IHTFP - Loving it or hating it, come discuss.

sakky
Sat, 17 May 2008 20:21:28 +0000

Since when has MIT turned into a daycare? What are you expecting, a silver platter with gourmet options handed down to you in every direction?



Well, yeah, why not? What’s wrong with that? After all, students at other (top-ranked) schools are getting that. Why shouldn’t MIT students get it too?



Finally, if you are really worried about $46,000 a year (which the vast majority of MIT does not actually pay in full), calculate the consulting fee’s for one-on-one time with professors, and then figure out how much time you need to spend with the professors to get $46,000 out of it? Remember to factor in that many of these profs are at the top of their field.



I don’t find this to be a relevant point. After all, other top-ranked schools have professors at the top of their field too. Yet those schools don’t ration out premed advising.



[quote]

There are many other schools out there which cater specifically to premed students, and life will likely be less stressful there. But if you come to an engineering/science oriented institute of technology, decide in your third year that you want to become a premed student, and suddenly realize the institute does not revolve around, nobody is going to pity your *****ing.

I have plenty of premed friends, and many of them have told me that the only extra thing to worry about being a premed is making careful rational choices. You can’t expect to make a series of idiotic choices and then have everyone undo them for you just because you pay $46,000 a year.



And right there, I think you just highlighted the problem. I don’t think the guy in the article is asking for much. He’s just asking for MIT to have more premed advising. Honestly, how much does that really cost? Are advisors really so expensive that MIT can’t afford them? Really?

Honestly, I don’t know which is worse, the fact that some students can’t get advising, or that it is the attitude among at least some that those students shouldn’t get that advising. Seriously, what’s up with that?



Personally I feel that if you want to be a premed student, you should carefully consider whether you want to come to MIT.



Yep, and I think that’s (unfortunately) the take-home message here. Let’s face it. MIT students are some of the best students in the world, meaning that they’re good enough to get into other top-ranked schools. Hence, if med school is what you want, then why go to a school where you not only may not get advising, but where the attitude of some of the people is that you don’t even deserve to get advising, when instead of putting up with that, you can just simply go to another school?

Look, don’t get me wrong. I like MIT. I think it does many great things. But unfortunately premed placement isn’t one of them, with the limits on advising resources being one component. MIT can simply acknowledge that this is a problem, as after all, all schools have problems with resource allocation. But to argue that that lack of advising resources is not even a problem at all - and indeed to argue that students don’t even deserve advising resources - well, that’s an entirely different matter altogether.