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Freshman should consider undertaking their military service at the end of the sophomore year, Dean Leighton advised yesterday.
Students not headed, for medicine or other scientific fields should think of interrupting their college careers, he suggested at a freshman concentration meeting. "It seems to me that anyone who hasn't found real interest in some academic field by the end of his sophomore year would do well to take military service at that time," he said.
He went on to explain that the ideas of students who are uncertain in college often crystallize in the service. "I have observed that many undergraduates defer important decisions until after their military service, and many of those who waited until they had degrees regretted on returning that they could not go back to college," he added.
He also said that he could see little advantage in delaying military service until a man had attained a Doctor of Philosophy or Doctor of Laws degree, or even until he had the Bachelor of Arts Degree.
Prospective scientists and doctors should be more reluctant to leave college because they have definite plans for college and will invariably fill skilled positions in the service. Men with degrees in other fields must often resign themselves to routine electrical work rather than be trained for special jobs which they would perform for only two years. Dean Leighton indicated that such men might take military service more profitably at a time when it could help them to order their plans for the future.
Leighton also urged the freshmen to consider fields of concentration not related to their intended occupation, attacking the future businessman who feels limited to an economics major. He admitted, however, that scientists required special training which limited their choice.
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