Come on guys, let's lighten up. I've experienced much more frightening sounds in Yale's libraries than a little song, and the "tool of a candidate" is really nice.
In any and every group you have people you may not want to associate with, but I've been really impressed with the people in the HST program--from friends to people I've met on the interview trail. However, I have been really surprised with how many of them turned down Md/PhD programs to go straight-HST. I met two who were turning down Cornell/Rock/SKI last weekend and know of two others (graduated in '01 and '02) who have turned down Duke and Baylor MSTPs. I thought it was crazy, but if you think you can get what you want out of a four year program, why take the extra 3-5 years. You can pay back the debt in that time? It's not my choice, but I can try to see why some might choose it. However, I cannot understand why someone would do the HST-PhD if they did not get full-funding. Paying for the four years+taking 7-9yrs for the education does not necessarily seem like the wisest option, but who knows! Cheers
