Swata Alagar | ‘21, former ASaP student and current TA
So much of pre-med education is focused selfishly on becoming the best students that we can become. There is hardly any attention on focusing on those who are different than us in some way and do NOT have perfectly functioning bodies of college student age.
There are so few opportunities to speak with people who are older and wiser than us as college students. I don’t think I even spoke to an older person who wasn’t my professor my freshman year, excluding the times I went home for breaks. College is truly not representative of the real world (obviously). Before taking ASaP my sophomore year, I did not realize how fully entrenched in the Brown “bubble” I had become.
Swata Alagar, center, joining the DAPpers class in Ashamu Dance Studio
The main reason why I will always remember this class and take it with me to medical school is the human interaction part of it. You learn how to talk to someone as a person, rather than mentioning their PD diagnosis at all. This might translate into “professional interviewing” skills in the outpatient setting as a physician, but more importantly it will translate into simply being a better human being.
Simply going to the DAPpers class as an undergraduate student visitor should not be considered a “volunteer” or “service” necessarily. The DAPpers are the ones who are doing a service for us, by allowing us to participate in their classes and learn from them. They have much more life experience that we can learn from, that would never be covered in any textbook.
Lastly, human interaction has been shown to be helpful in alleviating anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions. Depression among the elderly is so often ignored, but simply having a community where you are able to speak to others (peers, those younger than you, those with a disability, etc.) is so much more fulfilling than everyone sitting in their dorm room or cubicle or nursing home room all day everyday.