IHTFP - Loving it or hating it, come discuss.

differential
Sat, 17 May 2008 21:10:30 +0000

The way advisors are dished out is that faculty are asked if they are comfortable advising students towards going to Medical School. At least for course 6, specifically some of the profs indicated that they are comfortable doing premed advising. Many profs would simply say: “I have no clue about doctor-ing, I have no clue about premed, my entire philosophy towards education is completely different from what a premed probably wants.”

There are a finite number of faculty at MIT. Not all of them advise (they don’t have to all the time, they have other responsibilities instead).

I’m not saying students don’t “deserve” advising for premed, but I am saying that don’t be shocked to find out that MIT might not have the same priorities as you do. MIT seems to make a good effort in getting everyone who indicated they want a pre-med advisor in their first two years a premed advisor. The person in the article complains that she should get priority over the sophomores. But she shouldn’t. It’s a queue. She had her chance, now they are getting theirs. Now she has to wait in line just like everyone else.

Also just like you said, every school has a limited budget, and has a set of things to allocate it’s resources towards.

“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?”

Perhaps it is part of the culture? Perhaps students don’t want to live in an environment where they subsist on low-hanging fruit? Maybe the students are all ■■■■■■-bag masochist hardcore-major-wankers that want to make life as hard as possible for themselves and others? Who knows?!?

“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.”

How many of the profs in many of these schools will spend as much time one-on-one with students on research projects and such? You have to admit, MIT’s UROP program is truly one of its gems.

Perhaps my arguments so far are all non-sensical (I feel they are myself!). So instead I’ll just say what my advisor said on my first day of MIT: “We like to let people who know what they are doing just take off and blow us away. Everyone else better learn to sit tight and get through the ride.”