Gammoh, who is an international student from Saudi Arabia, says that taking history and literature courses helped him stay connected to the Middle East. Still, his background might lead to some difficulties in his path to medical school.

“My dream is to end up in a medical school in the United States, and it’s different for international students—it’s tougher,” Gammoh says. “That’s always something that’s in my mind. I don’t let it dampen my hopes, but it’s something I have to consider.”

But for now, Gammoh says being an undergraduate at the College hasn’t restricted him at all. “Being at Harvard, I have the opportunity to gain such a global perspective of my world,” he says. “Hist and lit...really helps me keep a bigger vision towards the world.”

‘I AM WHO I AM’

When Annemarie “Annie” E. Ryu ’13 tripped over a curb and fell right on her face a few days before a major midterm, she picked herself up and proceeded directly to late night office hours instead of University Health Services.

When her face was swollen and she could no longer move it, she finally went to UHS later that night—after much convincing. Ryu, who was preparing for a midterm for a pre-med course, chalks up her adamancy to a common trait among most pre-meds: drive.

“I think medicine attracts a particular type of person, like any career does,” she says. “One type of person it attracts is someone who’s very driven to create positive change in the world.”

Ryu is a social anthropology concentrator with a secondary in Global Health and Health Policy. She’s also the founder of Global Village Fruits, a business that imports jackfruit from India to the United States.

“I’ve always been someone who has diverse interests, so having some hard science classes and some social sciences classes as well as Gen Eds is a great mix,” Ryu says. “If I had taken a bio concentration, I would have a stronger understanding of a lot of aspects of biology, but I wouldn’t have such a changed worldview. And I wouldn’t give that up for anything.”

Ryu, who co-leads another startup that sends text message reminders for appointments at a rural health clinic to new and expectant moms, says that being a pre-med, non-science concentrator does not pose any unexpected difficulties.

“Everything that I do is something that aligns with who I see myself as now and in the future,” Ryu says. “It is one integrated mission and vision, and I don’t separate aspects that are pre-med and aspects that aren’t.”

“I am who I am, and I think it just happens that I would really like to go into medicine, and that I’ll be able to make the change I want to see in the world if I get an M.D. and practice as a doctor,” Ryu says.

AN ‘UNEXPECTED HUMANITARIAN COMPONENT’

In his spare time, Anton Y. Khodakov ’14 broadcasts Men’s Hockey Team games and classical music for WHRB, Harvard’s radio broadcast channel, and is an active member of the undergraduate history journal Tempus: The Harvard College History Review. He prefers humanities readings over textbooks on genetics—which is why he chose to concentrate in history despite being pre-med.

“It’s never been an academic component to the decision. I don’t really care for the biology aspect of the classes I’ve taken here so far,” Khodakov says, referring specifically to Harvard’s biology offerings. “There’s nothing interesting to share about being an academic pre-med. It’s the track of medicine—the stuff that I’ve seen with my eyes that doctors do.”