If you have not yet read our information on understanding qualifications for professional school, we recommend you begin there. Then use this page for resources and tips on exploring opportunities and building experience.
There is no checklist of specific experiences that all pre-health students must pursue. Instead, professional schools will look to assess certain personal qualities, skills, and knowledge sets, including:
A clear understanding of the profession you hope to enter
Experience with the patients with whom you hope to work (human or animal)
The desire, motivation, and ability to serve others with empathy and compassion
Ability to interact effectively with people from diverse backgrounds
Ethical behavior and decision-making
Strong interpersonal skills
Resilience & maturity
Critically, professional schools want to get to know you through the application process. Let them. Follow your passions over time so that when you apply, your personal interests within health and medicine are clear.
While a student at Mount Holyoke College there are many ways to get involved and pursue your passions. The resources below are not an exhaustive list. If you are interested in doing something and cannot find information about how, please ask!
Academic jobs: Being a Teaching Assistant, Laboratory Assistant, Grader (jobs are posted in JobX or speak with faculty to learn more about this work)
Circle K International (local community service)
PLUMS (academic peer mentoring in the sciences): Speak with faculty in your area of interest about the PLUMS program
Resident Advisors and Residential Fellows (residential life positions)
Search for a volunteer opportunity anywhere in the United States
Join the Mount Holyoke College Virgina Apgar Pre-Health Association! Find them on Embark or email prehealth-association@mtholyoke.edu.
Study abroad: McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives
Virtual experience for pre health students (document with suggestions from pre-health advisors from around the country, developed at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic)
More links available under specific professions on our Exploring careers page.
Jobs and internships in local (Massachusetts) public health
Free online learning modules for people interested in health and health advocacy
If you are interested in a career that involves directly treating individual patients, it is important to spend time in clinical settings. These experiences will help you determine whether a particular profession is a good fit for you. They will also help you build critical skills such as communicating with people in vulnerable situations and behaving in a professional manner.
Clinical experience takes place in a setting that serves patients, whether human or animal. It involves interactions with patients and/or clinicians. A clinical setting could be a hospital, private practice, animal shelter, residential facility, or even in the community as in the case of those who may serve as EMTs or do community outreach.
The University of Washington School of Medicine has an excellent page on their website about clinical experience - what it is, why it's important, questions for reflection - that is relevant for any clinical health profession.
Shadowing can be an excellent way to explore professions and specialty areas. It can offer a direct look at the clinician-patient relationship and provide insight into how health care facilities function. Some professions or individual schools require shadowing hours, while others do not. By definition, when you shadow a clinician you are observing only.
Read through our shadowing guide to help you seek and prepare for meaningful shadowing experiences.
Volunteering in a clinical setting can be a great way to gain experience interacting with patients, families, and sometimes clinicians. Unless you have prior medical training, you will not provide any form of medical care while volunteering.
Explore in person volunteer options near campus:
Baystate Health: numerous and varied volunteer opportunities in multiple locations in Western Massachusetts
Cooley Dickinson Hospital: local community hospital in Northampton, MA
Dakin Humane Society: mostly on-site in Springfield, MA
Forest Park Zoo: small zoo in Springfield, MA
Holyoke Medical Center: local community hospital in Holyoke, MA
Holyoke VNA Hospice Life Care: a Home Health Agency serving Hampden and Hampshire counties
Tapestry: community-based healthcare in multiple locations in Western Massachusetts
Thomas J. O'Connor Animal Control and Adoption Center in Springfield, MA
VA Central Western Massachusetts Healthcare System: in Leeds, MA
Support flu clinics, blood drives, COVID testing sites, and other similar public health initiatives
Serve with a hotline such as the Suicide Prevention Lifeline, Crisis Text Line, or The TREVOR Project
Tips from the AAMC on finding health care related volunteer opportunities
Sometimes aspiring clinicians seek paid clinical work for a year or more before entering professional school.
Paid positions involving direct patient care require prior training and certification. Some examples include being an EMT, certified nurses’ aide (CNA), personal care attendant (PCA), or veterinary technician. EMT and CNA courses are often available through community colleges and the Red Cross. PCAs may not need formal training, depending on the state where you live.
Other paid jobs that involve patient interaction may provide on-the-job training, such as being a medical scribe or (in some cases) a dental assistant. Elite Medical Scribes and ScribeAmerica will hire and train scribes who then work in hospital settings. Scribe jobs may be ideal for alums looking to work full time. Dental assistants are typically trained by dentists.
In some clinical jobs you will interact with patients through offering patient education or assistance with insurance. A great way to learn about opportunities in clinical settings is to look at posted jobs long before you would be ready to apply. Over time, you will begin to see which types of jobs might appeal to you and what they require for qualifications and prior training (if any).
Learn about becoming a Certified Nursing Assistant from nurse.org, The Red Cross, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. List of CNA training programs in Massachusetts.
Find an accredited EMT training institution in Massachusetts
Wildlife rehabilitation and/or education centers
State conservation agencies, park systems, sanctuaries, ornithological societies
Your local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Local animal control shelters
Farms and/or equine centers
Labs using animals for research
Zoos, museums, aquariums
While you will seek to be effective and ethical in all clinical settings, in international settings you may also be navigating a new cultural and language context, differentials of power, and professional expectations that differ from your past experience or training. Please review these resources, then contact the pre-health office to discuss your planned, or past, clinical experiences abroad.
Guidelines for Students During Clinical Experiences Abroad These guidelines were approved by the Association of American Medical Colleges in 2011.
Global Ambassadors for Patient Safety The University of Minnesota offers an excellent online workshop for anyone who will be interacting with patients outside of the United States.
First, Do No Harm: A Qualitative Research Documentary The film explores the ethics of global health clinical electives and volunteer projects in developing regions. It features interviews from experts and global health providers from Europe, Africa, Asia, North and South America.
Valuable knowledge and skills can be built through participating in research: a broader perspective on health and medicine, critical thinking and problem solving skills, ethical decision-making, and perseverance. You may develop strong mentoring relationships with supervisors and possibly become a mentor yourself. Research can spark excitement and passion for new fields and topics. And of course, participating in research allows you to learn and understand the research process itself, and even generate new knowledge. All of these potential benefits of research are valuable as you explore careers and build qualifications for professional school.
Research is diverse. A research experience relevant to you and your exploration of the health professions is not limited to the life sciences, or even to the sciences more broadly. Explore the areas that most engage you. We have seen successful professional school applicants whose research was in politics, anthropology, statistics, public health, and more.
Research is valuable and recommended, but (generally) not a requirement. Certain professions and individual programs will expect that qualified applicants will have some research experience. Others will not. Speak with the pre-health office about your interests and goals to better understand how important research may be in your own professional school preparations.
Want to get involved?
Sometimes a professor will invite you to participate in research, but often you need to seek out this experience yourself. Two common ways to find a first research experience in college are over a summer, or on campus with Mount Holyoke faculty.
Most summer research opportunities will be through formal summer undergraduate research programs. Visit our summer planning document to see several databases and listings of individual programs. You can also use Lynk UAF funding to do research on campus or off campus if you find a P.I. (the head of a research laboratory) with whom you share common interests.
If you would like to do research on campus:,
Start check out this page of the college website. At the very bottom you will find links to learn more about specific research being conducted across the college, including in many STEM fields.
Also check out these resources from the following departments;
3. When you find someone conducting research of interest to you, the next step is to send them an email.
Sample email to a professor
Dear Prof. Reed,
My name is Samantha Marcus, and I am a sophomore, hoping to find a research opportunity at Mount Holyoke. I am fascinated by your work with glial cells and am wondering if you currently have any spaces for a student to join your lab.
A little more about me: I am from Brooklyn and plan to major in politics and complete a certificate in Culture, Health and Science. As a pre-health student I have already taken several courses in biology and chemistry, as well as statistics, so I have experience being in a lab.
I see that you have office hours on Friday mornings. Is it OK if I stop by this week to introduce myself in person?
I look forward to hearing from you,
Sam
As you search for opportunities you will gather information on programs, obtain contact information for multiple people, and have application details to keep track of. Keep this information organized from the outset. Use spreadsheets, web browser bookmarks, and whatever other organizational methods work best for you. Pay careful attention to dates and deadlines. Give recommendation writers plenty of lead time when requesting letters (minimum three weeks, preferably more).
If you could do anything in the world this summer, what would it be?
Are there particular experiences or skills you need to build in preparation for professional school?
What are your financial requirements? (Do you need to be paid? Can you volunteer? Do you have money to spend on a program?)
What are your geographic requirements or preferences?
Answering these questions should help you focus your search and ask the right questions when speaking with advisors and others about your summer goals.
Importantly, your summer experience should be meaningful to you. An experience that you believe will look good on paper, but is not in line with your personal interests and passions, will not serve you well in the long run. Be sure that you are excited about what you pursue!
There are pros and cons to taking courses over the summer. Here are some considerations:
You are a full time student during the academic year. Summer is a valuable time for exploring different opportunities and building your skills. Additionally, your brain may appreciate the break from studying.
Summer courses are highly condensed. Some people are fine with this, and others find it more challenging than having the coursework spread out over a longer period of time.
It is not a good idea to complete as many pre-requisite courses as possible over the summers. This is a red flag to admission officers at professional schools, who will want to know why you did not complete the courses at your home institution. Taking one or two courses, with a reasonable rationale for why you took them over the summer, is generally fine.
Depending on your academic plan at Mount Holyoke, it may be impossible or inadvisable to complete everything within your 8 semesters here. Under those circumstances, taking some summer courses can allow for flexibility in scheduling during the semesters and help to avoid significant credit overloads. Alternatively, you may choose to take some courses after you graduate, leaving summers free for different pursuits.
Some professional schools will prefer that you take courses at 4-year rather than 2-year institutions. If you plan to take summer courses, discuss your options with a pre-health advisor.
Presentation about planning for your summer
Pre-health office document with links to databases and summer programs
Career Development Center - internships - be sure to check out information on:
Lynk UAF (Step 1 due on the third Friday in February)
Networking - time to practice those skills! The CDC’s Networking Guide is a must-read.
The Gates - search for alums in certain regions or professional fields.
Presentation on seeking and applying for different summer opportunities as a pre-health student.
