Tufts vs. Northwestern pre-med?

Mastadon
Thu, 12 Apr 2012 00:13:16 +0000

Here is the information on The Tufts Summer Scholar Program. It pays $4500 for the summer and is quite flexible in that it can be used at: the Medford/Somerville campus, the Med school campus/hospital in Downtown Boston, a couple of local area hospitals, or abroad doing field research. Other departmental programs may also be available.

[Undergraduate Education at Tufts University](Homepage | AS&E Students)

[Undergraduate Education at Tufts University](Homepage | AS&E Students)

Note that both Tufts and Northwestern have downtown med school campuses. Tufts med school is about 6-7 miles from the undergrad campus while Northwestern’s is about 12-14 miles. I was not a pre-med, but I had an engineering summer internship downtown (a block from the med school) between my junior and senior years. I was able to continue it throughout my senior year (at reduced hours) by using public transportation to commute between the two campuses. Commuting between the campuses at Tufts is a pain, but certainly doable, even with a full engineering course load. I do not know if it can be done at Northwestern, but someone out there must know. I suspect that the Northwestern bus that goes downtown stops at the downtown campus, but I do not know how long it takes. Also make sure the frequency is sufficient to support convenient commuting and that Chicago traffic during commuting hours is manageable.

Note also that the Cambridge area is one of the hottest regions in the world for Biotech, so all the biotech companies can present opportunities for research, internships or an alternative career path if you decide you do not like pre-med.

Finally, at Tufts, because of the small size, there is little or no boundary between the engineering and liberal arts schools. Engineers will be taking science classes with you and you can take classes in the engineering school. One of the tricks to making Pre-med easier at Tufts is to form study groups with engineers – they tend to have a high science/math aptitude and are very collaborative, because they have less pressure for grades.