CHOICE OF CAREERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23702, 9 January 1939, Page 9

CHOICE OF CAREERS

EXPLAINED BY GRADUATES An investigation has recently been carried out in America into the careers of negro college graduates (says the Manchester Guardian). In the course of this inquiry they were invited to give the reasons for their choice of occupations. The most curious answer came from a negro dentist, who replied that he intended at first to study medicine, but changed his mind when- it occurred to him that doctors had to go out in all weathers, whereas a dentist could sit in his office all day and wait for patients. Another explained that he switched over from medicine to dentistry because at his college there were 96 students in the doctors’ class, but only six in the dentistry class. “ so I, like a fool, went over there, and here I am.” Some of those who actually became doctors seem to have made their choice under the glamour, so to speak, of the medical profession. One of them in his youth was impressed by the dignified air of a local negro doctor, who was a tall, stately, handsome man, neatly dressed, and riding through the streets in a shiny new buggy drawn by a spirited, horse. The deciding factor in the case of another was the prestige enjoyed in the community by a doctor who employed him when he was a boy. “ People." he noticed, “ said such nice things about him and before him that I thought I wanted to be a physician and command the respect from people that these people gave him. They just did everything for him."