Graduating with a Master’s in Medical Science from Boston University
Reflecting on two years in the MAMS program at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine — what I learned, who I learned it with, and what comes next.
“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” — W.B. Yeats
- A Different Kind of Finish Line
- What the MAMS Program Actually Was
- The People Who Made It
- What Came Out of It
- What’s Next
- Thank You
- Definitions
A Different Kind of Finish Line
There’s something strange about commencement. You spend two years working toward a moment, and then when it arrives it goes by in about two hours — a walk across a stage, a handshake, some applause — and suddenly you’re on the other side of it.
Today I graduated with a Master of Arts in Medical Science from Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. Walking into that ceremony, I wasn’t sure whether I’d feel relief, pride, or just exhaustion from everything that came before it. Turns out it was all three, in about equal measure.
The commencement speaker reflecting on the path that brought this class of graduates to this moment.
What the MAMS Program Actually Was
The MAMS program at BUSM — the Master of Arts in Medical Science — is designed to give students the academic foundation and clinical exposure they need to pursue careers in medicine. It’s rigorous in the way that medical education is rigorous: not just a lot of material, but material that requires you to think in a particular way, to connect mechanisms to consequences, to hold multiple competing explanations at once and figure out which one the evidence actually supports.
The first semester core — graduate-level Human Physiology — set the tone for all of it. Every system of the body, covered in a semester, at a pace that doesn’t slow down for anyone. It was genuinely humbling. There were weeks where I felt like I understood almost nothing, followed by moments where everything clicked into something coherent. That cycle, repeated enough times, is what I think the program was actually teaching — not just content, but how to learn difficult content under pressure.
A clear morning over the ceremony — one of those days where the weather decides to cooperate with the occasion.
The People Who Made It
Graduating from anything is a collective achievement, even when it comes with an individual diploma. The MAMS cohort I went through with was extraordinary — people from wildly different backgrounds and undergraduate trajectories, all in the same lecture hall trying to understand cardiac output and ion channels and renal tubular reabsorption at the same time.
My co-TA Sarita Som deserves particular mention. Working together to run review sessions and coordinate the tutoring program for over a hundred students each week was one of the most formative experiences of the degree. We figured a lot of it out as we went, and the fact that it worked as well as it did is as much her accomplishment as mine.
The moment the ceremony ends — everyone finding the people who made it worth it.
Dr. Christopher Schonhoff’s mentorship throughout this program — as course faculty, as a research collaborator, and as someone who consistently pushed me to think more carefully — shaped the way I approach scientific questions. The NPI paper we published together this year is something I’m genuinely proud of, and it wouldn’t exist without his guidance.
I’m also grateful to Dr. Syed Moin Hassan at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, whose mentorship on my thesis work gave me a foothold in real clinical research during a period when the work could easily have felt abstract.
What Came Out of It
Two years is enough time to accumulate more than coursework. Looking back at what actually happened:
- Led weekly Human Physiology review sessions as a TA, developed a tutoring program matching algorithm, and coordinated 50 tutors across two semesters
- Published a peer-reviewed paper on near-peer instruction modalities and causal inference methods
- Completed ongoing thesis research on pulmonary embolism trajectory prediction using machine learning at Brigham and Women’s Hospital
- Became an AEMT and gained emergency medicine clinical experience alongside the academic program
- Attended conferences ranging from ENT malpractice to physiology education research
None of that was in the brochure when I applied. Some of it surprised me. All of it shaped how I think about medicine, research, and what I want to do with both.
What’s Next
Commencement is both an ending and a starting point, which is a cliché that turns out to be completely accurate.
The thesis work continues. The clinical experiences continue. The applications continue. There’s still a lot of road ahead, and the degree on paper is less interesting to me than whether the work I did to earn it actually built something lasting — in my understanding of medicine, in my ability to contribute to research, in my preparation for whatever comes next.
Today felt like a real milestone. Tomorrow is back to work.
Thank You
To everyone who was there — in the lecture hall, in the lab, in the tutoring sessions, and in the ceremony today — thank you. This one belonged to all of us.
Definitions
- MAMS (Master of Arts in Medical Science)
- A graduate degree program at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine designed to provide advanced preparation in the biomedical sciences for students pursuing careers in medicine and health professions.
- AEMT (Advanced Emergency Medical Technician)
- A certification level in emergency medical services providing an intermediate scope of practice between EMT and Paramedic.
