Students Aspire to Careers In Business, Computer Science

Not everyone wants to be a doctor anymore.

While it seems as if the majority of first-years have medical school aspirations, recent data of graduating seniors shows quite the opposite to be true.

If trends in concentrations are any indication, students are more attracted to careers in information technology and business than those in medicine.

In 1990, Money magazine came out with an issue denoting the "hottest careers of the 1990s." This list featured careers that promised to be "financially rewarding, challenging and prestigious."

Out of the 15 winning jobs, master degrees in business were deemed necessary or helpful in achieving four of these careers, a computer science bachelor's degree for two, a law degree for two and a medical degree for only one.

The six other "winning" careers were in miscellaneous fields not requiring a professional or a "pre-professional" degree.

Concentration numbers seem to suggest that Harvard students are some students are eschewing medical careers for even more lucrative computer science and business ones.

From November 1993 to November 1997, the biochemical sciences department lost an average of nine students per year. From November 1992 to November 1996, the biology department lost 28 students per year, and the chemistry department decreased by four students each year.

During the same time period, the economics department gained 28 students per year, and the computer science department gained 17.

At the same time, the number of graduating seniors in the class of 1997 who applied to medical school decreased by 18 percent from the previous year. This was the first year that medical schools applications from Harvard and Radcliffe had decreased since 1989, according to data released by the Office of Career Services (OCS).

Nationally, the number of medical school applicants decreased as well, dropping 8.4 percent, the first decrease since 1988.

But Lee Ann Michelson, assistant director of OCS and the health careers adviser, said that a decrease in science concentrators does not necessarily mean that there is a decrease in those who apply to medical school.

Out of the 262 Harvard students who applied to medical school in 1996, 73 were non-science concentrators, and 81 percent of those 73 were accepted. Data for 1997 shows that out of the 214 Harvard students who applied to medical school, 57 were non-science concentrators and 88 percent of those 57 were accepted.

"I think that people aren't choosing their concentration based on whether they're applying to medical school anymore," Michelson said.

But according to an assessment done by the Congressional Office of Technology, the hot career trends for the coming millennium still remain geared toward business and computer science.

The assessment predicts that more than 100,000 new jobs for computer professionals will have been created by the year 2000.