Nancy Rappaport: 'When I read great writers who take a microscope to human emotions, I realize they often do a lot better job of that than people in the medical profession.' (Staff photo Justin Ide/Harvard News Office)

April 13, 2006  Eating disorders, self-mutilation, suicidality, depression, anger management issues, substance abuse - Nancy Rappaport has seen it all.

As assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and director of school programs for the Cambridge Health Alliance, Rappaport is often called in to provide mental health care for troubled adolescents in the Cambridge public schools.

It is difficult, challenging work, for which her education at Tufts Medical School and her training in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and Cambridge Hospital have provided a solid professional foundation.

A less obvious component of Rappaport's preparation as a child psychiatrist is her B.A. in English literature from Princeton, but as she herself is quick to point out, her undergraduate education in the humanities continues to inform and enrich the work she does today.

"I believe that an important part of the human condition is trying to make meaning out of chaos, which involves constructing a narrative. When I read great writers who take a microscope to human emotions, I realize they often do a lot better job of that than people in the medical profession," she said.

Rappaport is one of the many Harvard faculty members in medicine, law, and business whose study of the humanities has led them to a professional career. While English literature might not seem the most strategic major for a med-school-bound undergraduate, Rappaport has no regrets about her choice. In fact, her experience is typical of those who have followed the path of the humanities into the professions. None of those interviewed have bemoaned their study of the humanities as a liability or a false start, but rather celebrated it as a source of strength and insight.

At the Sackler Museum, dancer Anjali Nath performs during a demonstration of Kathak dance, music, and history. (Staff photo Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard News Office)

A rapport with human drama

There are many ways in which Rappaport's early training and her continued interest in literature help her in her work. Some of her patients have shared favorite books with her, and Rappaport's willingness to read them and her sensitivity to literature have allowed her to gain insight about what is meaningful to her patients and to build the trust needed to explore their approach to their lives. An appreciation for the power of poetry and storytelling also enhances her rapport with patients as they experience the ups and downs of their particular human drama. In addition, Rappaport finds literature to be a way of recharging her own batteries.

"Doing this work can be exhausting," she said. "We all have to find a way to have sustenance in life, and for me, reading literature still serves as a source of rejuvenation. It's not like I studied literature in college and then put this stuff up in the attic."

Would Rappaport recommend her road less traveled to others? Absolutely, at least for those who feel pulled in that direction and who feel secure enough to forge their own path.

"It takes a certain amount of courage," she said. "People who are competitive tend to think they should follow the straight and narrow, but I think in the long run it's best to do something you feel passionate about."

Robert Mayer, the Medical School's faculty associate dean for admissions, agrees. While a basic grounding in the sciences is essential for those who hope to enter medical school, the HMS Admissions Office looks for a diversity of interests and talents when making decisions about applicants.

"If everyone in the orchestra played the cello, you wouldn't have an orchestra. All the experiences that students bring to the medical profession add up to a breadth of understanding that helps them to better understand and deal with patients."

Mayer, an oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who majored in biology as an undergraduate but minored in music history, said he has been extremely impressed by the talents of Harvard Medical School students, many of whom combine an interest in medicine with superb accomplishments in music, drama, and creative writing.

"It's encouraging because it says that they are not unidimensional people," he said.

But whether an applicant's interest is playing the harpsichord, writing short stories, or studying French symbolist poetry, it is the seriousness of that interest that most impresses the School's admissions committee.

"One of the things we look for is continuity, the passion that shows you've committed to something and have the ability to follow through, because to be a good physician you've got to commit to your patients and be able to follow through with them."

Robert Mayer, the Medical School's faculty associate dean for admissions, says the admissions office looks for a diversity of interests and talents when making decisions about applicants. 'If everyone in the orchestra played the cello, you wouldn't have an orchestra.'

Business in a whole new light

Like Nancy Rappaport, Thomas DeLong studied English literature as an undergraduate, but it led him in a different direction - into the business world. After earning a B.A. in English from Brigham Young University, he went on to earn a master's degree in organizational behavior from that school, then a Ph.D. from Purdue University in industrial supervision, followed by postdoctoral work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Now the Philip J. Stomberg Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School, DeLong looks back on his study of literature as the beginning of his interest in human relationships and systems theory.

"I was fascinated by literature, especially by the portrayal of relationships and group dynamics," he said. "It seemed that whatever I read, I could see linkages and connections between the individual and larger systems."

A former chief development officer of Morgan Stanley, where he was responsible for the firm's human capital, DeLong now teaches M.B.A. and executive courses on professional service firms and organizational behavior. His most recent research focuses on the "B-players" of the firm, urging managers to show their appreciation of these "solid citizens" and not to lavish all their praise and encouragement on the firm's star performers.

DeLong is unsure whether there is a direct connection between this theory and his earlier study of literature, but he does not entirely rule out its influence.

"I think that many authors are extremely sensitive to the plight of the underrepresented. Many stories are built around the inequities that people suffer, and I was always enthralled by those stories."

The language of law

At Harvard Law School (HLS), Assistant Dean of Admissions Toby Stock is also favorably impressed by applicants with a background in the humanities.

"One of the things that is crucial to being a good lawyer is being a good writer, and this is an area in which humanities students get a lot of training," he said.

The humanities also train students in analytic reading, another essential skill in the legal profession.

"Humanities courses teach you to look at texts critically, which is exactly what you have to do in law school."

Janet Halley: 'My work is constantly informed by literary study because law is a language.' (Staff photo Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard News Office)

Law professor Janet Halley perfectly illustrates Stock's assertion. After graduating from Princeton with a B.A. in English, Halley went on to earn a Ph.D. in 17th century English literature from the University of California, Los Angeles. After taking a teaching job at Hamilton College, she became increasingly interested in applying the techniques of literary analysis to texts outside the established canon, in particular those pertaining to religious censorship in late 16th and 17th century England and Northern Europe.

Feeling confined by the limitations of literary study, Halley decided to follow her interest in social texts by going to law school, earning her J.D. from Yale in 1988. After practicing for several years, she took a teaching job at Stanford University, then came to Harvard as a visiting professor in 1999 and became a professor of law in 2000. Her fields of interest are family law, sexuality and the law, and legal theory. She has found that her literary training has stood her in good stead as a legal scholar.

"My work is constantly informed by literary study because law is a language," she said.

The techniques of literary and linguistic analysis are particularly applicable to the complex, shifting nature of family law, she said. Her background in literature helps her to avoid the mistake made by many outsiders to the field who assume that the law possesses a sort of inviolate permanence.

"In fact, it is a flexible, dynamic, linguistic event that we all participate in at different levels," she said.

Robert Levin, the Dwight P. Robinson Jr. Professor of Music, rehearses with the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra at Sanders Theatre. (Staff photo Kris Snibbe/Harvard News Office)

As an HLS faculty member, Halley has maintained her involvement with literature in a number of ways. With novelist and teacher Rose Moss, she conducts a creative writing group for law students; she is active in the Arts & Literature Law Society; and she directs a series called Book Trouble, which brings scholars from legal studies and the humanities to discuss with HLS students classics in legal, social, and political theory and in literature.

Like Rappaport, Halley advises students eyeing a professional career not to play it safe by confining their undergraduate studies to subjects they think will impress an admissions officer.

"I think people should study what turns them on. They shouldn't be strategic and always putting off what really excites them. I'm adamantly against studying anything because it's strategic - because it just doesn't work."

Philosophy and the bottom line

Lynn Paine's career resembles Halley's in that she majored in one of the humanities in college, went on to earn an advanced degree in her chosen subject, then decided to obtain a law degree. The difference is that she has ended up on the faculty of Harvard Business School (HBS) rather than the Law School.

As an undergraduate at Smith College, Paine was originally attracted to mathematics. Then she discovered that philosophy demanded the same rigorous thinking but at the same time addressed basic questions that had always interested her. After graduation she went to Oxford University on a scholarship from the Leopold Schepp Foundation and earned a D.Phil. in moral philosophy. Then, after a year as a Luce Scholar in Taiwan, she decided to earn a law degree.

"People asked me, Why are you going to law school? Well, at Oxford I was interested in questions of practical ethics, and I saw law school as a step in the direction of practicality. It seemed a natural follow-up to moral philosophy."

After graduation from Harvard Law School, Paine went to work for the Boston law firm of Hill & Barlow, an experience she found thoroughly enjoyable and one in which her training in philosophy proved quite useful.

"Philosophy gives you a method for thinking about problems," she said. "You approach things with a basic skepticism about what passes for knowledge and a sense of how particular situations fit into the larger context."

Although she had worked with business clients as a lawyer, her entrée into business education came when her husband, a landscape architect, decided to get an M.B.A. at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. The school offered Paine an opportunity to join a new program in business ethics.

HBS faculty member Lynn Paine earned a D.Phil. at Oxford in moral philosophy: 'Philosophy gives you a method for thinking about problems. You approach things with a basic skepticism about what passes for knowledge and a sense of how particular situations fit into the larger context.' (Staff photo Maggie Mastricola/Harvard News Office)

"It was an opportunity to draw on all aspects of my background," she said.

Paine accepted the position. Then in 1990 she moved to Harvard Business School, where, as John G. McLean Professor, she heads the faculty interest group on Ethics, Law & Leadership and chairs the new required M.B.A. course on Leadership and Corporate Accountability. She said that as a faculty member, she is often impressed by students who are trained in philosophy.

"Students with a philosophy background do well in the classroom and in business because they bring critical thinking and rigorous reasoning to whatever they do, whether it's a business plan or a policy decision," she said.

Moreover, the diversity of backgrounds among both students and faculty at the School has convinced her that there is no "right" way to enter the professions.

"I think there are many paths into the professions, all with advantages and disadvantages. But the path through the humanities is a viable one." n