hmm . . . why did i change my mind? i better come up with a good answer since im sure i'll get asked eventually! and i cant tell an interviewer what i'll tell you.
i always felt kind of aimless in art . . . i went into it because it was definitely my most obvious ability, but as i got further through undergrad i decided it wasnt exactly my most fulfilling one. i couldnt get over the shallow feeling of art as a career and i was also getting pretty burned out on how stupid it all was. a couple of my professors in my program were medical illustrators, so i decided that would be a good way to do the art thing but be involved in something more academic and relevant to society. so i took a bunch of science courses and once i realized i could hold my own in them (pretty well) i began to wonder if i really needed art as my little safety net to become involved in medicine. i started doing research to find out how possible it would be for me to go to medical school, and realized that although it would be difficult, i definitely think it's possible. this sounds weird, but i think i have the hands of an artist but the brain of a scientist. i actually hate going to art museums. i could never get into the art 'scene' because i think art is kind of silly, it just somehow worked out that i was good at it. but i want to be a surgeon. that would be a better use of my nerd brain-meets-crazy manual dexterity thing i have going on.
anyway, once i graduated i felt the biggest sense of freedom to be out of the art world. i volunteered at a hospital, which led to actually being employed there for a while, and that sealed the deal. it's just so much more fulfilling than art. i couldnt do art for a living. i still want to do it, but only on the side. like, be a physician and just put up my own illustrations in my office
in a way i dont see it exactly as a "change." my whole life i have been interested in science and medicine, but i was just born somehow being really good at art, which is a strange sort of blessing and curse. so all along i've been kinda pigeonholed and pushed down that particular path, and after i graduated from undergrad i sort of had this epiphany and realized i did not HAVE to do art. thus freeing me to pursue the other interest i've had all along, medicine. in a way it works out though . . . i think my ultimately disappointing path down art makes me a lot more sure about my current path (by the way, although my masters degree is tough, i love it.) i cant help but assume lots of premeds feel/felt exactly how i did as an undergrad: is this really what i want? is this just what i/ someone else THINKS i SHOULD be doing? why am i doing this? what else could i have done with my life? so had i been a premed in the first place, i might be just as burned out with *that* path. instead though, now i am excited!
i feel like i am getting a second chance to do something new and exciting. and much to my surprise, it seems (at some schools) that the whole art thing may actually swing things in my favor by making me a more unusual applicant. not to mention that, if i had done well in a bio major, i would just be like everyone else. but as an art major everyone assumes you're an uneducated hippie, so it's: "wow, the art major got an A on the bio test! amazing!!" so i certainly dont regret the path i took, although i wish i was a little younger! (i think i will be about 27 when i start med, if i get in somewhere on my first round.)
i am unsure how to spin it in interviews, though, if i get to that point. i think they want artists who are 'passionate' about art. im sorry, but if anyone was really passionate about it, they would be doing that instead of spending all their free time applying to med schools. i am just kind of thinking along the lines of: "i love it, bla bla bla, but i need something more academically stimulating/ relevant to the actual needs of society." et cetera.
how bout you??