The Harvard Salient	October 21, 1996
Cover Story

heard recently from a first-year that a large percentage of the Class of 2000 had declared itself pre-med. While this number will surely decline rapidly, it is still indicative of the extreme prevalence on campus of pre-professionalism, i.e. the tendency to plan one's academic life around one's future employment, rather than the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.

The latter goal is one component of the traditional liberal arts education &emdash; the idea that one should acquire a certain body of basic knowledge and, more importantly, a methodology of critically approaching problems and knowledge more broadly. Specific disciplines and skills are less relevant. This is the idea that college is somewhere to "find" oneself. Despite Harvard's claim to be a "liberal arts college," this ideal is increasingly being forced into the background by the prevalence of pre-professionalist thought, which is evident in many areas. One is concentration choice. Many people choose a concentration not out of any particular love for the subject matter, but because of the advantages it will supposedly bring them in the future: greater employability, better chances of admission to medical school, and so on. They become mercenaries to specific pieces of knowledge which will supposedly aid their futures.

But, one might ask, is the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake actually worthwhile? Leaving aside the deeper philosophical reasons, most people, at least those at Harvard, actually derive satisfaction from the pursuit of knowledge. The most praised Core courses, besides the flaming guts, are those which actually require thought &emdash; those which have certain intellectual character. The material is not just a means to an end (other than fulfilling a Core requirement), but something satisfying in and of itself. The same is true of most of the other courses I, as one enrolled in an unabashedly liberal-arts concentration (Social Studies), have taken; some are good, some bad, some I like, others I deplore, but they are, in general, intellectually stimulating.

The pre-professional mentality subjugates such excitement to future goals. I have heard relentlessly pre-professional seniors utter shocking statements such as "I'm done with [economics, biology, etc.]!" or "I've never taken an [economics, biology, etc.] course that I really liked &emdash; they're all just things I need to know." Need to know for what? To convince a corporate recruiter or admissions officer that one is truly serious about the field? Then what purpose do interviews and applications serve?

Besides being intellectually unstimulating, extreme pre-professionalism leads to excessive academic competition and mediocrity. Students &emdash; even those who claim to reject pre-professionalism &emdash; end up in a competition for grades and extracurricular leadership positions in order to assemble the best credentials. Thus student organizations give out more and more titles, so as not to be exclusive in the awarding of honors. Similarly, we avoid courses described as "hard" out of fear that we will get a low grade. This ultimately means that we all learn less; again, rather than studying what we like, we study what is useful and easy in the hope of assembling the perfect résumé for that future profession. Rather than pursuing what is challenging or interesting, even within a pre-professional program, we take what is easy or what will look good. Courses which teach material that one has already learned elsewhere, or which require only repetition and memorization instead of independent thought, are actively sought out. These courses are symptomatic of mediocrity, as students seek to be under-challenged.

Overall, pre-professionalism is leading America's youth to be intellectual underachievers. They are not challenging themselves, either in breadth or depth of knowledge. This has two principal effects. One is the already mentioned lack of intellectual satisfaction &emdash; the belief that education carries only a utilitarian value, that if it will not bring one some clearly discernible benefit, there is no point in pursuing it. The second is the risk aversion inherent in the process of academic conservatism. One is directed away from potentially fruitful academic ventures by the tendency to remain with what is familiar and comfortable, and therefore safe. If such behavior persists after one's formal education is complete &emdash; and I see no evidence to the contrary &emdash; this could mean an increasing satisfaction with the status quo.

re-professionalism leads one not to strike out independently or to search for some new meaning, but rather to accept previously tried paths, regardless of whether these are best, for an individual or for society as a whole. The liberal arts college loses the character of a laboratory for intellectual experimentation, and instead becomes a four-year foundry for specific pieces of societal machinery. One emerges not as a malleable component, but as one who can only fulfill one role. The greatest error of pre-professionalism is the pervasive belief that college is only a route to some future career. It is not; it is an education in and of itself, and one which is weakened by excessive concern with one's personal future.

Table of Contents