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Comment by cylinder | Hacker News Reader

The presence, or increase, of suicides does not mean that medical school is too "brutal." It could very well mean that young people are becoming worse at coping with stress. Or perhaps students feel more pressure because of their perceived consequences of their failures: basically no alternative career path that would provide the same standing as medicine, whereas in previous generations, med school dropouts could go on to dental / law / cushy corporate gig more easily. This could be one of the consequences of rising inequality.

I'm not disputing anything here, just want to discuss this logically. I've been in graduate school, and it wasn't that hard, and yet some of my peers would freak out constantly. And some wouldn't.

I will say that there's definitely a hazing culture across all professions in America that's completely unnecessary and inappropriate.

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"I will say that there's definitely a hazing culture across all professions in America that's completely unnecessary and inappropriate."

I'm a structural engineer. I don't recall any sort of hazing culture, or even a single instance of hazing.

Where did you do your internship, and what were you asked to do there? How many hours did you work and study while in school? Were you expected to work much longer hours as a junior employee to "work your way up the ranks?

I think these are the sorts of elements of a hazing culture that GP is discussing. Not necessarily fraternity-prank style hazing.

Yes, this is the type of hazing I am referring to. Call it "institutionalized hazing" rather than fraternity style hazing. The bar exam for lawyers is one good example of hazing. Most law grads who apply themselves will pass, it's just a form of hazing for new entrants. Other countries with common law have just as good, if not better, bars and they do not have postgraduate law degrees and bar exams to become admitted. I don't buy the "it reduces supply" either, because of the high pass rates, but even if it was used for this, it would simply be injustice. If you want to filter people out, do it before they waste three years and $150,000.

What is your plan to replace these to filter out or vet people prior to learning the knowledge required to sufficiently do the jobs they trained their minds to do during those years?

I am curious, also, to these other countries that have better bars, can you cite some countries and studies that back up these allegations?

If you call the bar hazing, then isn't pretty much any exam you've ever taken hazing?

Actually, I didn't personally encounter anything like that, but I now have a better idea of what you meant and agree it's not unheard of.

Does 12 months doing nothing but anchor-bolts count? That's what my boss had me do. I practically had ACI 318 Appendix D memorized.

The staggering level if debt accumuliated to get all the way through is another factor, you could invest a huge amount of money and still fail out 3/4 of the way through the process. That's incredible pressure.

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