<p>Okay so I keep on hearing people describe Penn as "pre-professional" and they're using that description as though it has a negative connotation, but I don't understand....I mean isn't that the point of college? to prepare you for you "professional" career??? Why do people keep saying its like a bad thing? That being said, maybe I'm just an idiot and getting a "pre-professional" education is a horrible thing but I still would like to learn more. I mean do people think that "pre-professional" educations are not "intellectual" because I mean yeah your going to get prepared for your future but its not like thats all your going to do I mean your obviously going to be taking classes that are "intellectual" its not like you can't take a philosophy or religious studies class or two I mean I just don't understand.............</p>
<p>This has been exactly what I’ve been wondering as well.</p>
<p>In other words, I’m training to be a doctor, and therefore by definition I am not an “intellectual,” and I couldn’t possibly have taken 20 courses outside of my major (which, because it could possibly be used as a path to a career has no value as a field of inquiry in its own right), most of which were in English, history, or law.</p>
<p>That makes…sense…right?</p>
<p>the two posts above are proof that these people belong in the Penn environment. Good job guys.</p>
<p>Sometimes I think these people who envision mutual exclusivity between “intellectual” and “pre-professional” are so trapped in an upper class ivory tower that they don’t realize: </p>
<p>(a) For most people, we’ll have a lot of loans that we’ll somehow have to repay, hopefully doing a job that we actually like, and a lot of time out of our lives that we’ll want to feel we made count, and </p>
<p>(b) If everybody went to college solely to “learn for the sake of learning” (that’s the bromide of choice, yes?), then how would the effete wanderers be able to do their part afterward to move the world forward? Such an idea reminds me of O’Neill: “The day grows hot, O Babylon. 'Tis cool beneath thy willow trees.”</p>
<p>People like these initial posters make me think I wouldn’t fit in at Penn. I can’t really think of “pre-professional” as anything but negative. Why would I want to go to college to prepare for a job? Seems unpleasant. I really need to visit to get a feel for myself though, maybe I’m just getting the wrong vibe.</p>
<p>Not “just” (I guess I didn’t make my sarcasm apparent enough) to prepare for a job, but how is being able to say that you’re putting your time and money to good use in addition to growing in knowledge a negative? What do you want to get out of college, anyway? Certainly you must think there’s some purpose to it other than just being able to say that you’ve gone?</p>
<p>Like I said, I’m probably just getting the wrong vibe. But for those of us who aren’t sure what they want to do once they graduate (or at least, not 100% decided), a “pre-professional” education seems unpleasant.</p>
<p>It’s only “pre-professional” if you want it to be. But there’s not going to be any school (except maybe for St. John’s College in Annapolis) that doesn’t have people there who do know what they want to do, and who want their college experience to help them prepare for it. </p>
<p>That said, unless you’re an heir(ess), you’re going to have to do something once you come out the other end. Wouldn’t you rather be in an environment that helps you to decide what you want it to be and how you can get it than in one that, theoretically, would shield you from it?</p>
<p>^I have not heard claims that Penn gives you (only) a pre-professional education, but rather that a large amount of its students are considered “pre-professional” when compared to its peer institutions (probably still a minority, btw). I am definitely undecided, and yet I will most likely attend Penn next year. That’s why I applied to the College of Arts and Sciences, which, yet again, is the largest of Penn’s four schools by a significant amount. Some people at Penn may be pre-professional, which is not necessarily a bad thing as many have already pointed out (whats wrong with knowing what you want to do and maintaining a direct focus??), but many are not. That is why Penn requires students in the college (aka A&S) to fulfill distribution requirements in (I believe) 7 different fields. What is unique about Penn is that it simultaneously offers a “pre-professional” and an “intellectual” (I hate those terms) education for those who wish to take advantage of either one, or, probably more commonly, both.</p>
<p>that post was @arcadefire</p>
<p>While I’m in Wharton, and I know tons of pre-professional people…I know tons of people just studying things because they find the topics interesting. Or they have no idea what they want to do.
It balances out. And just because someone’s pre-professional doesn’t mean anything. Some people, you’d have no idea.</p>
<p>There are definitely a lot of clubs at Penn that you won’t find elsewhere, though, because of the pre-professionalism or whatever. And I think it’s actually really great (tons of business related clubs, industry related clubs, whathaveyou…as well as regular, non academic things).</p>
<p>While I won’t deny many people are concerned more about their futures than the present, I think it’s a tad ridiculous how much flak Penn gets compared to other schools. Are you telling me that there aren’t hoards of people at HYPS that aren’t going for MDs, JDs, and MBAs? “Oh, well, they still have a more intellectual culture.” Well that’s quite a broad generalization now, isn’t it? Most of these notions are completely propagated by people who have no experience with the matter–and now that these perceptions are fairly well ingrained, it makes sense to continue them. Penn seems like a pre-professional school, right? Columbia seems totally intellectual? Well…yeah, I guess! So the notions are just continued without any real basis. Obviously Wharton adds a different element of pre-professionalism to the playing field, but still…people take this too far.</p>
<p>People at top-tier schools are there for a reason–they are smart, driven, ambitious. Naturally these students are going to be driven and ambitious about their futures, too.</p>
<p>My kid (senior at Penn) is one of the intellectuals who is ambitious and had hoped for a huge salary upon graduation. In many ways he fits the pre-professional (a word I hate) designation, but in many others he does not. He is an English major but does have a good corporate job lined up for after graduation.
Penn does have many students who hope to have good, lucrative careers and don’t aspire to go build houses in a third world country, but it is a large school and you can certainly find your own “tribe” there.</p>
<p>For the most part, it is preprofessional. Only a minority here actually are scholars. Is that bad? I dont think so.</p>
<p>This is a complete contradiction in terms!</p>
<p>Are you defining a “scholar” as somebody who has no desire to have a career after college? That somebody who studies engineering or biochemistry is not a “scholar” in her own right? Or, to put it a bit differently, that somebody who wants to be a doctor is studying biochemistry in bad faith, with no actual intellectual investment in the field itself? That the idea that college is not just an isolated part of one’s life disconnected from the rest in and of itself invalidates the genuineness with which one pursues her studies? After all, even if somebody is planning on going to graduate school after college, they are in a way “pre-professionals” inasmuch as what they’re studying in college is preparing them for higher attainments in that field. Being purely an academic will, therefore, be their profession and, by definition, they are pre-professionals.</p>
<p>Let’s call a spade a spade–“scholar” is batted around here as a euphemism for a humanities major not thinking about their future, presumably, whereas a “pre-professional” is somebody who, apparently alarmingly to some, has an idea of what they’re interested in doing after they graduate from college. Never mind the fact that this false distinction doesn’t take into account the fact that, by what seems to be the operational definition here, the “scholar” may be a complete dilettante, taking intro classes in many different fields and not actually be particularly scholarly in any of them, while the “pre-professional” may delve quite deeply into her subject and even take graduate courses in them while in college–and yet does not qualify as a “scholar.”</p>
<p>“a “pre-professional” education seems unpleasant”
wow really??? okay if anything my attraction to Penn has only be solidified by this post and I think you for your insight everyone especially pennalum you have helped me a lot not only in this post but my other thanx</p>
<p>I think that you can be both intellectual and pre-professional. I don’t think that a person is solely confined to one or the other. There are many positive influences from both methods. So why would an entire school have to fall under one category?</p>
<p>^^^^^^ exactly</p>
<p>I should have clarified. My apologies.</p>
<p>A preprofessional at Penn I perceive as: Someone who is very much concerned about finding the highly regarded/high paying jobs and takes easy courses that get them there. They are very concerned about finding internships. They usually don’t take classes for the sake of learning.</p>
<p>A scholar in my definition is: someone who is isn’t all too concerned about finding jobs. Takes classes because they want to learn something, usually challenges themselves, isn’t obsessed about networking, competitive but collaborative as well. That’s not to say that they don’t worry about their future. Scholars at Penn know that they are smart and realize that they don’t need to obsess about jobs/internships. </p>
<p>Yes you can be a bit of both.</p>
<p>wow okay this is just going to go on and on and idk think were gonna get anywhere personally i dont see why you cant be a “preprofessional” and a “scholar” but then again my definitions are different than yours that being said your definitions seem to demean both “preprofessionals” and “scholars” alike</p>