JessicaSimpson said:
That's normal. The intro pre-med/science courses are almost always weed out classes. What is the point of weeding people out after they have completed a good part of their major?
The assumption that these pre-health core-class professors implement an intentional "weeding out" period can be fallacious in certain regards. People generally need to rid their minds of this mentality because the weeds are what bring in the tuition and are often the research instruments that give the Bio/Chem/Physics programs a competitive recruiting face. It's all economic (ie - maintaining a strong number of majors) from the point of view of departments and schools so there are in fact no truly weedable (or 'uprootable') weeds from the eyes of the "weedeater professors." Rather the emphasis for them is on weeds that need to be
trimmed down a spell 1) once the students network and feel like they belong and 2) can't turn back to another major without bringing fifth-year tuition to the university.
I have to agree with Polarnut because "level playing fields," however illusory, are forged in the first-year biology experience. Freshman students (at least in America) know nothing of organic chemistry except for what the first-year books teach them. I mean, c'mon, who wants to translate a foreign language given a lot of vocabulary and no knowledge of conjugations and declensions. (Diminishing returns?) That which is "hard" is not always "smart" - though 2nd semester Zoology is so canonical that it doesn't matter by the start of the Sophomore year. Heck, some students come into college from public high schools where the same biology teacher who is too cheap to do dissections simultaneously discourges them from taking AP Biology because that class is full and short a textbook or two. Can anyone think of any way to make these circumstances better for any student at any time? Would you give them a pillow to cry on if they gave it their all and couldn't hack better than a 3.0 overall because they were never really prepared in the first place? Didn't think so.
In all honesty the nature of the pre-health "weedtrimmer" beast is about saving face by touting comradery and equal opportunity among the freshman so they never rethink their selecting the "popular" major... it does NOT hinge on discrediting those weed-students who inevitably get trimmed to the B-C level more often than not though they may be serious students and outstanding standardized testtakers.
Sadly, there's no other way to rationalize success or failure in college other than "I majored in an area in which I had real interest and made the most of my college experience. I have no regrets about my choice."
There's a lot of clever quotes about pessimism (if you bother to do a websearch) that make it seem downright cool, prevalent, popular, natural, etc. Even the ancient playrights had a thing for "knowledge in suffering." This is nothing new to those who cling to seemingly grounded tradition, believe it or not.
Can you defy the convention of a mere attitude or outlook if you see another and possibly riskier (in the longterm) path? If it's your modus operandi to become a well-rounded dentist (period) then maybe polarnut has it right. Ask yourself - if you give into pessimism so early on in your late teens or early twenties then how can you ever manage a shred of (non-pecuniary) optimism running your own business and providing in-demand services in your late 20's?
You have the right to "nurture" your mind while you're young with academic resources you may never have the chance to utilize again. Of course the Biology and Chemistry advisors who flunk half of their classes may not want you to hear that because they're far more concerned with keeping the comitatus profitable.
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