Student Profiles

Amy Huberman

Johns Hopkins Medical School

“I will always think of Bennington as the place where I discovered science, where I found questions I never knew I had. My time at Bennington was simply thrilling. I went to St. John’s College, where the curriculum involves reading the Great Books of the Western Canon. After graduation, I didn’t know what I wanted to do—I was interested in everything. I spent a year traveling the world, explored an MFA in Creative Writing, worked for Encyclopedia Britannica, and spent a year in an MA program for East Asian studies.

Finally, various things came together. I made friends with people interested in eastern medicine, and that was the first time I put the words doctor and healer together in a sentence. At the same time, I was working on a series of encyclopedia articles on immunology and the lives of the great immunologists. I found their lives interesting and romantic and was surprised to discover how much I enjoyed reading medical textbooks. One morning, I woke up and suddenly knew that I wanted to study medicine.

I read about Bennington’s small classes and focus on discussion and I knew that it was for me. The way you learn at Bennington is much more relevant to how you practice medicine than sitting in a lecture hall memorizing what the teacher says. You can always look things up in books, but it’s important to think on your feet. That’s a skill Bennington stresses.

During my Field Work Term, I shadowed a family doctor and several oncologists at a cancer center. During my glide year, I trained and worked as a certified nursing assistant at a nursing home where I witnessed firsthand the financial crisis that confronts the American health care system. I really don’t know yet what I want to do as a doctor, except that I won’t be satisfied unless I’m working with indigent patients and somehow combining my practice with public health work—I’m planning to get a Master's in Public Health somewhere along the way.”

Peter Fishman

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

“I never wanted to be a physician until I tried a few other directions in my life. These included majoring in anthropology and environmental studies at Emory, working in Australia and the Middle East on archeological digs and in rain forest research, leading wilderness expeditions for teens, being a ski instructor, being a volunteer in the emergency room of Brattleboro Memorial Hospital in Vermont, and working in network news at CNN and ABC. When faced with the prospect of spending the rest of my career in the television business I had a defining personal period where I decided to explore medicine further. It’s a big existential leap to go from being a journalist where you are removed from events, simply reporting on them, to inserting yourself directly into events. There’s lots of glamour working with celebrities in television—but it’s profound and humbling to work in a hospital, taking care of everything from skinned knees to botched suicide attempts.

When I began looking into postbac programs, I was drawn to the small and intimate nature of Bennington. Transitioning from a career in network news to a career in medicine was a daunting prospect, and Bennington seemed very approachable, personable, and interested in me as a person with life experience to bring to my education.

Given that you’re entering med school with people who’ve had much more extensive science educations, you’ll need more plastic, more dynamic tools for thinking. Bennington’s learning philosophy is geared toward a conceptual familiarity with scientific principles so you can apply them to anything you see in the future. Learning organic chemistry as a conceptual science rather than just a set of reactions makes you work and think harder."

Toby Sinton

University of Pittsburgh Medical School

“As a younger person, a doctor was one of the things I knew I didn’t want to be. After getting a degree in anthropology from Cornell and working for a time as a copywriter, I was working at an absolutely horrendous job that I couldn’t stand and it gave me a lot of time and incentive to think about what I was doing wrong with my life. My aging hippie parents instilled in me the idea that the price you pay for having a good life is to give back to the world.

I decided to take on some volunteer work. My first night at a San Francisco emergency room, a man died of a massive heart attack. I realized that medicine was a very difficult career, but also somehow it seemed like a good fit. I thought I’d try another kind of medical setting, so I quit my job and volunteered at a tuberculosis clinic. I chose it because it was so different from the ER—here I was dealing with the chronically ill. But it was still medicine and it still felt right. I knew that there was substantial debt and commitment ahead of me, but I finally found something that felt good and so I just said, 'I’m going for it'.

I wanted the challenge of trying to make it all happen in a year. I liked that Bennington was small and selective. I didn’t want a postbac program that was just didactic. I was looking for a lot of interaction between teachers and students. I envisioned a collegial environment where I might even be hanging out with professors at their houses. And this is just what I got.

I feel very lucky that I went to Bennington. This program is so rigorous; it made me extremely well prepared. There’s always going to be plenty of med school applicants who have a degree in biology. But the best schools are looking for more diversity, for people who have done more things in their lives.”

Emily Walker

Dartmouth Medical School

“The idea of being a doctor was a kind of private thought I had ever since I shadowed the chief of medicine at a naval hospital during middle school. We went right into the operating room. Once I got over all the squeamish stuff, I thought, what an amazing way to spend every day—this must be the most exciting job in the world.

As an undergraduate at Swarthmore College, I studied psychology, cognition, and perception. My teachers prodded me toward graduate work, but I was looking for an alternative path that would offer a break from the academic intensity of my college years. A move across the country and a three-year stint as a finish carpentry apprentice working on historic restorations was interesting and gratifying. But I started to feel the pull of family and the East Coast. So I thought, if I’m going back to start a new life, maybe this is a time to choose a new path. Deep down, I knew I wanted to be a doctor, but I was scared about whether I could hack all the sciences. It was intimidating starting totally from scratch.

A smaller academic environment agrees with me. I don’t get as much from a lecture as from engaging directly with the materials. When you’re in a small class, you’re more accountable for the information. You’re part of a team and you can’t hide it if you’re not prepared. At Bennington they don’t approach science as a body of facts you’re supposed to digest and memorize. They teach you how to approach a scientific question, so we’re coming upon the information as part of problem solving. It’s such an exciting way to learn. I also liked that so many of the students at Bennington are doing other things. I loved being able to see art exhibitions and to go to the performances of other students. It was a very interesting atmosphere.”