The pre-medical track should no longer be just a track. It should be a major. I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say the classic line from admissions officers. Dartmouth is not a pre-professional school. While I agree, at some point that abstract idea cannot outweigh the very real costs of failing to accommodate pre-med students, particularly the sacrifice of flexibility and exploration of other interests.
The pre-med track requires more courses than most majors at Dartmouth, which consist of around 10 required classes. Though medical school requirements often vary from school to school, most schools require calculus, statistics, two terms of biology (or three, because Biology 11 is a pre-requisite to Biology 12 and 13 for the Class of 2016 and below), four terms of chemistry (two terms of general chemistry and two terms of organic chemistry) and two terms of physics. That’s already 11 courses, 10 for students of the Class of 2017 and beyond. The average pre-med class burden is nine to 13 classes. Additionally, the new version of the Medical College Admissions Test, which starts in 2015, is set to include questions about biochemistry, sociology and psychology. Dartmouth also suggests that pre-meds take an additional biology course that emphasizes physiology and anatomy. If a student were to add a course in each of those areas, he or she would end up taking a whopping 15 classes for the pre-med track.
Taking 15 classes for a track is excessive, even absurd, but particularly so for a non-science major on the pre-med track like myself. From these pre-med courses, I will graduate with a minor in biology without needing to take any additional classes to complete it. A minor is nice, but you still need a major to graduate. And can you blame me for not wanting to take five or so additional biology courses in order to complete that major? Sure, completing a biology major would give me added flexibility and allow me to take a wider variety of non-major classes each term, but I take enough science classes as it is.
Having pre-med as a path, not a major, essentially discourages pre-med students from exploring non-science fields. Between pre-med and my major, I have 25 required classes to take. Like many other students, I didn’t decide what I wanted to study until my sophomore year. When I decided to be pre-med and study religion during my sophomore fall, I found that 25 out of my remaining 27 courses were suddenly predetermined in some way. Luckily, I only had two additional distributive requirements to fulfill, so I will be able to fit every requirement I need to graduate into my 12 terms. Yet outside of these classes, I have literally zero flexibility as to what I can take.
Not only am I required to take up to 15 classes outside my major, but the classes that I must take are harder and more time consuming than most other courses at Dartmouth. You can dispute that all you want, but the fact that most non-science majors here at Dartmouth don’t take pre-med courses for their lab requirement speaks for itself.
For one second forget about how demanding this track is and how difficult these classes are. Forget that they are almost all lab classes with relatively low medians. I am not writing this article to complain about how much work I have -— I chose to follow this path, and I know that. I also know that life is not fair and that I have it pretty damn good. But part of being a Dartmouth student and getting a liberal arts education is being able to take super interesting classes in various departments. Yet my classes are now restricted to sciences, religion courses and my two distributive requirements. Studying abroad is not realistic. Am I at fault for not knowing what I wanted to study at the age of 18? Certainly not. In fact, I’m still not even sure that this is what I want. We only have one chance to take advantage of this education, and pre-meds like me too easily find themselves extremely limited. That’s not the way it should be. Not at this school. Pre-meds should not be excluded from receiving a true liberal arts education.
