By Cari Griggs, Senior Staff Writer
Andy Nguyen
One music student is proving he has talents that lie outside the practice rooms in the Wanda L. Bass Music Center.
Andy Nguyen, music senior, will attend University of Southern California next year for graduate school to study dentistry.
“I knew that I wanted to be a dentist since high school,” Nguyen said. “I have two aunts and a cousin who are dentists, and they said if I didn’t want to pursue piano, dentistry was the way to go.”
Nguyen started at OCU as a piano major but switched his major to music with a pre-med emphasis last spring due to scheduling conflicts with prerequisite classes for dental school.
Nguyen only is two classes short of a piano major.
Music is an area of study that teaches skills which can apply to medicine.
The Bachelor of Arts in music with elective studies in pre-medicine allows students to take their general education and major requirements for the B.A. in music degree, according to okcu.edu/music.
This allows them to use their elective hours to complete medical school prerequisites.
This specific track is a new option in the music school said Mark Belcik, associate dean of the school of music.
Officials have been through one recruiting cycle. Last year was the first year it was offered.
“There is a connection between music and medicine,” Belcik said. “Many major cities have physician’s orchestras.”
There is a connection as to why these physicians orchestras are able to exist, he said.
“The thought processes are similar,” Belcik said. “Both are detailed, creative people who think outside of the box.”
Nguyen’s specific piano experience will help him with dentistry.
“In dentistry there is a lot of manual dexterity required,” he said. “Since I played piano my entire life, this is something I have a firm grasp on.”
In dentistry, when you’re diagnosing someone, you have to look at every part of the picture, Nguyen said.
“When you’re playing music you are constantly analyzing the music while paying attention to your hands,” he said. “So, when I’m working on someone’s mouth, I think I’d be good at picking things out.”
Nguyen did not expect USC to be his first choice.
“First I wanted to go to OU, but when I interviewed at USC I liked it a whole lot,” Nguyen said. “I loved everything about California.”
Nguyen also likes the differing approach USC takes to educating its dental students.
“The program is non-traditional problem based learning,” he said. “You don’t attend lectures, it’s pretty much all research.”
This article originally was published in the Feb. 23 issue of The Campus.
Leave a Reply