Hi everyone,
I had a few ideas for my challenge essay, and wanted to see if anyone has any advice for which one to go with.
1) I started a TA job as a freshman. To my surprise, I was assigned to assist a class which was mostly seniors. I also hadn't taken the class before so was a little unqualified in some topics. It was difficult to establish rapport and I felt like I had little authority or expertise because of my age. I was able to overcome this by modifying the way I approached students, and with time, my confidence increased in this role.
For this one, I worry about seeming too young and unable to handle the responsibilities of medical school related to taking care of older patients (I am a 20 year old applicant). Is this a reasonable takeaway that adcoms may get from reading this? If so, any ideas for ways to portray this without seeming that way?
2) My extended family lives in Asia, and my parents and I often have to convince my grandparents to take care of their health - they are hesitant towards hospitalization and taking prescriptions. It's been a source of stress for me, but overall this experience taught me more about cultural attitudes toward health, as I saw the same things in my clinical volunteering.
I'm working off of this prompt and intend to generalize later: "Share with us a difficult or challenging situation you have encountered and how you dealt with it. In your response, identify both the coping skills you called upon to resolve the dilemma, and the support person(s) from whom you sought advice."
