Am I being stupid?

[ALnap]

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Currently a junior in college.

I pretty much always expected to go to medical school right away. Plans changed, then I decided to add ~2 gap years. Now after a quarter-life crisis, I'm rethinking my entire life and the route I want to live it. I will always want to be a doctor, but I have other dreams I want to fulfill as well. One of those dreams was to be a soldier, but I didn't have the guts as a high school grad to both tell my parents and enlist. Now, I'm scared that I will look back at my life as a 30-something year old doc and feel unfulfilled with the way I spent my years as a young adult. I want to live the only life I've got to the fullest. And right now, I feel that dedicating myself to chasing this dream is the right thing to do after I graduate.

Thing is, I'm probably a competitive enough med school applicant anyway. And this route is risky, with prerequisites and LOR's expiring well before I'd get out of the military. Not to mention that my family will borderline disown me if I do it.

Am I being stupid?

 

[500miles]

Currently a junior in college.

I pretty much always expected to go to medical school right away. Plans changed, then I decided to add ~2 gap years. Now after a quarter-life crisis, I'm rethinking my entire life and the route I want to live it. I will always want to be a doctor, but I have other dreams I want to fulfill as well. One of those dreams was to be a soldier, but I didn't have the guts as a high school grad to both tell my parents and enlist. Now, I'm scared that I will look back at my life as a 30-something year old doc and feel unfulfilled with the way I spent my years as a young adult. I want to live the only life I've got to the fullest. And right now, I feel that dedicating myself to chasing this dream is the right thing to do after I graduate.

Thing is, I'm probably a competitive enough med school applicant anyway. And this route is risky, with prerequisites and LOR's expiring well before I'd get out of the military. Not to mention that my family will borderline disown me if I do it.

Am I being stupid?

Have you thought about applying to USCIS where you do medical school and military service? They also pay for everything so it would be nice in that sense. But if you want to be a soldier who is actively on a battlefield or something than you should definitely think about your aspirations for a career because these are two very different lifestyles. Not sure what to tell you, but a gap year(s) is most definitely not a bad thing if there is ANYTHING besides medicine that you want to try out. And a taking time off to follow these dreams will probably only enhance your application if you come back to medicine in the future.

Also I dont think your being stupid.

 

[SangriaSalsa]

Go to med school and do the HPSP so you can do both

 

[Bob's Gift]

Go to med school and do the HPSP so you can do both

Hear, hear!

 

[Mt Kilimanjaro]

Uniformed Services University