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--- I just finished my first semester of medical school, and as I look back I want to leave you with this charge. Lean into and enjoy the process wherever you are in your journey. You may be wrestling with a chemistry, preparing for the MCAT, or waiting to hear back after applying, but wherever you are, I want to encourage you to embrace the tension and to celebrate this season you are in right now. The reality is that the tension is never going to go away (sorry), but the lessons you learn today will stay with you. As you struggle through your current season you are putting down roots into the soil of your character, and in the seasons to come you will be able to remain rooted in those lessons to help you get through what is to come. What follows is how some of the concepts I’ve written about on this site have played out in my first semester of medical school. I am revisiting this little ebook of mine and writing this to give each of these my post-final-over-the-whole-musculoskeletal-system-and-other-fun-tests-gold-standard approval, but also to encourage you as you put down your roots as a premed. This content has served me really well, and in the same way the things you learn now you will take with you into the next season. I believed the content to be true when I wrote it as a senior, but this year I have put it to the test even more so and they have all held up. Embrace the lessons you are learning right now; if you sow well you will reap a crop that is far better. I made a lot of decisions during Prologue, Musculoskeletal, and Brain and Behavior. [My school divides content into system driven modules instead of distinct semester long classes; it is kind of hipster, but I've loved it.] Here’s a few of the decisions I have had to make: 1.) I started in the first few weeks and quickly (and slightly painfully haha) learned that my old study habits wouldn’t work in medical school. Thankfully though “In abundance of counselors there is victory” came into my mind as I was staring at those grades and I was able to get the help I needed. I still have a lot to learn about studying medicine, and even this week I am planning on trying to show my study routines to people more experienced than me and see if there is anywhere I can improve. I am really excited about how much more effective I have become; it is exciting to think about where my skill level may be by the time I graduate if I can keep improving how I study. (The Importance of Getting Advice and Studying: Continuous Improvement) 2.) “In order to do your best, sometimes you have to study less” has rung in my ears at some point probably every single week so far. Even now I am writing this on a Sunday afternoon with a gentle buzz in the back of my head telling me that I “should" be watching a kidney histology podcast. I am so grateful that I had that crazy season in undergrad where I learned that lesson now that the volume has ramped up. This first semester of medical school has been one of my favorite semesters of school ever, but I know that if I had not striven for balance then I would have a lot more regrets. (Balance) 3.) I am so grateful for Mercy Health Center on so many levels. Please, find somewhere you would want to volunteer even if you weren’t premed. The experience that made me officially decide I wanted to become a physician and the experience that in all honesty probably was a major part of the reason I got in is now the experience that makes me excited to get back in that library and hit the books again. It has given me a clear vision for why I am studying, and that is worth its weight in gold. More than that, even though I do not yet have a MD through volunteering I am able to work towards the thing that I am in medical school to do in the first place, and ultimately that is the point of this entire endeavor. In the words of Jon Acuff, “Start.” (Volunteer) 4.) Stress. You have to decide what goes in that blank. This is probably the biggest point on the whole site that has been affirmed time and time again this semester. That post’s significance for me personally is off the charts. (Application Stress) That is how some of these lessons that I learned in undergrad have played out for me in medical school. I hope this site has been helpful to you. As mentioned elsewhere, I still love trying to help premeds any way I can, so feel free to reach out to me if you ever want to get coffee. Best, -C
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I've added some more things to the sidebar under 'random thoughts', check it out!
The Hall of Fame was initially kind of an afterthought, but I really enjoyed writing it. I've had some great professors haha -C Table of Contents
Welcome! Being a premed is challenging, and it takes a lot of good advice to be successful. I am a premed senior at the University of Georgia, and on this site I have written five different short articles on lessons that I have learned during my time as a premed. Of the five I would highly recommend reading The Importance of Getting Advice first. It is the shortest, most practical, and establishes a framework for the other four posts. You'll find it all the way at the bottom, or if you click on that sidebar in the top left corner there's a shortcut for your convenience. After reading that feel free to jump around. This is less of a blog and more of an ebook that I have been working on throughout the Fall of 2014, and as such all of the posts that I am planning to write have already been posted. If I think of something that I'd like to share I may add a new post in the future, but this will be it for now. I hope this advice will be helpful to you in your journey as a premed student. If during your time in undergrad you seek lots of good advice, are intentional about continuously improving how you study, establish a balanced schedule, celebrate the successes of your classmates, and volunteer somewhere you would want to volunteer even if you weren’t premed, then I believe that you will be more successful. Best of luck!! -C P.S. If you know me in real life or are a student at UGA and have found this material helpful, I would love to get coffee with you and talk about it! “Anger is cruel and fury overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy?” - Proverbs 27:4
This crazy thing is going to happen once you submit your AMCAS. It actually starts to happen a little bit your sophomore year, picks up junior year especially around the MCAT season, and then comes out full force senior year. It will be begin to seem like every single other premed in the world has a better application than you. You got an A- in a class, that guy got an A. You shadowed at ARMC, the girl three seats over in Physics shadowed at St. Mary’s, Emory, and St. Joe’s. You did a little research, your friend published a paper. No matter who you talk to as a premed, there is a tendency to walk away from the conversation discouraged. A lot of factors go into this, but one of the biggest reasons is that the gunners are the loudest. You will never hear about how Joe in your organic chemistry class got a C-, but I guarantee that you will hear about it when someone in your class gets an interview at Harvard. It is kind of like looking only at a person’s Facebook page. On Facebook it seems like everyone is happy go-lucky all the time, but in real life there are all sorts of hills and valleys. It is the same way with medical schools; you will only hear about other’s significant accomplishments. Don’t let the gunners discourage you, but instead realize that your perspective on their application is skewed, and celebrate with them when they receive blessings. Instead of being discouraged when it seems like others are in the middle of putting together awesome applications, can I invite you to instead celebrate with your classmates in their successes? Don’t worry about comparing yourself to anyone else, and don’t stress about it. When you decide not to stress about other’s accomplishments, it frees you to celebrate with them. If you let their accomplishments freak you out, your jealousy and worry will put up a relational wall between you and them, and you shut out the very friends who understand exactly what you’re going through and could potentially really encourage you. And while it seems like everything may be grand on the surface of their lives, I’d imagine that they need your encouragement too. Decide to celebrate with your classmates instead of letting them stress you out. This is easier said then done, but the key to being able to celebrate with others is to keep your decision to apply to medical school in the proper perspective. If getting into medical school is your end all be all, then it will be very difficult for you to not worry and stress about every step in the process. Instead of letting the loudest source of stress in your life be your end all be all, decide what your bottom line is. How would you fill in this blank? If at the end of the day I was only able to ___________ and nothing else, then I would still be content. Keeping a proper perspective will allow you to celebrate your friend’s successes without being discouraged by them. Footnote: Hey Christians, 1) How would you fill that blank as someone who is following Jesus? 2) Do we have the right to decide what goes into that blank anymore? 3) In that context, how does your work play a role in how you try to fill that blank? Is your work a distinct separate part of your life, or does your identity as a Christian influence how and why you work? 4) How do God’s promises interact with your aspirations as someone applying to medical school? 5) How can those promises empower you to act differently towards your fellow premeds? What if I told you that there are premeds running around who aren’t stressed about their applications or that next test? Take your stress and your worry and dive into scripture with it. Pray through it. There are deep, deep resources in God’s word waiting for you. By worrying about medical school you are saying that God isn’t big enough to handle this area of your life. Here are some helpful places to start: - Psalm 131 (Look this up especially if you don’t recall Psalm 131 off the top of your head. It is a little obscure, but these 3 verses are the reason I survived organic chemistry) - Psalm 23 - Matthew 6 - Proverbs 3 How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word! What more can He say than to you He hath said, Who unto the Savior for refuge have fled? Find somewhere you would want to serve even if you weren’t premed
In this section, I want to describe an ideal for you to shoot for as you think about getting clinical exposure, physician shadowing, and volunteer experience for your AMCAS. It is a vital part of your application for you to get exposure to the patient-doctor relationship in anyway possible, and you will hear premed advisor folks talk about that in practically every seminar you go to. The line of thinking is that during an interview they will ask you why you want to be a doctor, and you will tell them that you like science and that you want to help people, just like everybody else. The next logical interview question will then be “How have you already helped people (volunteering) and enjoyed science (research), and how do you know that you want to do those two things through medicine (shadowing)?”. What have you done demonstrating those things that differentiates you from everyone else? Letters of recommendation often come from these experiences as well. For this reason it is a goal for most premeds to get lots of volunteer hours, shadowing experiences, and research in order to be competitive. I want to give you a higher goal to strive for. Start. There is this idea in the premed world that we have a really long road ahead of us before we someday maybe reach our goals of helping people and enjoying science. We have to get through undergrad, make it into medical school, match to a good residency, pass the boards, and then someday we will be able to eventually start helping people. We think that in order to help people that we need to go get a white coat first. That is a lie. You can start right now. It is true that a physician’s white coat is a huge weapon in a someone’s arsenal to help those in need, but as a student I would argue that you actually have something more powerful. You have a more powerful tool that is completely inaccessible to most physicians. You have free time. Wield it like a sword. I know you don’t feel like you have free time, but the reality is that as students we have more free time than anyone else does. If you leverage your free time in the context of an organization that is already in the middle of doing great things you can start making an impact today. Find an organization in your community that you would want to serve even if you weren’t premed, and then put yourself at their service. Ask them what they need the most, and then do it with excellence with no strings attached. File patient charts, answer the phones, bring patients coffee, fax records, enter data into computers, clean rooms, and help people. Get excited about their mission and vision for the future, and then jump in and serve people. For me, that organization was Mercy Health Center in Athens, GA. Mercy’s mission is “Through a community of volunteers, Mercy provides quality whole person care in a Christ centered environment to our underserved neighbors”, and our core values are that we are Christ-centered, we value each person, we are faithful stewards of all that we have, we seek excellence in all that we do, and we are motivated by love for one another. I never sat down and memorized that. I just know it, and the main reason that I know Mercy’s mission statement and core values is that they strongly reflect my own personal mission for why I want to go into medicine. When I work at Mercy, I am actively working towards the things that made me want to be premed in the first place. While I am there it feels like I get to skip ahead ten years of life and just go ahead and start doing what I want to do. You need to get volunteer hours and shadowing experience in order to be a competitive applicant, and so why not use the work you need to do to support those who are already making a difference in your city? If you connect your work to the greater work of what is already happening in your community, then instead of being a chore your volunteering will be the highlight of your week and will motivate you after it is over to return to the library more energized than ever. Not only that, but when you do someday get interviewed about your experiences, your authentic excitement for what you are already doing will shine through and make you stand out. By working for an organization you would want to serve if even if you weren’t premed, you have the opportunity to start “practicing medicine” today. While you cannot literally practice medicine right now, you can work towards accomplishing the things that you want to someday use medicine to accomplish, and that’s the point all along right? Dream big about the impact your work right now as an undergraduate could have in the community. Start. Acknowledgements: This entire section is essentially an encouragement for you to go read the book Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters by Jon Acuff; it is my experience framed around his content put in the context of being premed. Go read it. The footnote of this section is based on the talk “Fearless” that Louie Giglio published as a part of the book Passion – The Bright Light of Glory. Footnote: Hey Christians, Something I’ve been learning about through this process has been that not only can we start to make a difference right now before we get these shiny white coats, but that as Christians this entire conversation actually looks totally different. Read John 15 in the context of your volunteering as a premed. Here’s a teaser to get you to actually read it, but I want you to get the full context: Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. - John 15:4-5 Sorry to burst the medical school dream bubble, but you cannot bear fruit apart from Jesus, and a white coat is not going to change that. There is this perception that if we work really hard then we will someday be able to help people through medicine, and while it is true in a sense that physicians help people you don’t really want to just help people. You want to bear fruit. You can abide with Jesus right now, and start bearing fruit today. I boast in the work that God has done through me at Mercy Health Center, and the reason that I boast is that I am not boasting in myself. I did the work that I have done at Mercy through Christ for “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13), and the hilarious thing is that I have done it as an undergraduate!! During my time at Mercy I had a high school diploma to bring to the table, and that was it. I am just a weak and very young undergraduate student, “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2nd Corinthians 12:9-10). We are weak undergraduates, but through abiding in Christ we are strong, and we glorify God through the work that he does in us because the only way it was ever possible was through his power. I boast in how God has used me at Mercy because it is patently obvious that it was his plan, his power, and his purpose that brought me here, and he gets ALL of the glory and credit for what HE has done. Guess what Christian! God has a plan for your life! He wants to use you to bear fruit, and through abiding with him (read John 15, remember?) God can use you right now!! Pray. The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field (Matthew 9:37b-38). This applies to your entire life, and your work as a premed is a part of your life. Your faith and your work do not have to be separate, and while places like Mercy are awesome, this idea of God using you in your work does not apply only to volunteering at Christian clinics. Jesus can use you as you get coffee for patients on hospital floors, he can use you as you sit in chemistry class, he can use you as you shadow, and he can use you wherever he has placed you. You just need to abide wherever you are. Here then is your charge: Hey you! Undergrad! For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them…Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. – Ephesians 2:8-10 and 3:20-21 You are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that you should walk in them. Now lets go to work! In order to do your best, sometimes you have to study less.
If you set out to get an A in the most difficult, hardest, most challenging class at your school, how would you go about it? What would your strategy be? For many of us our reaction to taking very difficult classes is simply to lock ourselves in the library for days on end before each test and to pour every waking moment into our preparation. This was my initial reaction as I began to take organic chemistry. As I began to struggle in the beginning of the semester, I spent more and more time at the library until not only my grades were suffering, but my friendships began to suffer as well. Eventually I learned something that is very counterintuitive, but what I believe is actually the secret to long term academic success as a premed student. In order to do your best, sometimes you have to study less. We can all agree with this principle on a microscale, but for some reason there is a disconnect when we decide to apply it to the rest of our lives. For example, let’s pretend that it is bedtime and you are taking the MCAT tomorrow morning. There are two options available to you: 1. Go to sleep and get eight hours before your test tomorrow 2. Stay up all night cramming as much information into your brain as possible while drinking as much coffee as possible Which of those two options will result in the best test score? While I absolutely love coffee, obviously the best thing to do is to get a good night sleep. That sleep though comes at the cost of several hours of studying. Sleeping well, spending quality time with family, hanging out with friends, volunteering in a meaningful way that serves the community, going to church, exercise, investing in the next generation, and having fun are all things that will improve your test scores if you include them in your schedule. The key is balance. You will preform your best in your most difficult classes when alongside your studying you are also keeping the rest of your priorities in line. This is because while the quantity of the time you spend studying will go down, the quality of that study time will dramatically increase when your life is balanced. This is a tension every student has to learn how to manage. There are weeks when your every waking moment is spent in preparation for a really difficult set of tests, but if every single week is like that then you will start to burn out and preform worse and worse as time goes on as the quality of your study time steadily decreases. The other reason it is important to keep your priorities straight is because they are your priorities. If you preform excellently in all of your classes, but lose hold of the more important things in life, then at the end of the day that report card is worthless. Work is just one part of life, and the key is to keep it in its proper place. The most intense academic semester I have had so far was the Spring of my junior year while I was preparing for the MCAT, but it was also one of the most enjoyable semesters of college. Yes, it is possible for those two things to go hand in hand. I found that having a balanced schedule of hard work actually gave me a great deal more of satisfaction in my work, I preformed better and achieved better results from my work, and I didn’t lose sight of the things most important to me. It was a great semester. It is great to talk about balance, but practically it is difficult to put into practice because when the next big test rolls around the stress you feel will cause you to be tempted to throw everything by the wayside and hit the library. My biggest practical recommendation to is to decide how much you are going to work every week. Be intentional about that decision, don’t just let it happen as your stress level dictates. During my MCAT prep I made a weekly calendar template and set aside time for the non-negotiables such as work, class, sleep, small group, and free time. Then I penciled in the hours I was going to study each day. It is important to decide what your typical week looks like instead of just letting it happen to you. Then in that MCAT semester as I was studying for my Genetics class I would get out two pieces of paper, and write down everything I wanted to do to study for the next exam. On one sheet I would write down everything that I wanted to do as the class went through the material, and then on the other I wrote what I wanted to do in the two weeks leading up to the exam. Then as each week started I would take my checklist for what I wanted to do for Genetics and assign those tasks to those chunks of time when I would be studying in my generic weekly schedule. Then each morning as the day started I would rearrange that day to fit the specific things happening that day. Intentionally deciding how you are going to spend your time on paper allows you to make clearer decisions about your time, and it allows you to improve your schedule from week to week to make better use of your time. The irony is that it takes time to do this, but I have found that investing a small amount of time in planning how I will spend my time actually results in a lot more free time than when I just kind of wing it. Having a balanced schedule frees you to truly do your best in your classes while insuring that the most important things are kept in front. And as an aside, I am NOT an organized person, and I was able to make this work. It doesn’t have to be a fancy little notebook or anything, I personally use blank pieces of 8 ½” x 11” paper for my everyday and Google Calendar/iCal for my weekly template. Don’t bite off more than you can chew As you take a look at your weekly schedule, you might realize that there is no way to make everything fit. Lots of premeds find themselves in these crazy semesters where they are trying to take lots of intense science classes along with getting shadowing hours, working in a lab, trying to actually have friends, and sleep all at the same time, and at the end of the day they end up doing none of those things well. As you plan for your next semester position yourself for success and only bite off as much as you can chew. As much as possible, spread out your difficult classes across different semesters. I took organic I, organic II, biochemistry, genetics, and Spanish literature all in different semesters, but if I had taken those classes all at the same time I would have done poorly in all of them. Think very carefully before taking leadership positions in organizations on campus. It is a good thing to be involved, I am personally on leadership at RUF and Mercy Health Center here at Georgia, but think carefully about your schedule before adding anything to it. If you try to do everything you will do nothing well. Pick the two or three things you want to do and go all in for those things. This is especially true for the semester you will take the MCAT. Do everything you can throughout your college career to make the semester before the MCAT as chill as possible. This will enable you to study the way you would like to for the MCAT so that you can confidently feel like you have done your best to prepare for it when test time comes. There are students who start studying for the MCAT the month before the test because of busy school schedules who do very well on the test, but just from my experience it was so nice to be able to take my time and go over the material at a steady pace. If you absolutely have to have a busy schedule that semester it will be ok because there are lots of other students just like you, but if you can afford yourself the luxury of studying for the MCAT at a slow steady pace definitely take advantage of it. “Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.”
Upperclassmen: · Intentionally decide how they are going to study · Improve how they study overtime A lot could be said about the best way to study for difficult classes, but here is one practical thing that you can do that I believe you will find very helpful. It is very simple, but like flashcards most of the best study aids are simple. Intentionally decide how you are going to study for each class. Don’t just take it one homework assignment or test at a time. This sounds really obvious, but fewer people do this than you would think. In easy classes many people just passively absorb material, and then the week of the test finally sit down and figure out how they are going to cram for the exam. Fortunately, this type of strategy can work just fine for classes such as RELI1001, but my encouragement to you is that if that is the strategy that you want take, then write it down and consciously decide that you will not think about that class until a week before the exam instead of just letting it passively happen[1]. In difficult classes this manifests itself differently. Instead of sitting down and making a plan before attacking a difficult class, many people just dive head first into their studies. They work problems, they read the book, they listen to recordings of lecture, they study in groups, and in short they try everything that they can think to do. The problem with this is that it is difficult to replicate or improve upon this approach. As you sit down to study for a class for the first time, make two lists. On the first list, write everything you want to do throughout the semester as new material is being presented (read the chapter before lecture, take notes in class, etc.), and on the second list write everything you want to do to review right before each exam. Putting your plan down in writing forces you to intentionally decide how you want to study, and it provides accountability to help you to finish the drill. Next, take that plan and go into office hours. Show your plan to your professor, and ask them for advice on how to improve it. Then follow it through until the first graded assignment. Each grade is a measure of how successful your plan was in meeting your goal. Use each grade as feedback to improve your plan. Use your latest test to identify where your study plan did a really great job, and then try to see where your study plan can be improved. Commit to continuously improving your study plan to be the best student you can be. This allows you to make the best use of your limited study time in order to get the best results you can achieve. I distinctly remember a conversation I overheard in my Genetics breakout session between a girl with a wearied, disappointed tone in her voice and my TA. She really wanted to do well in Genetics, and throughout the semester had worked really hard doing everything she could to learn the material. I had seen her at every single one of the optional breakout sessions, but then I heard her tell the TA that all of her hard work had just resulted in another frustrating grade. The problem was not at all with the amount of work that she had put in. The problem was her approach. She was reading every chapter before lecture, she recorded each lecture and listened to it a second time later, she was faithfully taking notes, and then she was using the small amount of time she had left to work a handful of problems from the book. She was doing everything she could think of as it popped into her mind to study for Genetics. Her issue unfortunately was the amount of problems that she was working. At the beginning of the semester I went to office hours with my plan, but when asked how to study for his course my professor just told me to do nothing but work as many problems as I could. He said that if I could just work problems, that I would do absolutely fine. In that break out session I shared the advice I had been given with my classmate, and by focusing on working problems she was able to do much better on the next exam. It was because she had not fully thought out and researched her study plan that she accidentally ended up wasting many long hours in the library doing things that yielded her very little return on test day. How terrible is that? Time is precious. Make the best use of yours by intentionally focusing on the tasks that give you the most bang for your buck. For the Future Intentionally creating study plans is also helpful because overtime you will begin to see patterns from class to class and semester to semester. Eventually you will know the best way for you to personally study, and then you will be able to study more efficiently and effectively. This is the reason that seniors are able to take upper level major courses that would leave freshmen quaking in their boots. The upperclassmen have not gotten smarter since they have been in college, but they have developed their skills as students and reached a new level of performance. Continue intentionally deciding how you want to study and continue to improve your approach, and you will become like a master craftsman who continues to hone his craft to be the best it can be. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [1] Note that I am in no way trying to talk down on this way of studying. I do this exact thing for many of my classes. In fact, in an ideal semester I would try to take several lighter classes that I can study for like this along with one difficult class in order to create a balanced schedule. “By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. A wise man is full of strength, and a man of knowledge enhances his might, for by wise guidance you can wage your war, and in abundance of counselors there is victory.” Proverbs 24:3-6
One of the most important aspects of being premed is getting good advice from people who know what they are talking about. The road to medical school is a long one with lots of simple small steps, and getting good advice will help keep you heading in the right direction. Here is a small list of questions you probably will want to ask someone at different stages of your premed journey: · What professors should I take for my _______ class? · How in the world am I supposed to pass my ______ class? · How do I go about asking for letters of recommendation? · Do you think I should pursue a research experience? · How do I get in a lab? · How do I do excellent research while not getting burned out between my research and all of my other work? · What is it like to fill out the AMCAS? · How should I study for the MCAT? · How can I get some shadowing experience? · What are some good places to volunteer? · What the heck is a personal statement? · What date should I try to get my application in by? · How should I prepare for a medical school interview? This list could go on and on for a long time, but as simple as it sounds many premeds do not ever ask these questions. Instead of seeking advice, many students just kind of wing it and presume it will all turn out alright. This is a foolish approach. You are investing a lot of time, sweat, and money in being a premed; don’t you want to make sure you are investing all of that effort in the best way possible? You owe it to yourself to get advice and be the most successful premed you can be. And note this: this principle is not just for the freshmen. It doesn’t matter where you are in the medical school journey, seeking advice is essential to ensuring that you are making the most of the opportunities in front of you. There is a danger as we grow older to begin to think that we know all of the answers, and that pride is extremely dangerous. Proverbs 19:27 says “Cease to hear instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge.” How terrible would it be to work really hard for so long and then to not put your best foot forward because you didn’t get advice at a mock interview first? Keep getting advice throughout the process, and keep moving forward. Where is the best place to get this advice? Great advice can be hard to find. “Gold there is, and rubies in abundance, but lips that speak knowledge are a rare jewel (Proverbs 20:15).” It can be a difficult process to find great advice, but it is so worth it!! Search for it like you would a jewel. Look for an upperclassman you respect who is a step farther along in the process, and buy them some coffee! They remember what it was like to be in your shoes, and if it is someone you want to listen to then I am confident that they would love to help you out. You probably will also get a new friend :D. A main reason I am where I am today is because I had the opportunity to get advice from an upperclassman who had just been through the process. Take advantage of your school’s counselors and career center if they are available to you. Their full-time job is to help people get into medical school and they are good at what they do. Go to their seminars. Take notes. Listen to them. Invest in yourself by getting some good advice. You won’t regret it. |
AuthorI am a premed senior at the University of Georgia, and I hope you find this blog helpful in your journey. Archives
January 2016
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