UNTIabrat ... thanks for bumping the thread. I did a search on shoes and this thread came up ... interesting none-the-less.
So ... my story ... I'm currenly 25, halfway completed my MBA working full-time and looking to enroll in a post-bacc program.
Overachiever in high school ... great GPA, all the activities, 1200 SAT (wish I would have studied now), etc. Go to college, and I was burnout from high school. My friends in high school called me doc b/c I was always the first to help someone who was hurt. Freshman year I went to an all women's college in VA and I wasn't happy. Concentrated on my grades my spring semester after a disaterous fall but transfered to another college. Freshman year of college I also was an athletic trainer and LOVED it. I wanted to do sports medicine (even if its one of the hardest specialties ... but what isn't?). So when transferring to my new school (I was DIV III going to DIV I) I didn't play any sports (in DIVI I played DIVIII) and couldn't do athletic training. I was a chem major so I was taking OChem, Qchem and wondering what was I doing. I wasn't doing well, mostly b/c my study habits stunk. I didn't even try to study for the most part and was getting C's while teaching the material to those who were getting B's. End of my soph year I switched my major to Econ and minored in business. At this point I was in a relationship with someone who then transferred to my school beginning my junior year. Pretty much disaterous. Not saying it was him, it was mostly me because I felt so lost in the world. I didn't have direction and was very conflicted. I knew my life was endanged when I had the lowest of low GPA's my last semester in college ... a 1.8. I never got a C in high school. Well once, in AP ADV CHEM b/c I got senioritis early in the year .... but I hit ROCK BOTTOM. My overall GPA was a 2.3, science GPA sucked b/c my Qchem class was a joke and everyone got a D except for the 2 people in the class who actually did Qchem for a living (teacher was a visiting prof) and I didn't really try in college. So I took a job when I graduated with a bank I had worked at in high school and college.
As you can see by my join date, I have debated medicine for a long time. I was also deterred to go into medicine as school loans for my undergrad were $$$$ and I was overwhelmed by the thought of more debt ($140K!!!) so I just plugged along the banking route. Finally, I decided I needed to be in the medical field in some capacity so I turned to nursing. Applied and everything b/c I hated my job and my life. Well I never went to nursing school b/c a job opportunity came up with better pay in a different field (mortgage industry) so I took that. As I started they had a MBA affliation with a local university so I have started my MBA. I started a year ago and I am currently halfway done, therein lies my dilemma. Time is ticking. I have to do post-bacc but I don't want to leave the MBA when I'm almost done. Plus the money thing is still an issue but when I look back ... I wish I would have sucked it up when I first graduated. Of course I'm sure everyone says that but I also don't think that I would have been capable of handling school back then. I'm willing to overlook the money and concentrate on my goal. But post-bacc is at least a year away and I am contemplating going full-time but I do have financial obilgations as well so that will be addressed in about 3 months when I start to apply to programs. But I will be either 27 or 28 when I start med school (if I get in the first time!!!)
The past 3 years I have been through alot of life changes. I think what really drove me into medicine was my father's accident. He stepped on a cracked grate outside his office and fractured both of his femurs (don't ask me how, to this day we STILL aren't sure) and was bedridden for about 8 months. I wanted to help him so badly and he was moved home 4 weeks after the accident non-weight bearing. So we had to help him do everything from his bed, the OT and PT would come and help him with learning to transfer, etc. My mom became the best nurse in the world and I admire her for that. Which is why I looked into nursing. I want to help people, care for people, explore diseases and how the body functions. That is more medicinal than nursing though. My parents reaction to nursing was why don't you just go through med school (mind you this was only 2 years ago). Now they think I'm crazy to give up my stability in the business world. They want me to go to law school now. But I'm trying to drive the point across to my mother that medicine has always been a curious passion of mine. If I don't do this now, it will be my one regret.
So with all my life changes over the past 3 years from college, the family issues, the career issues, and finally the relationship issues ... I broke up with my boyfriend of 5 years b/c we were in two separate stages of our lives, and yes although I don't want to admit it to him, he was dragging me down academically in some aspects b/c he didn't flourish in his academia. He is trying to finish up his undergrad in business right now, just as unsure of what he wants to do as well as I am. I miss him as we have grown apart over the past 9 months but right now this is the happiest I have ever been.
I am currently volunteering at a hospital, just started this past weekend. I am on the oncology floor right now, nothing exciting. but even on my first day with the haggard nurses and doctors everywhere who ignored my exisitence I knew that I fit in. I longed to have the knowledge of the med student next to me on the elevator. I felt that this is the path that is true for me. So right now I am researching, researching, and researching everything about medicine, med school, processes, residencies, etc. My friend is a 4th year in maryland and he was impressed at how much knowledge I know about the process and med schools in general. Things that he didn't even know about in reference to actual med schools and stats, etc.
I have alot of experience that I bring to the table, so to speak. I will be entering med school with at least 4 years work experience, an MBA (which I have a good GPA thus far) and a broken undergrad. The past 8 years of my life have been a struggle for me with direction ... But there is a song that I sang in my high school "choir" that is a poem by robert frost ... that pretty much explains my life ... because no matter what choices I have made, they are my choices and I would not be who I am today without them. Some of us are just that stubborn and hardheaded that we chose to take the "road not taken" and yep, I'm one of them.
But that isn't going to slow me down!!!!
The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
The took the other, just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the other for another day!
Yes knowing how way leads to way,
I doubted if I shall ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in yellow wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
