ABSTRACT
My interest in a career in academic psychology conflicted with my upbringing, which was decidedly polyester, and not tweedy. Which is why, shortly after arriving at Vassar, I decided to go pre-med. I can only explain this by saying that I was raised to believe that there were only two professions that were appropriate for nice Jewish boys, and I had no interest in becoming a lawyer. The truth of the matter was that I had no real interest in becoming a doctor, either. Still, I completed the pre-med curriculum while majoring in psychology, and at the beginning of my senior year, I applied to about a dozen medical schools. I started going on interviews for admission, which I came to dread. My ambivalence about a career in medicine must have been apparent to the people interviewing me, because, despite a strong academic record and respectable test scores, I was repeatedly rejected. Maybe the interview committees could tell from the greenish hue my face would take on during the obligatory tour of the teaching hospital that the idea of coming into contact with actual physical maladies, much less cadavers, made me nauseated. The rejection letters rolled in, and I began to worry about my future, or the lack of one. I used the letters to wallpaper my apartment’s bathroom.
