Paula Trzepacz, MD
Liberal Arts Statement
College years are still my favorite of all my educational
experiences. My childhood doctor's bag would eventually culminate
in reality for me, though not before valued experiences during
college. My world was forever "flavored" by Renaissance and 20th C
music concerts; art history; robust debates among close friends
over dinner about belief systems; learning squash, fencing, and
Akido; anti-war protests; studious tree inspections in the
Arboretum; and reading poetry lakeside.
Liberal Arts at my alma mater, Wellesley College, broadened and
stretched my late adolescent understanding of life while demanding
deep and critical thinking in my focused subjects, Biology and
Chemistry. Why are things the way they are, not just 'this is the
way things are.' Having learned and practiced the disciplined
discovery of knowledge has prepared me for my whole life's journey,
not just a short-term goal of getting into medical school. Ever
drawing on the concepts and variety of ideas learned in college, I
have been able to approach life's challenges with confidence and
enjoy all of creation's majesty with awe and appreciation…. such
as, evidence in layers of Hawaiian volcanic cliffs of historical
shifting of the earth's magnetic poles; major transitions in van
Gogh's painting styles as displayed in the Amsterdam museum;
protein expression of the human genome that makes our bodies
function; "walking" with the ancient Romans on the Appian Way; the
mathematical formula that describes the spiral of both the cochlea
and conch shells….Why settle for anything less than a Liberal Arts
education?