Am I wasting my time? 24 Ws

[bottledchalk]

Hello,

I'm a 27 y/o graduating with my BS in Electrical Engineering this coming may with a 3.8x GPA (AMCAS is also 3.8x). I have 24 withdrawals. Here is the basic laydown

1. The first 21 withdrawals were incurred while working a full-time nightshift job. This was untenable and wrecked my sleep schedule. I was eventually diagnosed with a sleep disorder and sought a retroactive medical withdrawal, which my university approved. That is the first 15 withdrawals. I continued to struggle a little while I was readjusting and incurred 6 more.

2. In order to facilitate not having to work to support myself I transferred to another university, from which I'm graduating. I'll have completed 79 credits here and I've incurred 3 withdrawals. One is from Summer 2020. I simply over-extended myself trying to complete 14 credits in the shortened summer semester... I dropped a class and then repicked it up in the next summer session and finished with an A. The other 2 are from fall 2020. A family friend had covid and gave it to my family. She was hospitalized for several weeks and since we had already been exposed and all had symptoms her adult special-needs child quarantined with us. My bout wasn't especially severe, but the entire ordeal knocked me off my game and I ended up dropping 2 classes.


3. I don't really have a well-rounded app. I've TA'd a class for 1 year now and I'm a board member of the professional organization for EE at my school, but that's the extent of my ECs. I have completed all the premed prereqs with A-'s or A's.


At this point I don't know what to do. I really want to attend medical school but I feel like its a lost cause since the process is so competitive. Should I soldier on? Since I lack volunteering and med exp I've been thinking about doing a special 15 month tour in the army as a medic, but I've now also been accepted to a few really prestigious graduate engineering programs (some with full funding and a stipend) and I'm worried that I'm taking a huge risk by not accepting them in favor of pursuing med school (where my app might be DOA.)

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[DocJanItor]

I think you're looking at the whole withdrawal thing too literally. Yes, a high number of withdrawals looks suspicious for not being able to handle a rigorous workload, but that's not what's going on here. You've got a medical reason for most of those withdrawals and have proven otherwise that you're able to handle a full load of courses, so I don't think they're going to be an app killer. 2020 is its own thing, so I think a lot of schools are going to have flexibility on things that happened during COVID.

Now, look at your application as if you didn't have all those Ws. No volunteering, no clinical exposure, few ECs; those are your app killers. You need to take time to get the rest of your app well rounded and take the MCAT before you'll be ready to apply.

Finally, you've got acceptances to graduate engineering programs with $$$$. That's no small accomplishment in the EE world, so it proves you've been dedicated to this path in education. It begs the question of why do you want to go to medical school when you've clearly been preparing this other path? I'm not saying you shouldn't do medicine, but it's possible to do your graduate degree and then medicine. It's only another 2 years, you can take the time you need to get your application in order, and then you can apply directly out of graduate school.

Also, definitely don't do the army thing. If anything were to happen then your 15 months might turn out to be a lot longer than you expected.

 

[bottledchalk]

Thanks for the reply, maybe you're right. I'm feeling really intimated by the volunteering and clinical exposure element. I did call a few places and they're simply not interested because of COVID... That's sort of why I thought the army thing could work because it seems to cover all the bases. Plus, I have about $20k in private student debt I need to payoff immediately per my agreement with my cosigners and the army about covers that through a sign-on bonus. They also offer student loan forbearance. I did do some research as I was worried they could try to extend the contract and you're sort of right, but I think its a small chance. I'm not what my other options are.

In regards to the grad programs, they're at least 4 years long, and while EE can be relevant to medicine, the departments at the programs I got into aren't really active in those areas.

 

[CricB4Tube]

Hello,

I'm a 27 y/o graduating with my BS in Electrical Engineering this coming may with a 3.8x GPA (AMCAS is also 3.8x). I have 24 withdrawals. Here is the basic laydown

1. The first 21 withdrawals were incurred while working a full-time nightshift job. This was untenable and wrecked my sleep schedule. I was eventually diagnosed with a sleep disorder and sought a retroactive medical withdrawal, which my university approved. That is the first 15 withdrawals. I continued to struggle a little while I was readjusting and incurred 6 more.

2. In order to facilitate not having to work to support myself I transferred to another university, from which I'm graduating. I'll have completed 79 credits here and I've incurred 3 withdrawals. One is from Summer 2020. I simply over-extended myself trying to complete 14 credits in the shortened summer semester... I dropped a class and then repicked it up in the next summer session and finished with an A. The other 2 are from fall 2020. A family friend had covid and gave it to my family. She was hospitalized for several weeks and since we had already been exposed and all had symptoms her adult special-needs child quarantined with us. My bout wasn't especially severe, but the entire ordeal knocked me off my game and I ended up dropping 2 classes.


3. I don't really have a well-rounded app. I've TA'd a class for 1 year now and I'm a board member of the professional organization for EE at my school, but that's the extent of my ECs. I have completed all the premed prereqs with A-'s or A's.


At this point I don't know what to do. I really want to attend medical school but I feel like its a lost cause since the process is so competitive. Should I soldier on? Since I lack volunteering and med exp I've been thinking about doing a special 15 month tour in the army as a medic, but I've now also been accepted to a few really prestigious graduate engineering programs (some with full funding and a stipend) and I'm worried that I'm taking a huge risk by not accepting them in favor of pursuing med school (where my app might be DOA.)

I also think the lack of clinical and volunteer experience really kills your app. It'll be hard to honestly answer the "why medicine" question if you never even shadowed a doctor or worked with a patient. I feel I've answered nearly all my interview questions with knowledge I've obtained from my clinical experience.
Since your withdrawals are for actual medical reasons, I don't think they're a major concern, especially since you did well in school, but GPA/MCAT scores are only there to get adcoms to read your application. If they read it and see you have no clinical or volunteer experience, why would they accept you over the thousands of over applicants with similar scores but more dedication to medicine?
Regarding the 15 month stint as a 68W, I don't recommend it. As a military medic who spent a lot of time training Army medics, they don't get nearly enough clinical experience compared to civilian EMTs and they also don't get to shadow/work with physicians too often in the Guard/Reserve. You'd probably be better off getting your EMT license and get a clinical job through that while also volunteering on your off time in some capacity that you find meaningful.

 

[bottledchalk]

For sure the clinical exposure and volunteering bit is problematic. The 15 month stint as a 68W isn’t guard, it’s AD through the national call to service. Working as a civilian EMT won’t be possible. If I do enter the workforce in May in something besides the NCS/68W I’ll need to do so as an engineer in order to afford to live & pay my student loans (the NCS gives a $20k sign on bonus to use against student loans and forbearance for the surplus, which is essentially what would allow me to feasibly accept such a low salary)