Biochemistry

A hybrid department with only one course offered in the field, the study of bio-chemical sciences bolds out for prospective concentrators a good chance to gain an all around schooling in the biological and physical science without the necessity of delving too deeply into any one specific area.

The tutorial picture in the department is fairly bright, compared with the desperate overcrowding in many of the other departments. Nine part-time tutors are available to the 223 concentrators, but, since full tutorial is offered only to third and fourth year honors candidates and a few deserving sophomores, each tutor actually devotes most of his tutorial to four or five honor students.

Although concentration in bio-chem calls for courses in chemistry, biology, and physics, with some mathematics a very handy adjunct, the field is not just a pleasant four-year exposure to a liberal education in the sciences. The vast majority of men in the department, most of them pre-medical students, are playing for keeps, since medical schools are notoriously grade-conscious.

Program Caters to Pre-Meds

The departmental staff repeatedly stresses the idea that it is not set up merely to cater to the needs of embryodoctors, yet the concentration program is too varied to provide more than a bare subsistence-level development of biochemical studies.

The big three of the department's tutorial staff are Chairman John T. Edsall, professor of Biological Chemistry and nationally known authority on proteins; Dr. Ronald M. Ferry, Master of Winthrop House, and F. H. Laskey Taylor, who has done extensive work on chemical isotopes and blood phenomena.

The remainder of the staff is made up of practicing doctors, most of whom are connected in some way with the Medical School in Boston. The relative inaccessibility of some of the tutors at times other then their regular office hours is offset by the opportunities which the serious student is offered to observe, discuss and possibly assist in the research being carried on by his tutor.

The formal requirements for the degree allow a great amount of latitude, probably as much as any other field of the sciences. The three chemistry courses required may be chosen almost at random, with the important exception that Chemistry 6, a stiff but generally well-liked introduction to physical chemistry, is required of all honors candidates.

General Exam for Seniors

A full general examination on the phenomena and facts of life, comprehensive and fairly thorough, is given all concentrators in the senior year, and a thesis is one of the requirements for honors, although special dispensations have been made during the war years.

For the pre-med, the department of bio-chemical sciences offers a convenient means of satisfying both requirements for a degree and the basic requisites for admission to medical school at one stroke, but the man who is uncertain about a medical career runs the danger of finding himself as a senior able to carry on an enlightened conversation in most of the branches of the physical and biological sciences without possessing enough specialized training to put his knowledge to work without further preparation.