What's going to be your major, son?

It was early September of 1953.  We were making the two hour drive down to Princeton in the used '49 Packard Dad had purchased the year before.  Dad was at the wheel, mom next to him, my brother Geoff, now a junior, in back with me.  We turned off the Jersey Turnpike at exit 9, New Brunswick,NJ, with only a few more miles to go before I was to register for my freshman classes.  I was nodding off when I heard dad ask, "What's going to be your major, son?  I shook my head clear of cobwebs, swallowed and replied, "Why I don't know, Dad".  I don't have to decide until next year."  (All Princeton undergraduates whose field of study is liberal arts, take general survey courses the first two years and then choose to major in English, or History, etc. for a concentrated field of study during the last two years.

"Oh, hold it right there, son.  Remember how you liked to help you mother tie bandages down at the school, at the Motor Corps?  You're going to be Pre Med, for you're going to be a doctor!

I was dumbfounded. "The Motorcorp!", I exclaimned under my breath.  Why that had to be ten years ago, when I was nine. And I only went there once! I couldn't voice my thoughts aloud for there was never any arguing with my father, even when he came up with a pronouncement like this, way out of left field.

And so I registered pre med.  Princeton had a very respected and sought-after pre med program.  I found myself in classes with sons (Princeton didn't go co-ed until 1969) of doctors and others who had had their hearts set on that profession for years.  These were highly motivated students.  Science and biology were their favorite subjects back in high school so they were well-prepared for the sophomore-level bio and science courses that  freshmen pre med students were required to take.  I had never taken a biology course and had taken only one general science course in high school.  I was soon lost in these sophomore-level courses with their well-schooled motivated students and fast-moving curricula.  I got "D's" in both courses that first semester.

When it came to signing up for second semester courses, I switched out of premed to become a general liberal arts student.  I did not ask my father for permission to do so, and he never again mentioned premed.