Former EMT/Software Engineer transition

[Bean-AJ]

Hello!

I hope this is in the correct place, I searched through posts to get a general idea of other people who have gone through this process. Let me start off by saying I am posting here because I am interested in returning to school and I just need a little help and guidance on where to start!

Education
I graduated last year from a public state research university with a 3.40 GPA Bachelor of Science, Computer Science. I started out Pre-Med and then went to AEMT School during my sophomore year in the evenings at the local technical college. After EMT school, I worked part-time for the 911 service in my county(around 24-48 hours a month, full time in the summer) the rest of my college career until my last semester. It took me 4 1/2 years, I switched majors several times, started initially as Chemistry, Biology, EHS, and then finally took what I felt at the time was the safer more realistic choice, CS.

I have some prerequisites, that I earned through pursuing those other majors:

General Chemistry 1 & 2
Biology 1

One concern I have about this period is that during my sophomore year I prioritized my coursework at the university (I was taking 12 hours at each institution) and as a result, I have less than stellar grades through EMT school, 3.0 GPA.

Background
I worked in the pre-hospital setting and loved the medicine, I truly enjoyed EMS and would have like to continue in that direction, but unfortunately my wage was so low it was not worthwhile and I went into the industry as a Software Engineer. Now, I find that I do not enjoy the work very much, and I am not interested in becoming heavily invested/more educated in Computer Science. I also love teaching, and I cannot see myself ever teaching Computer Science, seeing as I do not have a passion or even curious interest beyond my current level of professional experience. Fortunately I am young (23) and have a loving and supportive significant other.

I know I have a long road ahead of me, but fortunately I have a well paying job to finance what I assume will have to be a period of taking the prerequisite courses for medical school or saving for a post-bacc program.

I guess my question is, where do I start from here? Should I look into all inclusive post-bacc programs, or cherry pick from the state university in my city? How do I go about building a competitive resume being out of school, in regards to volunteering, shadowing, etc. What should I do about my bad grades in EMT school?

I am very early in this process, so literally any help is welcome. Thank you again!

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[mk04447]

You're presenting a bit early for advice. Knock out your prerequisites and take the MCAT. It doesn't sound like you have many cobwebs, so you'll be non-traditional in the end. Chat with you in 3 years.

 

[princesspeach2]

I'm also very early in the process, so I'm not sure how helpful I will be. I'm not sure how your 3.0 EMT GPA will be viewed (mainly because I'm not certain what exact classes you take to become an EMT), but as your probably know, the best way to make up a poor past GPA is excelling in your future courses. As for where to take the prereqs, I would search for past threads about the pros and cons of a DIY vs non DIY post bacc programs. If you are tight on cash, doing a DIY post bacc for some of the courses at a community college is a great way to save money. Keep in mind though that some schools do not accept CC prereqs, or prefer them not be at a CC.

In regards to building a competitive resume, long-term, involved commitment is far better than short-term, shallow positions. What I would focus first on is volunteering. Go on volunteermatch.org, and search for something you are interested in. There are tons of things on there, you can limit your results by choosing what type of volunteering you are interested in. You can sort by distance as well, which is handy. It is wise to find positions working with the underserved and less fortunate, but find something that you actually are passionate about that isn't just box checking. (You mentioned you love teaching, perhaps a position tutoring children or adults would be a good fit?) Depending on the time commitment, I would choose 1-3 things, and start volunteering. Continue volunteering until acceptance/time allows. Ideally, as you volunteer more, you will also increase your level of "involvedness" (such as leadership roles, making your own program inside the organization, etc.) Those are things that medical schools like to see.

You already have clinical experience working as an EMT, so you are good there. If you want to make one of your volunteer positions clinical (so you have 1/2 non-clinical, 1 clinical) that is okay as well. Clinical volunteer positions are at hospitals, hospices, free clinics, blood donation clinics, etc. Since you have EMT training, you might be able to find a place where you can use some of those skills.

For shadowing, it is important to get primary care shadowing. From what I've gathered, the exact amount of hours don't matter too much.The purpose of shadowing is to see what the day-to-day of being a doctor is like. For your personal benefit, I would try to shadow in the areas you are interested as well. (For me, I'm really interested in pediatrics, so I want to shadow a general pediatrician)

Do you have anything that counts as leadership experience? If not, that is something also to get.

The main thing though, focus on your grades and prereqs, and doing well on the MCAT. It is easy to volunteer and shadow, it is difficult and arduous to repair a poor prereq GPA record and bad MCAT score.