Tracking the Indigenous Premed

Editor's Note: This research was funded by a grant from the American Bar Association.

DURING the semester, Harvard premeds can be difficult to spot. They camp out in their labs, hunched over rows of test tubes. They haunt the Office of Career Services, poring over medical school catalogs and admissions statistics.

But come reading period, premeds shed their camouflage and swarm to Cabot Library like bands of lemmings, not to emerge again until intersession.

Taxonomists who dare enter Cabot will find four distinct species of premeds--studying, eating, drinking, (but certainly not mating) in the catacombs of the Science Center.

The Classic (Premedicus Backstabus)--This notorious species of premed, feared by all phyla of preprofessionals, violates all codified premed mores. They fiendishly slice out copies of past years' final exams from library bound volumes, using scalpels smuggled from their labs. They magnetize videotapes of past lectures. These future physicians have even been known to pour acid on classmates' notes when they go to the bathroom.

I got my first taste of the Classic this fall before the second hourly in Biology 2, "Biology for Premeds." I had signed up to watch a videotape of a biology lecture. When I arrived to claim my tape and viewing room, my name had been whited out and another name was written on top. A few swabs of my own heavy-duty white out solved that problem.

The culprit, obviously a novice cut-throat, later avenged his foiled plan by blasting the television in the next room so I could not hear my own tape.

Pity what happened to his notes.

The Gonzo (Premedicus Enthusiastus)--These premeds define their lives by how far they have advanced in the premed sequence. Their strategy is simple: They choose those courses they have taken, and aced, in high school. For those classes they haven't already mastered, they read the entire textbook the previous summer.

In either case, they review their notes every day before class. And after class. And after each meal.

Gonzo premeds worship The Curve and absolutely refuse to be beaten by the mean. When backed into a corner, they will unleash a dazzling array of brownnosing and gradegrubbing techniques to top the standard deviation. Watch and learn.

The Jolly (Premedicus Dweebus)--Members of this species, comprising a plurality of premeds, think reading period is the high point of the academic year. In reading period, they point out, they don't have to attend non-science classes. They can bask in their pre-med notes hour after hour like pigs in the slops.

The Jolly's notebooks glow in the dark, because every word on every page is highlighted in a different color. Each owns several dozen four-colored pens. To a Jolly, "social life" means "study groups."

Most Jollies are friendly and nice, but beware: Bad grades turn vulnerable Jollies into Classics.

The Nosy (Premedicus Proboscus)--These premeds love to check out the competition, even if it means spending hours matching names with I.D. numbers on the list of test grades.

Some Nosy premeds have been known to "accidentally" bump a teaching fellow passing back exams and then eagerly help collect them off the floor. Others do permanent damage to the corners of their eyes from sidling up to classmates to feign small talk. One even claimed to lose her contact lens in the teaching fellow's grade book, providing the perfect excuse to rifle through every page.

Although these premeds are workaholics, they complain constantly that they are unprepared. You know who you are.

CERTAIN characteristics cut across all species of premeds: a bizarre fondness for standardized tests, a tendency to dream about medical school acceptance letters and a reflexive distrust of one another. And, of course, none would waste any time during reading period reading The Crimson.

Tara A. Nayak '92 is not pplying to any medical schools that require peer recommendations.