There's nothing quite like meeting University graduates in your own hometown. For some, this may be routine and normal, but for me, an impromptu run-in with a former Hoo is a welcome and unexpected rarity.
My regular dentist happens to be an enthusiastic University alumnus. Even before I knew what the Common Application was, he extolled the virtues of the University in-between teeth cleanings and fillings. I don't particularly like dental work - there's something fundamentally unnatural about having odd metal instruments trawl around on my tooth enamel - but that dislike is mitigated by the opportunity to talk about U.Va. Every winter, the Christmas tree at the dentist's office is adorned with red and green globes and a Cavalier snowman ornament complete with blue and orange ceramic scarf.
I made another trip to the dentist's the last day of Fall Break. My usual dentist was out of town, and another dentist had taken his appointments for the day. After he asked the usual questions - where did I go to school and what year was I in? - I discovered that he, too, was a U.Va. graduate.
He asked me what I studied, and when I mentioned that I was on the pre-medical track, he asked if I was feeling as much pressure as he did during his college years. As we talked about the rigors of organic chemistry labs and the tangible tension that seemed to emanate from many pre-med students, I realized that the pressure-cooker approach to the pre-med curriculum is hardly a new system.\nIt's a field of study with a stigma, parts of which are real. The academics are challenging, as they should be if they are expected to whittle down the first-year lecture halls brimming with would-be doctors.
Sometimes, though, it seems as if the professors - even the courses themselves - deliberately try to intimidate us. A friend told me her professor informed her general chemistry lecture on the first day of the semester that all or most pre-meds would end up failing! This statement is obviously hyperbolic, but it echoes much of the intent of the course load: to filter through and find those who can withstand the rigor of the sciences and ultimately of medicine.
A mechanism in organic chemistry may not fully equate to a problem diagnosis in medicine, but the analytical mind-set required to solve both is very much the same. The important thing, I think, is not to be scared by time-pressured labs and endless problem sets.
Perhaps the most pervasive pre-med stigma, though, is the one attached to the students themselves. Ask anyone, and chances are you'll find he shares the general notion that pre-meds are too-driven, compulsive, super-intense type-A overachievers who care about two things: their r
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