<p>Does anyone know anything about the Health and Society major at Penn? Is it popular? Are the classes good? Any info would be fantastic!</p>
<p>I would really like to here more about the health and society major. I am really interested in it but it seems like not many people have much to say. (i have searched for forums....and there are hardly any)
If anyone could give their two, maybe 10 cents it would be greatly appreciated!!!!!</p>
<p>I've heard the classes are pretty interesting. It's popular for pre-meds who don't want to major in a science. If you just major in it though, it's sometimes considered a cop-out major...like women's studies, etc. I guess it's pretty easy!</p>
<p>(Sorry to anyone who is majoring in it. I don't know much about it, this is just what I've heard)</p>
<p>P.S. I think it's good for double majors too...like combined with econ for the business side of healthcare or with urban studies/poli sci for public health.</p>
<p>I have a friend who is a professor in this program. He is perhaps the most intellectually curious person I know, and one of the most admirable human beings -- just a great, thoughtful, morally engaged person, whose academic work is extremely interesting. He's an MD who does work on the history of medicine mainly from an ethical/philosophical perspective. He uses both conventional history-of-science stuff -- the top-level developments in science and technology, public health statistics -- but he also makes extensive use of old patient records and journals, and physicians' correspondence and journals, to examine the nuances of individual doctor-patient relationships, advice, and treatment. It is very, very cool.</p>
<p>Other people in the program have interests ranging from conventional health care policy issues to witch doctors and magic in rural societies. It's really a great department, one of the best of its kind. It OUGHT to be popular with pre-meds who don't want to major in science, and with people who are interested in policy and economic issues involving health care.</p>
<p>Thank you guys. All the info is great. I really am interested in this program and it seems very unique to Upenn. Not many schools have a program like this.
Does anyone know of other similar programs?</p>
<p>The University of Chicago: <a href="http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/pdf_09/HIPS.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/pdf_09/HIPS.pdf</a></p>
<p>Emory: [url=<a href="http://www.emory.edu/CHCS/p_UndergradCurricul.htm%5DUndergraduate">http://www.emory.edu/CHCS/p_UndergradCurricul.htm]Undergraduate</a> Minor in Global Health, Culture and Society<a href="a%20minor">/url</a></p>
<p>Incidentally, Penn has long been a pioneer in these kinds of interdisciplinary programs, and was one of the first schools--along with Harvard--to have a separate department of History and Sociology of Science (which it has had for at least 35-40 years).</p>
<p>Cornell has a fairly similar major in its College of Human Ecology, called the Human Biology, Health, and Society major. Both sound really interesting!</p>
<p>This thread is an old one but does anybody have any updated information on this program? In particular, for the students who graduate from this program where do they usually end up at? I’m assuming you may have some who enter medical school, law school, graduate school (what concentration), and possibly consulting? This Penn program is top notch and not very many schools offer this major and I’m just curious to hear from any juniors or seniors currently in the program or graduates. Thanks!</p>
1 Like
<p>^ Check out the Career Plans Survey Reports for the College for 2005-2012 to see where Health and Society majors have ended up (the last section of each report breaks it down by major):</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/reports.php”>http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/reports.php</a></p>
<p>Thanks 45 Percenter, this is what I was looking for.</p>