Hold on... did you take all the pre-reqs for med school as an undergrad? What are you taking as a post-bac?
Why clinical research? Most clinical research jobs for people with bachelors degrees is paper-pushing with no intellectual involvement in study design or analysis. Bench research is usually a better choice if you are shooting for admission to a research heavy school. Otherwise, you might get more traction doing a service project like full time tutoring/mentoring or other community service.
What was your undergrad GPA? At what point did you decide on med school?
Were you involved in anything in college outside of classes?
Hi
@LizzyM!
I did take all of the pre-requisites as an undergrad, but my cGPA is pretty abysmal at the moment at 3.21. I am taking post-bac to improve my gpa as much as possible by the time I apply. I am retaking two pre-req classes that I got a C and a C- in. The rest of the classes will be upper level biology courses, including Biochemistry, which has recently become a pre-req for many med schools (I took Orgo II instead as an undergrad). I figure I can squeeze in about 10-15 science courses in the next two years. If I get an A in each of them, which I fully intend to, my cGPA will end up in the 3.4-3.5 range, and my sGPA will end up in the 3.5-3.6 range.
As for my research aspirations, I figured clinical research would suit me better since I am lacking clinical exposure in general. I thought this would be a way to kill two birds with one stone and get research and clinical exposure all in one go. In all honesty, though, I would accept any research involvement that I can get at this point, be it clinical or bench. Having no prior research experience, I am finding it very difficult to get involved as a college grad. This is why I'm thinking I will probably end up doing an unpaid internship or even work as an unpaid research aide. I will take anything I can get.
I decided on med school as a freshman in college, but my heart wasn't with it the first two years. I was misguided and daunted as a first generation college student, so my GPA hovered around 3.0 for my first two years of undergrad. I picked it up as an upperclassman, maintaining a GPA in the 3.5-3.6 range my last two years. I took three upper level biology courses in my last semester of college, and it ended up being the highest GPA semester of my undergraduate career.
I was involved with some activities outside of class. I worked a federal work-study job all four years of undergrad at the university post office. I was also involved in a club/community known as Arts Haus, of which I served as the treasurer my senior year. I organized art projects and social gatherings while managing all financial accounts for the organization. In addition, I worked as part of a start-up that provided professional audio productions for corporate functions as well as web-hosting. In addition, I was a member of Students for Sensible Drug Policy.
And if it means anything, I am an immigrant from a poor Eastern European nation and, like I said, the first person in my immediate family to graduate from college.