Observing Community

Written by: Alex Reddy

As a pre-professional student, I believe observing your community is very beneficial and important. It can help you to gain insight on many community concerns and is a great way to stay connected with your patients or colleagues needs and wants. For this blog topic, I chose to interview a fellow pre-professional student who attends many different pre-professional club meetings here at our university. This student is currently unsure which field of study he would like to go into and therefore attends many different club meetings in hopes he will be able to get an idea of each field. This student also wishes to not be named so therefore in todays blog post we will call him “Jake.”

Jake and I spent quite a bit of time discussing the perks of being apart of so many clubs and also how it helps him in his perspective. Jake claims that the clubs give him an opportunity to talk to fellow students interested in the same major and also is a great way to start to make connections. He told me that every pre-professional club represents itself in a very formal and put-together way. However, Jake said that once you attend a few meetings, the meetings become more relaxed and you are able to freely talk about your pre-professional major and some news in that field. Jake says that, “Most of the club meetings go the same way for all of the different pre-professional clubs. Some I like more then others, but those are just the ones I see myself going into.” He attends multiple clubs but believes he may drop out of the pre-dental club and a few others in the near future. Jake wishes that his name not be mentioned because he is not ready for other members to know he is dropping out of the club.

I always looked at these clubs as unnecessarily time consuming and far too formal for my liking; However, after jake describes some of them, they seem much more casual than I first expected. It is true that joining a pre-professional club will take up a lot of time and dedication, but it also might be worth it for all the great connections you will make in your field. After talking to jake, I believe joining the right pre-professional club is a great way to get introduced to your field and become active in your community.