Former Premeds Move Towards Other Career Paths

When Min S. Lee ’13 arrived at Harvard, he planned to carry on a treasured family legacy by becoming a doctor. Many of Lee’s aunts and uncles, as well as his older brother, had already become physicians, and Lee was ready to follow the path from college to medical school—until he spent a summer implementing a water chlorination project in the Dominican Republic.

Lee has since decided to shift his focus from the premed track to a career in international development.

Like Lee, Marissa A. Glynias ’12 had planned to become a doctor before she came to campus.

After shadowing a doctor during her sophomore year of high school, Glynias developed an interest in vascular surgery, which led her to enroll in an introductory biology course through the Harvard Summer School Secondary School Program.

Glynias, now a joint Anthropology and Music concentrator, decided not to pursue medicine. She spent her past summer working at an archaeological dig in Georgia, and she is currently considering graduate programs in archaeology.

Lee and Glynias are two of many students who have chosen to drop the premed track after exploring other options at Harvard—not necessarily because they do not like medicine, but because they have found another discipline that they prefer.

“Some students come here and are motivated to pursue medicine because they haven’t really thought about lots of other options,” says Lee Ann Michelson ’77, director of premedical and health career advising at the Office of Career Services. “They get to Harvard and they start seeing lots of other paths.”

Michelson says that while approximately 20 percent of students informally declare an interest in pursuing the premed track when they first arrive on campus, only seven percent eventually apply to medical school as seniors.

Most former premeds say that their interest in medicine declined when they discovered more exciting opportunities that were better suited to their skill sets.

“This is the wonderful thing about college—as soon as you enter, you’re exposed to a variety of things, things you never knew existed,” says Xiang “John” Du ’12, a former Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology concentrator who is now an Economics concentrator considering a career in finance.

WHY PREMED?

It is not unusual for premeds at Harvard to get eye-rolls and knowing sighs when they announce their pre-professional plans, and students and administrators say they are not surprised at the large number of students who initially express an interest in medicine.

“I think the reason why most people want to be premed, speaking just from my experience, is that’s the thing they’re most familiar with,” Du says.

“You grow up going to doctors. You grow up watching TV shows about medicine, like House and Grey’s Anatomy—that’s the thing you’re most exposed to,” he says.

For Organismic and Evolutionary Biology concentrator Jeremy L. Hsu ’11, an interest in medicine arose largely from an early passion for the natural sciences.

“I’ve always been attracted to science, and felt that medicine was an ideal path in that it could combine my scientific aspirations while allowing me the opportunity to help other people,” he writes in an e-mail.

Hsu decided to shadow a physician during his sophomore year, an experience that did not “click.”

Hsu, who had previously attended two major science conferences and had found himself intrigued by a life in research, ultimately decided to pursue graduate school in biology rather than medical school.

“Those conferences really showed me the breadth of the field and inspired me to join that world of research,” he writes.

According to Hsu, the heavy class load he has undertaken as a premed—which includes courses in biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics—complemented his OEB coursework and broadened his education.

Students and administrators also say that the structure of the premed track makes it initially appealing to many.

“If I say I’m premed, I know what courses I can take and what I can do,” says Oona B. Ceder ’90, assistant director of premedical and health career advising at OCS.

Ceder adds that the stability attached to the medical profession generates cultural and economic pressures—especially among first-generation college students—to become doctors.

“Students are interested in making a living and medicine has always carried a valid reputation as having a fairly sure employability and income attached to it,” says Ceder.

THE PREMED EXPERIENCE

Many students come to Harvard having excelled in the natural sciences and mathematics during high school, and assume they should become doctors because they are good at those subjects.

But some discover they have academic passions that lie elsewhere.

For Glynias, this realization came when she enrolled in the popular premed course Life Sciences 1a.

Glynias says that she did not find the course material compelling, which  prompted her to explore other fields of study. Her freshman spring, she decided to enroll in an ancient art history course, a choice which significantly impacted her decision to stop pursuing the premed track.

“The subject matter was interesting and science was not going to be worth it, so I stopped taking premed classes after that,” Glynias says.

As a sophomore, Glynias decided to register as Harvard’s only joint concentrator in music and anthropology—a rare mix combining her interest in music with her passion for archaeology.

Glynias attributes her positive experience in her joint concentration to the small class sizes in her fields of study.

“One of the hardest things about Life Sci was that there were 600 people,” says Glynias, adding that her biggest music class to date has had an enrollment of a mere 35 students.

Du agrees with this sentiment, adding that small classes tend to appeal more to students.

“Ec10 [is] a very large class, [but] the thing that made Ec10 so rewarding was that it is almost entirely taught in section, whereas premed courses are taught in lecture,” says Du.

Several premeds also note that the premed atmosphere at Harvard can at times be “suffocating.” Students have frequent problem sets and typically work late nights and spend hours in lab.

Although students like Du, Glynias, and Hsu say they switched out of premed after discovering their interest in another academic discipline, Michelson and Ceder say that there are many students who choose to leave the premed track because they receive a bad grade on their transcripts.

“Some students come here and ... they might get the first C of their lives, and it’s a shock,” says Michelson. “I think there’s some misinformation that they’ve heard that they’ll never get into med school, and that’s actually not true at all.”

“Medical schools really don’t just look at your science and overall GPA,” says Ceder, adding that factors like personal experiences, extracurricular interests, and diversity also play an important role in the admissions process.

MINING THE OPPORTUNITIES

Many students attribute their desire to explore fields outside of medicine to the wealth of opportunities that the College provides.

“I think it’s nice for people to explore around,” says David Wang ’12, current president of the Harvard Premedical Society. “At Harvard there’s a great premed track, but I don’t think it’s for everyone.”

Du says that realizing that he enjoyed the immediate applications of economics meant that a career in finance would be more suitable.

“I can literally take what I learn in class and immediately apply it to what is happening in the world,” Du says.

Glynias, who plans to spend her summer on a joint thesis project, says that she plans to keep her career options open.

“It’s completely worth it,” Glynias says, adding that her main requirement for a future career is that it be “fulfilling.”

For Lee, the task of exploring new options takes place both in the classroom and the real world. He says that enrolling in courses relevant to his interests—including health policy, statistics, and Spanish—has been a satisfying complement to his summer experience.

“My long-term goal right now is ... to work for an NGO or an international global health agency like UNAIDS or WHO,” says Lee. “My ideal job would be to play a direct role in helping design a healthcare system in a developing country.”

Du emphasizes that at Harvard, the wealth of resources and opportunities actually makes switching out of premed a viable option.

“I think if I had gone somewhere else, I wouldn’t have been able to learn about the things that I’m more passionate about now,” he says.

—Staff writer Amy Guan can be reached at guan@fas.harvard.edu.         —Staff writer Radhika Jain can be reached at radhikajain@college.harvard.edu.