As a freshman, I was subjected to endless icebreaker games and introductions with each new class, club meeting, etc., as all freshmen are, but I always felt a bit lost on how to define myself academically. Meeting with advisors and introducing myself to professors, I was always overly aware of the raised eyebrows and slight pauses when I mentioned that I was a pre-med student with a humanities major.

Because it is relatively uncommon, there are fewer resources available for pre-med students that aren’t in the College of Natural Sciences with their major. Every course selection period, I contacted professors, advisors, and deans about getting into certain required pre-med classes because they were only open to science majors. It was difficult not to be discouraged, not because of a lack of belief in myself but because it seemed like the path that I had taken was the incorrect one or the least convenient one.

However, I’m really excited to see the University offering courses and concentrations that involve and combine various academic areas. The Spanish and Nursing departments have been in cooperation to offer the Spanish & Health certificate for a little while now, and the College of Humanities & Fine Arts recently created a Medical Humanities certificate. Both of these are really great steps in highlighting the importance of recognizing that anyone going into a medical profession still needs an education in the social sciences and humanities. This semester, I took Medical Ethics in the Philosophy department (PHIL 164), which has admittedly been one of my most interesting classes so far. I look forward to taking more classes that fall under this umbrella, including Narrative Medicine: How Writing Can Heal (ENGLISH 391NM), Spanish for Medical Professions (SPAN 356), Spanish Translation in Community Health Services (SPAN 456), and Feminist Health Politics (WGSS 205). 

With the increasing focus on bringing out the issues with internal racism in workplaces, learning about social relationships and humanities has become something in which my interest has only increased. Working in the field of medicine is something that is infamous for taking years of schooling and work, but it is often focused on research and scientific aspects. Lately, medical schools have begun to take into account the importance of patient experience and exposure, which is a step in the right direction, but people are beginning to realize the importance of taking active initiative to fight systemic racism and discrimination. This is something that can and should be started as early as possible, and I appreciate that UMass is joining in by offering some courses and certificates that are relevant.

All of that being said, I know that not all students have the freedom to take classes across the various colleges and departments of the University. I really urge and encourage everyone, however, to take classes that interest them in other departments; not only is it rewarding to be learning about new things from a new perspective, but being exposed to a different portion of the overwhelmingly large UMass population is something that I think provides crucial complexity to any student’s experience. I consider myself extremely lucky to be able to have an interdisciplinary education, and I hope to see an increase of students mixing different disciplines to gain a more complex worldview.