly trained professionals, well trained professionals, expertly trained professionals – MaxW Dec 21 '15 at 7:25
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Develop highly trained professionals.

These words all have slightly different shades of meaning so the correct answer depends on context.

From your examples (as an Australian English speaker):

Foster and cultivate imply that you are spending a period of time and care on developing an aspect that is already in the person (bringing forward what is inside of them).

Develop and Create imply that you are having input into the person and adding something that is not there already.

Churn out has negative connotations and you should not use it. It implies a rushed and chaotic experience with many other participants.

Excellent is appropriate though not specific. Do you mean highly trained? Sought after? Dedicated?

Professionals is possibly better than individuals (if you refer to one aspect of their personality eg professionalism rather than the whole person).

I can not be more specific without the exact context I hope this is helpful.

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  • yes i think 'develop' works well; in the Eastern thought i think that the language tends to be more 'general' than English... so 'excellent' is often used instead of the more-specific 'highly-trained', i think it has the side-effect(?) of encompassing a more broad idea with the use of more general language, and the difficulty comes when you try to (have to) narrow it down to a more specific meaning in English, so that it doesn't sound so awkward for being unusual in the way of expression – Max Dec 22 '15 at 23:13
  • Max if you prefer Develop excellent professionals is correct. – Maree Dec 23 '15 at 4:31

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