Does this plan look good for sophomore?

[Medigal]

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I am a sophomore majoring in Medical Studies at Arizona State. Currently, I have been accepted as a TA for a general biology lab so the workload is 10 hours per week. This is my first job so I am trying not to overwhelm myself with too many activities. I am taking Ochem 1, Phy 1, Psy 101, and Soc 101 for a total of 14 credits. I will be resuming my hospital volunteering position after a brief pause during the summer due to the hospital's administrative issues (the volunteer coordinator was replaced so the hospital lost its volunteer portal access and I could no longer sign up for shifts) and I only gained about 12 hours so far during the spring of my freshman year. I plan to begin non-clinical volunteering but don't know how to get started on that. I have been scheduled to shadow a DO family practice physician. I will shadow MDs in subspecialties in a state medical school during fall or winter break this year. I am also planning to get involved in research and have been in touch with various professors to see when I can get started. I am also in the process of becoming a volunteer for a student-run clinic which is a joint affiliation between three universities (my institution, a local medical school, and another university) and my role will be that of a patient advocate/navigator which will help me gain clinical experience in terms of underprivileged populations. Then I am collaborating with a resident physician from another state to set up his organization's node for a podcast show, educating people about health and wellness. For that, I will be interviewing clinicians and academicians and serving as a bridge between professionals and the general audience.

So to summarize, I wanted to know whether these activities sound good for sophomore year:

1. General Biology TA (Starting this fall)
2. Hospital Volunteer (Starting this fall)
3. Non-clinical volunteering (undecided)
4. Shadowing (Starting this fall and continue looking for specialty physicians while participating in a formal shadowing program in fall break or winter break)
5. Student-run clinic volunteer (starting mid-fall semester)
6. Research (if possible)
7. Podcast organization (Mid-fall or the end of the fall semester)

 

[ihoop24]

Looks good . I am also a sophomore and will be (hopefully) doing clinical and non-clinical volunteering during the school year while focusing on research and shadowing over breaks/summer. I would suggest maybe picking one of the two clinical experiences as you really don't need both. Also be careful having too many EC's at one time because that can take a toll on your GPA, which is harder to fix in the long run.

 

[Your Future Doctor]

I am a sophomore majoring in Medical Studies at Arizona State. Currently, I have been accepted as a TA for a general biology lab so the workload is 10 hours per week. This is my first job so I am trying not to overwhelm myself with too many activities. I am taking Ochem 1, Phy 1, Psy 101, and Soc 101 for a total of 14 credits. I will be resuming my hospital volunteering position after a brief pause during the summer due to the hospital's administrative issues (the volunteer coordinator was replaced so the hospital lost its volunteer portal access and I could no longer sign up for shifts) and I only gained about 12 hours so far during the spring of my freshman year. I plan to begin non-clinical volunteering but don't know how to get started on that. I have been scheduled to shadow a DO family practice physician. I will shadow MDs in subspecialties in a state medical school during fall or winter break this year. I am also planning to get involved in research and have been in touch with various professors to see when I can get started. I am also in the process of becoming a volunteer for a student-run clinic which is a joint affiliation between three universities (my institution, a local medical school, and another university) and my role will be that of a patient advocate/navigator which will help me gain clinical experience in terms of underprivileged populations. Then I am collaborating with a resident physician from another state to set up his organization's node for a podcast show, educating people about health and wellness. For that, I will be interviewing clinicians and academicians and serving as a bridge between professionals and the general audience.

So to summarize, I wanted to know whether these activities sound good for sophomore year:

1. General Biology TA (Starting this fall)
2. Hospital Volunteer (Starting this fall)
3. Non-clinical volunteering (undecided)
4. Shadowing (Starting this fall and continue looking for specialty physicians while participating in a formal shadowing program in fall break or winter break)
5. Student-run clinic volunteer (starting mid-fall semester)
6. Research (if possible)
7. Podcast organization (Mid-fall or the end of the fall semester)

All that stuff looks awesome to me. I'm just a college freshman and I was just wondering how you got that podcast gig? What people did it entail in contacting? Also, how do you become a TA? Is it hard? Are they paid?

 

[imbesrs]

Ochem 1, Phy 1
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Seems like a lot youre tyring to do with a full time student schedule- ochem and physics can be tough depending on your academic strongsuits.
Keep the TAing as its good for a letter and running a podcast is cool if youre into that.

Remember to leave time for social life and your own mental health/relaxation. Also, academics always comes first, and if youre finding youre biting off more than you can chew, then spit some out.

 

[Jappa]

If you can handle all of that while maintaining high grades, then it looks awesome. Definitely don't prioritize EC's over GPA!

 

[rdyotz]

VolunteerMatch is now part of Idealist! For Nonprofit Jobs, Volunteering, and More

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www.volunteermatch.org

Tons of volunteering options. Slowly add more ECs once you figured out the time management for each and your mental health needs. You can always add more, but dropping things after only a week looks worse.

 

[premed20172017]

If you can handle all of that while maintaining high grades, then it looks awesome. Definitely don't prioritize EC's over GPA!

+1 these ECs look great, but if you feel like your grades are starting to slip, don’t be afraid to scale them back. If you’re starting to get tired physically/emotionally, it’s also ok to take a step back. At this point, your grades and your health are the most important things.

Also, you’re in college!! Enjoy yourself!! Be sure to make time to go out with your friends, go to parties, go to a game!

 

[Medigal]

Looks good . I am also a sophomore and will be (hopefully) doing clinical and non-clinical volunteering during the school year while focusing on research and shadowing over breaks/summer. I would suggest maybe picking one of the two clinical experiences as you really don't need both. Also be careful having too many EC's at one time because that can take a toll on your GPA, which is harder to fix in the long run.

Thanks for the insights! I agree about the GPA because it is harder to fix plus, I would rather take a gap year to do ECs than a post-bac so I would try to keep a good balance and continue to prioritize my GPA and MCAT.

 

[Medigal]

All that stuff looks awesome to me. I'm just a college freshman and I was just wondering how you got that podcast gig? What people did it entail in contacting? Also, how do you become a TA? Is it hard? Are they paid?

I got that podcast thing through Reddit; there was a resident physician who was looking for collaborations and I just contacted him and since he wants to expand his organization to the west coast, we just set up a plan to work on it. For the TA job, I built a solid rapport with my bio professor and I used to go to his office hours even though I sometimes did not need help, I just used to chat up about my professional goals and my background or discuss random research articles. So in order to increase my chances for the job, I first took his TA training class last semester then applied for the position just like a regular job and there was a rigorous selection process, and I was finally selected this fall. It's not hard but you have to work for it and brush up on the lab content and techniques, which I have already forgotten but we will be having weekly lab meetings where we can relearn the stuff before we actually teach the lab. Also, the TAs are paid because it's a part-time job.

 

[Medigal]

Seems like a lot youre tyring to do with a full time student schedule- ochem and physics can be tough depending on your academic strongsuits.
Keep the TAing as its good for a letter and running a podcast is cool if youre into that.

Remember to leave time for social life and your own mental health/relaxation. Also, academics always comes first, and if youre finding youre biting off more than you can chew, then spit some out.

Thanks for your advice! I will try to keep a balance and have some time to relax. Physics is not my strong subject so replaced it with Anatomy & Physiology and I'm hoping to take physics next semester or in my junior year. The Physics department at my institution is a mess and people often take it at a community college but I will still take it at my home institution when I feel more ready.

 

[Medigal]

If you can handle all of that while maintaining high grades, then it looks awesome. Definitely don't prioritize EC's over GPA!

I agree GPA comes first!

 

[Medigal]

VolunteerMatch is now part of Idealist! For Nonprofit Jobs, Volunteering, and More

Idealist connects millions of idealists – people who want to do good – with opportunities for action and collaboration all over the world.

www.volunteermatch.org

Tons of volunteering options. Slowly add more ECs once you figured out the time management for each and your mental health needs. You can always add more, but dropping things after only a week looks worse.

Thanks for the perspective! I will definitely add ECs gradually and try to pursue them long-term.

 

[calipremed5768]

Like it all besides the podcast. There’s a chance you could say something by accident or out of context. If access to the podcast is public the adcom will likely find it from searching your name. Ex. If I were an adcom member I would reject anybody who has written for things like spoon university, “social” section of a school newspaper etc. always cringe at lists like “15 reasons we have love and hate relationship with ______ dining hall”

 

[imbesrs]

Ex. If I were an adcom member I would reject anybody who has written for things like spoon university, “social” section of a school newspaper etc. always cringe at lists like “15 reasons we have love and hate relationship with ______ dining hall”

Thats a pretty terrible blanket rejection criteria. Good thing youre just an applicant.

 

[calipremed5768]

I mean when you have 10k applications sometimes you have to find reasons to reject people. I guarantee this type of thing is pretty common. Just lol if you don’t think the person who mentions they were founding member of the young republicans club or working on the Bernie campaign didn’t get more Rs than they would have without mentioning it

 

[Medigal]

Like it all besides the podcast. There’s a chance you could say something by accident or out of context. If access to the podcast is public the adcom will likely find it from searching your name. Ex. If I were an adcom member I would reject anybody who has written for things like spoon university, “social” section of a school newspaper etc. always cringe at lists like “15 reasons we have love and hate relationship with ______ dining hall”

Good point! I will definitely keep that in mind. I will only be interviewing though and the questions will definitely be edited and filtered out by the organization. But do not adcoms appreciate the creative projects like podcasts or blogs? Even if an applicant has unique opinions or ideas, the adcoms cannot just act out of their bias and reject applicants unless it's directly going to affect their performance as medical students or as physicians in the professional context.

 

[calipremed5768]

Interviewing is fine. They appreciate creative things. I was more against it due to something coming out the wrong way but that shouldn’t happen with interviewing. I’d say go for it