Do you know what are you doing when you graduate? If you were Paul Farmer, by 28 you would have founded your own non-profit, Partners In Health (PIH), and traveled to one of the poorest countries in the world (Haiti) to provide medical care on the weekends while attending graduate school during the week to complete your joint MD and Ph.D. Suddenly my summer internships sound a lot less impressive.
This year’s One Book One Northwestern choice, “Mountains Beyond Mountains” chronicles Dr. Paul Farmer’s story from the deep south to Duke and Harvard and beyond. The subtitle of the book says that Paul is a “man who would cure the world” and this couldn’t be closer the truth. PIH famously stops at no length to help a patient, at one point in the book even organizing an extravagant air-evacuation for a patient.
Farmer is deeply passionate, blindly dedicated and probably a little crazy, but who wouldn’t wish to find a pursuit that combined their passion while having a huge impact? How can we find our passion like Paul Farmer has?
A Daily article published last Friday titled “‘3 and e’ coming to NU?” describes one way in which NU might be trying to push students to think beyond the classroom and find what they are passionate about. Though the details of “3 and e” are by no means official, the premise of the program is that students would only take three classes per quarter, replacing the fourth with a form of “experiential learning.”
It is an interesting program to think about and would surely change the culture at NU for the better. Though the program is still missing important specifics, it would go far to create a culture of engagement for many students, especially those who don’t seek out these opportunities themselves. However, requiring some course every quarter might be overkill because this program would be a great way to engage students in some majors, but not others. For some, like the budding scientist or future Ph.D, coursework might better be spent acquiring the expertise needed for future engaged work rather than trying to apply their knowledge now.
However, if I learned anything from “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” it is that nobody should be left out of leading an engaged life, As the author, Tracy Kidder said when he visited Northwestern last Thursday, the team behind Paul Farmer was as important as the man himself. Farmer could not have accomplished what he did on his own. He needed funding which he got from Tom White, the owner of a construction company in Boston, and help from Ophelia Dahl and Jim Kim, his partners in crime within PIH. His story would have never gotten out if it were not for the eloquent writing of Tracy Kidder. This does show that while not all of us need to be Paul Farmers ourselves, it is important for everyone to learn how to engage their surroundings and if “3 and e” can teach students this, Northwestern and the world will only be better off.
Benjamin Rothschild is a Weinberg senior. He can be reached at [email protected]. Illustration by Alice Lu.
