Khodakov says that in terms of the difficulty of the coursework, he does not recognize any difference between his pre-med and non-pre-med courses. The only difference he has noticed about being a pre-med, non-science concentrator is that getting a secondary field is harder to achieve.

“If you focus on it and you plan pretty early on that you know you’re pre-med, then it’s really not that difficult, and you get exposed to non-overlapping academic circles and therefore, by extension, social circles,” Khodakov says. ”I’ve never found either environments to be particularly stressful or competitive.”

While Khodakov says that the academic component of being pre-med has not interested him much, he knew that he wanted to pursue medicine by the fall semester of his freshman year. His interest in medicine has always stemmed from the appeal of patient interactions and hospital work.

“This person is in pain or sick or scared,” Khodakov says. “Not only are you running this test, it’s your job to do it. You have to be doing everything right, and there’s the scientific component to it, but there’s also the pretty immediate and kind of unexpected humanitarian component.”

“That’s what attracts me to pre-med—it’s really an intense and emotionally affecting environment to be in,” Khodakov adds. “You don’t get that from everything you have to do to get to med school and beyond med school.”

—Staff writer Cynthia W. Shih can be reached at cshih@college.harvard.edu.