What are some good/bad highlights of a university that’s known for being “pre-professional” or “career-oriented”? (ie Northwestern, U Penn, etc from what I’ve heard. correct me if I’m wrong and add to the list)
Also just general experiences at a university or college like this? And what kind of students would and would not like this environment?
Thanks!
what can calling these colleges “pre-professional” or “career-oriented” possibly mean?
And what are examples of similarly sized schools that you feel are not in this category?
I understand the contrasting aspects here to have been proposed as pre-professional atmosphere versus intellectual atmosphere. Otherwise comparable schools can differ in this regard.
Northwestern and Penn are fairly academic schools. The only difference may be in the aspirations of students relative to the other Ivies. They are pre-professional only in the sense that more students have a specific career/major in mind and are not as interested in the broad intellectual exploration of a liberal arts degree. For example, Wharton grads who want to go into hedge funds or investment banking.
The difference is in some- not all- of the academic programs. Undergrad business, nursing and education schools are commonly seen as “pre-professional”. That “career” orientation doesn’t necessarily carry over to the large humanities divisions at these universities however.
Engineering is also a pre-professional degree. Schools that are purely about the “life of the mind”, such as University of Chicago or Swarthmore, do not emphasize engineering. There is nothing inherently wrong with a pre-professional degree.
If you want to be an engineer, you need an engineering degree.
If you want to be a nurse, you need a nursing degree.
If you want to be a physical therapist, you need a PT degree
If you want to be a doctor, you need an MD.
But for those who go into consulting, teaching, law, med school, writing, etc. there is no specific required major.
Even in a liberal arts context, student motivations may differ, as can department emphasis. For example, both Claremont McKenna College and Pomona College offer economics as a major, but a look at the course offerings indicates a more pre-professional emphasis at CMC (with courses in accounting and managerial economics) and a more liberal arts emphasis at Pomona.
Prospective teachers do need to follow the teacher credentialing requirements of where they want to teach; for the high school level, this may include a bachelor’s degree with a major in the subject that the student intends to teach (e.g. English major to teach English, math major to teach math, etc.).
Some pre-professional programs have a more rigid sequence of courses or requirements which can make it difficult to explore interests and/or change majors (if you want to finish on time). That can feel anti-intellectual. If your objective is as defined as as your pre-professional program, that could be a perfect option for you.
Personally, (and in a perfect world in which money wasn’t a concern), I would want four years of undergraduate classes that looked like the best programming public TV could offer (a liitle history, english, art, foreign study, applied science) followed by a professional program at the grad school level. BUT that’s a luxury most of us can’t afford…
I don’t think that now (particularly post- the Great Recession, that things are as cut and dried as intellectual/life of the mind schools such as UChicago, Tufts and JHU (plus numerous LACS vs. pre-prof. schools such as Penn, Georgetown and Northwestern. I think at many of these top schools, these two groups of students coexist very well side-by-side. Northwestern and BC are two schools that are known for having both types of students well represented. One last point, as you move further down the USNWR National College List (say below #50, the schools generally increasingly become more pre-prof.