FRESHMAN INTO DOCTOR

The freshman who enters college with a view to a future medical career comes with many preconceived notions as to the arrangement and selection of his courses; these ideas, while they may be slightly warped, conform in general to what is popularly accepted, even among doctors and professors. These ideas will in all probability be confirmed by the Freshman's advisor, and later by his tutor: he will proceed with the usual round of laboratories and embalmed Batrachians; he will concentrate in a science, most often Bio-chemistry, and he will become a doctor at long lost. A certain minority of these nascent physicians, however, will realize too into that the advice they have received and the schedule which has entrapped them is all wrong for their personal needs, and that it need not have been as it was.

By what seems to be a sort of unwritten law among advisors, inquiring Freshmen are rarely if ever told that they may concentrate in History, English, or whatever other subject they desire and still enter Medical school as easily and as well prepared as the man who has left his den a Mallinckrodt only once or twice in four years. Nevertheless, it is quite possible so to plan a course that the minimum pre-Medical requirements may be got out of the way expeditiously, leaving sufficient time for the necessary courses in a non-scientific field. This scheme, if it is to be utilized at all, must be planned out from the very beginning, as it naturally demands a neat dovetailing of courses. For that reason, Freshmen whose interests are more than may be satisfied by pure science would do well to investigate the problem thoroughly before November Hours, and to have it settled by Mid-years.

The practicability of thus neglecting the sciences for the arts depends, of course, on individual circumstances, although it is possible in almost any case with sufficient effort applied. If the Medical school selected has many requirements, the problem increases in difficulty; if one wishes honors in his field, he may have insufficient time for his Chemistry. The rewards of judicious planning, however, are many; laboratories are the regular thing for four years of Medical School; when they are extended over eight, one loses the memory of the sun and and all the young budding things. Time will be short in later years for the perusal of the classics; college provides the time, the place, and the incentive. Freshmen, when they learn the topography of the college, will understand the meaning of the words: "Go South, young man."