ESL Teacher

[haoran]

Does a background in education at all look good on a medical school application? I graduated undergrad two years ago with a 3.7 GPA in Psychology, and I've been an ESL teacher ever since. I taught ESL for a year to blind students in a very poor part of China, followed by a year teaching elementary students in a low-income neighborhood in Rhode Island.

I'm starting my pre-med track this Fall, taking biology at HES, and I expect to be applying to medical school in about 2 years. In the meantime, I want to be working in a field that I can use on my med school application, but the only well-paying jobs I can find are teaching ESL.

Is my only option volunteer work, or does anyone know of people who have used their background in education in their favor?

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[kraskadva]

I'll let you know in a few months
I was a TEFL teacher for ~5 years and I'm in the application cycle now. I've heard positive things about teaching experience in terms of prep for medicine (try the search function, you'll find many old threads about this) and I certainly talk about those experiences in my app.

 

[SN12357]

Does a background in education at all look good on a medical school application? I graduated undergrad two years ago with a 3.7 GPA in Psychology, and I've been an ESL teacher ever since. I taught ESL for a year to blind students in a very poor part of China, followed by a year teaching elementary students in a low-income neighborhood in Rhode Island.

I'm starting my pre-med track this Fall, taking biology at HES, and I expect to be applying to medical school in about 2 years. In the meantime, I want to be working in a field that I can use on my med school application, but the only well-paying jobs I can find are teaching ESL.

Is my only option volunteer work, or does anyone know of people who have used their background in education in their favor?

Lots of people in my class have educational backgrounds. Assuming you get enough clinical experience elsewhere you should be fine. Talk up your experience on your app; anything that requires patience and people skills is a positive.

 

[haoran]

Kraskadva, I'll definitely be following your progress. Best of luck! And yes, please let me know how it all plays out for you.

I don't have clinical experience, but since I'm very early in the pre-med path (2 years out), I'm hoping I can catch up enough to become a competitive candidate. How do I get my foot in the door without any experience? Volunteering in a lab? Are labs taken as coursework generally considered lab experience?

 

[kraskadva]

Kraskadva, I'll definitely be following your progress. Best of luck! And yes, please let me know how it all plays out for you.

I don't have clinical experience, but since I'm very early in the pre-med path (2 years out), I'm hoping I can catch up enough to become a competitive candidate. How do I get my foot in the door without any experience? Volunteering in a lab? Are labs taken as coursework generally considered lab experience?

Thanks and I'll be posting...

Lab courses are not counted as "lab experience", only as coursework/fulfilling pre-reqs. Also clinical experience =/= lab experience. The former involves patients to some degree, the later involves hypothesis-driven science.

To get clinical experience: Haahvd should have a pretty ballin' pre-med and/or career development office, which you who pay tuition will have access to. Go talk to them, they likely have some in's around town (They should be able to give you pointers on getting research/lab experience too if you want that, but focus on clinical first)
Also- talk to your doctor. Explain your situation, ask if s/he allows pre-meds to shadow and/or if s/he has any colleagues who allow pre-meds to shadow.
Once you've shadowed a few times, ask the doc if they know any volunteer/paid positions open to pre-meds since you want to get more experience. You may get lucky and they offer you a spot at their office.
If not, call up the local hospitals/nursing homes/etc and ask about volunteer positions. If at first you don't succeed, call their HR department. If that doesn't work move down the list to the next one.
It's a long steady process of persistence, but keep going if this is what you really want to do.

 

[GreenDuck12]

Does a background in education at all look good on a medical school application? I graduated undergrad two years ago with a 3.7 GPA in Psychology, and I've been an ESL teacher ever since. I taught ESL for a year to blind students in a very poor part of China, followed by a year teaching elementary students in a low-income neighborhood in Rhode Island.

I'm starting my pre-med track this Fall, taking biology at HES, and I expect to be applying to medical school in about 2 years. In the meantime, I want to be working in a field that I can use on my med school application, but the only well-paying jobs I can find are teaching ESL.

Is my only option volunteer work, or does anyone know of people who have used their background in education in their favor?

Haoran, I'll be following your progress as well. I'm also an ESL teacher in MA and am working on the switch to pre-med classes and HES and UML/UMB. I'm trying to decide if I can continue as a teacher while taking classes part time or if it would be better to switch get a CNA certificate and find part time employment that way. If you are looking for ESL positions, there are a lot of places in and around Boston where you can find employment.