blogging a valid EC?

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romanjetfighter

romanjetfighter

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So I started a blog... it's not medical related, really, more biology, genetics, some physics (cosmology). Is this a proper EC? I have gotten quite a following in the past month since I have been doing it, and I've been working on it almost nonstop for the past month. It's taking time from traditional volunteering at the hospital... I'm going to try to balance things out, but I am just wondering on the worthiness of blogging as an EC. Also, if I voice my opinion about something (I trashed the ACS) is that a good or bad thing? Please let me know if you guys have blogs too that are not directly medical related. My blog is http://www.thetruthaboutgenetics.com Like I said, I have some controversial opinions... could this hurt me? Would it be better if I focused more on physiology and medical stuff?
 
This is unfortunately not something I would want people knowing as an EC. Especially adcoms. You should avoid this at all costs. Find something else to list.

Also, remember to maintain anonymity etc. It is very important, not only in medical school admissions, but in other aspects of your life.
 
I don't think blogging should be categorically ignored. However, I'd only discuss it if your blog is a pretty big deal, i.e., thousands of visitors daily, pretty extensive, maybe even something that you can support yourself with. Otherwise it's not very impressive - what could you possibly say about it?
 
ECs carry the label "Experiences" on the AMCAS application. You could list it on the application and report how many hours per week you spend on it. It does show your ability to communicate in writing and to make technical information understandable to the lay public (I'm making an assumption here; I haven't looked at the blog).

While you could list it, the bigger question is: should you list it? Are you willing to be challenged on anything you've written there? willing to be questioned about it in an interview? If so, go for it. If not, keep in to your self, you are certainly not obligated to report it.
 
romanjetfighter said:
So I started a blog... it's not medical related, really, more biology, genetics, some physics (cosmology). Is this a proper EC? I have gotten quite a following in the past month since I have been doing it, and I've been working on it almost nonstop for the past month. It's taking time from traditional volunteering at the hospital... I'm going to try to balance things out, but I am just wondering on the worthiness of blogging as an EC. Also, if I voice my opinion about something (I trashed the ACS) is that a good or bad thing? Please let me know if you guys have blogs too that are not directly medical related. My blog is http://www.thetruthaboutgenetics.com Like I said, I have some controversial opinions... could this hurt me? Would it be better if I focused more on physiology and medical stuff?
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No offense, but why would you want anyone to read that? I just checked out your blog and it seems like you're a smart person with a decent body, just trying to make your self seem smarter by explaining pretty basic science stuff....I'd pass it; if doctors/medical students far more conceited than me get their eyes on it, they'll surely judge you.

P.S. I read your ACS is a scam, and I kinda started wondering if you were my soulmate... 👍 I can't begin to tell you how much I hate the ACS and "Relay for Life" (they should just go ahead and rename it "Relay for Profit"; those kids at Virginia Tech raised something like 500k for them....well, atleast that's enough for half the pay for once CEO! whew! Glad we got that necessary expense out of the way!. What an embarrassment.)
 
Oh, btw, will you marry me?
 
romanjetfighter said:
So I started a blog... it's not medical related, really, more biology, genetics, some physics (cosmology). Is this a proper EC? I have gotten quite a following in the past month since I have been doing it, and I've been working on it almost nonstop for the past month. It's taking time from traditional volunteering at the hospital... I'm going to try to balance things out, but I am just wondering on the worthiness of blogging as an EC. Also, if I voice my opinion about something (I trashed the ACS) is that a good or bad thing? Please let me know if you guys have blogs too that are not directly medical related. My blog is http://www.thetruthaboutgenetics.com Like I said, I have some controversial opinions... could this hurt me? Would it be better if I focused more on physiology and medical stuff?
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If you think it has made an impact on your life, go ahead and list it. I listed a blog as one of my activities, but did so because I'm the President of the organization and at the peak of its existence, had thousands of daily visitors. I spun it as a leadership activity, in that I had to moderate what others were saying while still keeping our value of freedom of speech.

AllDay24 said:
I have a quick question about this. In my activities section, I was thinking of providing links for the adcoms to view some of my stuff. But is anonymity the way to go in the app process?
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Here's my 2 cents: You should not be writing anything on the internet if you don't want someone else seeing it and connecting it back to you. You are not anonymous, no matter how much you think you are.

So, in that sense, you're not really anonymous anyway, so it doesn't matter if you provide the link or not. But, just because you aren't anonymous doesn't mean you have to advertise everything about yourself. If you're okay with adcoms knowing about your activities and reading about them, then go ahead and include the link. If you are nervous about it, don't include it.
 
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Google yourself. Add the name of your hometown or the name of your school if your name is a common one. See what I'll see when an adcom member googles you because they will google you.

I do like URLs and sometimes I will go to the links & sometimes I won't bother. I do look at the stats of varsity players, read the articles of college journalists and look for You-tube videos of musicians.

Don't put anything on the internet that you don't want to share with the world, including the adcom.
 
Those are really, really short blog entries. How much time do you spend on this, exactly?
 
I was wondering the same thing actually. Although I am not even close to applying to medical school, I own several blogs that I use for some passive income. I get over 20,000 unique visitors to my blog per month. Not to thread jack, but I am curious if I would be able to list my blog. It is not a personal blog, just one for news (video game news, lol).
 
Well, the reason why I'd say it's impressive at all is that I've gotten 50k views in less than a month and yes, it supports me as much as a part time job and I'm learning HTML and javascript and computer stuff. And those of you who say the blog entries are light, yes some of them are, others are very long, but I included page breaks in them... anyways, thanks for your responses. :3
 
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If you're going to promote your blog as an EC, I would probably change the picture of you to something a little less.. tits-in-your-face. Decent blog, though, I agreed with a lot of things you wrote.
 
Screw what all the other ppl have said, if you do something, ANYTHING, outside of school that you're passionate about, you should be proud of it and list it. I think a blog about biology/genetics is fantastic, and I think that shows how passionate you are about the field.

Even if you had a blog about something totally unrelated to science, you should list it. After all, it's an extracurricular activity! I brewed beer in college (after I turned 21, of course), played in some rock bands. A lot of my med school interviews spent a significant amount of time talking about these. And I got accepted to those schools too.

Most med schools want to see that you're a person, not a mindless straight A+, 40MCAT robot.


but I agree with these two below:

medicalmuscle said:
http://www.thetruthaboutgenetics.com/2011/07/question-of-day_25.html

UMMM

WTF
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this.

vin5cent0 said:
I would probably change the picture of you to something a little less.. tits-in-your-face.
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AND THIS. professionalism professionalism professionalism
 
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I agree with the above posters. It does seem like something you have spent a lot of time on and probably something you could talk passionately about that has some effects on your life, so in that case then yes I do see it as a valid EC.

But do change your profile picture...trying to show your cleavage or something? I mean I'm not complaining but I doubt you want adcoms seeing that as your profile picture.
 
I've blogged extensively in the past and mentioned it in my primary app and have talked about it in some secondaries. As a number of the entries and photography there went on to get published elsewhere, I thought it was important.

Bottom line if you think it's part of the narrative you're presenting to adcoms, then go for it!
 
robbieflick said:
I've blogged extensively in the past and mentioned it in my primary app and have talked about it in some secondaries. As a number of the entries and photography there went on to get published elsewhere, I thought it was important.

Bottom line if you think it's part of the narrative you're presenting to adcoms, then go for it!
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This I think is the perfect example of how this can be appropriate to mention. Your blogging was demonstrably successful and the fact that you were published made the activity much more interesting and commendable.

You could say the same thing for video games: I could include on my primary that I play Counterstrike a few hours a week and that would be laughable. If I mentioned that I was a sponsored, professional gamer, however, that would not only be more interesting but also more legitimate.

I think this sort of trend holds true for pretty much any activity.
 
NickNaylor said:
This I think is the perfect example of how this can be appropriate to mention. Your blogging was demonstrably successful and the fact that you were published made the activity much more interesting and commendable.

You could say the same thing for video games: I could include on my primary that I play Counterstrike a few hours a week and that would be laughable. If I mentioned that I was a sponsored, professional gamer, however, that would not only be more interesting but also more legitimate.

I think this sort of trend holds true for pretty much any activity.
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👍
 
The magic of having a blog is that you can say s**t without repercussions. If you lose your anonymity by putting it on your AMCAS etc, you really lose everything that makes cool blogs cool. IMHO, that is.
 
0919mmk said:
The magic of having a blog is that you can say s**t without repercussions. If you lose your anonymity by putting it on your AMCAS etc, you really lose everything that makes cool blogs cool. IMHO, that is.
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👍
 
A few of my interviews asked about my hobby (chess), so the interviewer might ask about your hobby of blogging. I think it's better to put something else.
 
tima said:
A few of my interviews asked about my hobby (chess), so the interviewer might ask about your hobby of blogging. I think it's better to put something else.
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I can say that I went to nationals when I was twelve. lol
 
Yeah, I think I will add it to my ECs. People are advised to talk about sports and stuff and learning a new language.

Isn't HTML a language? Isn't blogging a constructive hobby? Especially if it's about science. I'm thinking it would make me more marketable in finding an okay job in a gap year or whatever. Anyways, I'm going to continue more on the blogging route. I am not sure if it's a leadership role but I do moderate a lot of discussions. the profile picture, I can change it at any time. What's important is the actual posts, right? Maybe posting regularly with quality content proves you stick to things and have dtermination? So many bloggers give up after a few weeks since they have no viewers.

As to the blogger that got their stuff published, congrats! Photography blogs are super popular, especially if they're good. Cheers! If you guys have blogs yourselves or know any good medical blogs (aside from the ones already posted in other threads) please send me a PM and I'll check you guys out!
 
Pro-tip: When trying to take a photograph that you don't want to a) be incredibly grainy and b) have absolutely terrible color balance, try not to be backlit, which is to say, have the light source in front of you.

That being said, if you're getting loads of hits and posting substantive entries, I don't see why not, though I would change the photo before putting it on AMCAS.🙂

And no, HTML is not a language.
 
I personally would only put blogging on my app if I were paid to do it.


If you DO list it, make sure everything you write is something you'd want an adcoms to read.
 
romanjetfighter said:
the profile picture
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tumblr_lkbok5UncU1qfjjglo1_500.jpg
 
Myuu said:
To coders, it bears no resemblance to a language.
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I always thought of HTML as being similar to a phrase book that you'd get going to a foreign country. Yeah, it's confusing to start with, and it'll help you get around, but you can't have a full (or even substantial) conversation with it.
 
tima said:
A few of my interviews asked about my hobby (chess), so the interviewer might ask about your hobby of blogging. I think it's better to put something else.
Click to expand...
Sorry, but I don't follow how you came to that conclusion based on your experience with the interviewer asking you about your hobby
 
I'm pretty sure that Paul speaks machine language. 😛

I'm going to list that the Mario game that I made in GW Basic. 😀
 
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