And she didn't want to waste any time getting her medical degree. N.Y. Her reasoning was pragmatic. Union offers a seven-year program with nearby Albany Medical College that will allow her to get both her B.A. and M.D. in a year less than normal and without having to take the MCAT , the standardized test for medical school admissions. Now, the pressure is off, and I can focus on learning. For students like Patel, selecting a college often boils down to finding the academic program that best meets their needs.
Programs come in all sorts of permutations.
All students take the same courses and read the same works, which include everything from Plato's Republic to Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse . A number of schools draw students with more-traditional opportunities, such as the chance to study abroad or to do internships for credit. Engineering-minded Eric Godwin ended up at Harvey Mudd College in California because of his enthusiasm about its internship program. Companies enlist small teams of Harvey Mudd students to work on projects like designing an instrument to test airplane fire extinguishers. Like Godwin, many students enter college thinking they know what they want to study, but more often students start out unsure about what they are interested in pursuing.