Advice for Sophomore Year

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TrojanBacteria

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I just finished my freshman year with a strong GPA. I am a Biochem major interested in pursuing a career in medical research (shooting for MD/PhD, but we'll see how that goes...). I also go to a top-25 university, if that makes any difference. Anyway, I'm finished with the Gen Chem and Gen Bio series, and am currently taking both calculus-based Physics courses at a state school this summer (closer to home, cheaper). Just for the record, the reason I'm taking summer classes is because I got rejected to the summer program I applied to and didn't have anything more productive to do. So instead, I'll be studying Physics and beginning my Verbal self-prep (starting super early) in my free time.

I only decided to do pre-med late in the spring semester after taking a medical seminar with a renowned-surgeon at the City of Hope. Before, I was interested in doing research in the sciences. So I figured it would be a good idea to combine those two interests and try out activities related to the health field to see if I like it. I "declared" pre-med officially in April during my last advisor meeting, so I'm way behind in terms of volunteering, shadowing, and other ECs.

Since I had a lot of career uncertainties, most of my activities are unfocused and sparse (i.e. Pre-Pharmacy Society, a few honor societies, community outreach). I'm a little disappointed in myself for not doing more in terms of ECs my freshman year, but in retrospect, my good grades were probably a result of not overloading myself with activities. With that said, I'll be starting research in the fall with a professor whose lab deals with molecular genetics and long-term survival of bacteria. I've mainly attended group meetings and discussed various research papers with him during the spring, because his lab was full at the time. But I'll be learning lab techniques and hopefully starting up a research project of my own soon.

I also hope to start volunteering at the hospitals near my university's medical campus. If I have time (on top of O-chem, MoBio, Multivar Calc), I also might volunteer or work as a teaching assistant through a science outreach program. In addition, I want to get involved in the health/pre-med orgs around campus to see which one is a good fit. I definitely want to start writing on the school health/pre-med paper and do some non-clinical work as well. Just got to be sure not to overload, because I've seen that happen to way too many people. On a funny note, I also applied to a few of those third-world country mobile clinic trips last semester and unfortunately got rejected because of my lack of experience in volunteering :laugh: Maybe this year.

What words of advice would you give to me, now that I'm heading into my sophomore year? What types of activities should I check out? Am I on the right track and at a decent pace? I am very aware that my obvious weak point is my lack of volunteering experience and almost non-existent ECs (at this point), so I welcome all advice and criticism.

Thanks for reading! I appreciate your posts :thumbup:

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I am currently in the same situation as you. Just finished freshman year and I have been taking 15 credit hours this summer. From the countless threads I've read on SDN it sounds like you're way ahead of the game. Many, "will be" sophomores haven't even begun to think about a research position let alone already landing one. Also starting to crack open MCAT books has been super beneficial to me. Even though I have not learned much of the material yet, it gives a good insight as to the structure of the test and it always helps to practice problems(even though the 2015 MCAT's will be structured differently). I know I can't really say too much (being in a similar situation), however I would say you've got it nailed down and just keep doing what you're doing.

Oh also, I've been volunteering at a hospital once a week for about 4 hours and it's really been a great experience especially since I had no prior medical experience at all. I would really suggest devoting just a little time to volunteering...I even see kids with desk positions at the hospital who just bring in homework, whatever works.
 
Thanks! If we take the MCAT at the traditional pace (around the end of junior year in 2014), we won't have to take the new version (thankfully!). I'm trying to get a head start for the verbal because of all the horror stories (especially for science majors). And also, there's nothing much you can do but read up on a few strategies and practice a bunch of passages until you get into a good score range. The best way is to start those early and figure out some tricks, I suppose.

About the volunteering...I'm excited to start next semester (it's too late to start now since I have about a month before school starts and hospitals usually want a long-term commitment). But I definitely want to get a position that involves more than just clerical work and paperwork filing, even though that's where I'll likely start off with. I was thinking of volunteering at the coroner's office or something similar. Since not a lot of students would want to work there (yay for dead bodies?), I would have more opportunities to observe the analysis and even get hands-on experience. I'm intrigued with pathology, so hopefully I'll find out whether I'm cut out for that career path or not.
 
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