I accidentally walked into Pearson 104 the other day while looking for a noontime lecture. I immediately turned around and left that Chem 51 lecture, thinking as I did, "Damn, there are a hell of a lot of premeds on this campus."
Chem 51, if you have had the pleasure of not having taken it during your time on campus, is the lecture component of the first semester organic chemistry course. It is required for chemical engineers, chemists, biochemists and of course, students intending to go to medical, dental or veterinary school.
When I took the course two years ago, it seemed basically impossible for the first two months. But slowly and surely it got easier as things just started to come together. The material also just became more interesting; alkyl-magnesium halides, aryl compounds and the basic biochemical building blocks are not necessarily the easiest thing in the world to wrap one's head around, but to someone who has already voluntarily been taking the course for three months, it seems like it's something that folks should at least be able to feign interest in.
I understand that not every course at Tufts is necessarily the most fascinating thing in the world. Besides physics at schools that don't give their students the option of taking a non-calculus-based sequence, there is perhaps no class so universally feared by premedical students as organic chemistry. But I figured once we got further into the course, the whole "love of science" thing that most premeds claim to have driven them towards pursuing medicine would reassert itself and people would find their love for the subject.
Had that been the case for everyone, I wouldn't be writing about this now. Organic chemistry was just something to get through; another obstacle placed in their way by the writers of the MCAT and medical school admissions committees solely to prevent them from becoming physicians. And this went on all year.
It was something I really couldn't understand. I complain about courses all the time to my friends, but I also know that every course that I take at college is almost three percent of the total number of courses you take. And if there is anything that I am learning in my final semester here, it is that college passes by way too quickly. As such, there should be no reason for you to ever take a course that you dislike.
Let me amend that statement quickly. I get that there might be required courses for your major or future plans that aren't your favorite ever. But presumably there is at least that kid in the course who finds it to be the most fascinating thing of all time. Or there's your professor, who for some reason chose to spend a whole career on it. Figure out why. There has been something that I gained from in each of the courses I have taken at Tufts. Much of which I understand only retrospectively. But it's much nicer if you can figure it out while you're still taking the courses.
If you really have to take them for whatever you think you want to do in life, then take the opportunity to evaluate whether that is something you actually want to be doing in the future, and whether that course or major is truly necessary to achieve your goals. If you can find the ability to truly enjoy the classes you are taking now, regardless of your natural instinct towards the material, I'm sure that even they will become memories you will fondly look back upon after your four years on the Hill end all too quickly.
Bhushan Deshpande is a senior majoring in quantitative economics. He can be reached at Bhushan.Deshpande@tufts.edu.
