Having direction- enough, vs. too much

[no beans]

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Recently there have been a couple of posts in threads about how positive it is for an interviewee to come across as having direction. Having an idea about what you'd like to do in the future and being able to express it in some well-thought-out manner, backed up by your own experiences. There have also been posts by LizzyM and others saying not to be too specific about specialty and to show you have an open mind going into medical school. I've been thinking about what is considered a favorable amount of 'direction' and what comes across as naive. Despite many clinical experiences, a couple of years of research, a lot of other EC's and putting some thought into this, I still have not found a set path I'd like to pursue. It seems the more experiences I have, the more things I consider and the more things I'd like to try to see if I'd consider. How do I turn this into a positive impression and not one of being wishy-washy and indecisive? How much direction is a positive and how much is a turn-off? Any ideas?

 

[Big N Tasty]

I don't think you're coming off so much as wishy-washy, but more open-minded. Positivity, in my opinion, is more important in the sense that you are sure that you want to pursue medicine, not necessarily a field per sé. Personally, I'm more drawn to the neurobiological and cardiovascular areas of study, but that could all change come major clinical year.

tl;dr Open-mindedness is good. Just my $0.02

 

[gettheleadout]

"Direction" that limits your interest or prospects is bad, i.e. you only want to do X specialty and it can be assumed that you wouldn't want to do be a doctor unless you could be a _________ specialist. "Direction" or lack thereof that shows that you have critically examined various specialties and career paths is good. Whether you happen to have already found that field that just clicks with you or not, being able to give the impression that you've thought about it and drawn from your experiences in that thought shows that you're not wishy-washy, but in fact thinking ahead.

 

[thlaxer]

It's good to be open-minded in this process. There's a difference between saying "I have no idea what I want to do" vs "I'm interested in a lot of different fields and can see this changing in the future, but I am currently leaning towards X or Y."

When asked about where you see yourself in Z years, you could also focus on the type of environment/job you see yourself doing, e.g. do you see yourself teaching, doing research, and/or being involved in the community etc. in the future? Just my thoughts.

 

[no beans]

It's good to be open-minded in this process. There's a difference between saying "I have no idea what I want to do" vs "I'm interested in a lot of different fields and can see this changing in the future, but I am currently leaning towards X or Y."

When asked about where you see yourself in Z years, you could also focus on the type of environment/job you see yourself doing, e.g. do you see yourself teaching, doing research, and/or being involved in the community etc. in the future? Just my thoughts.

Yes, I was also thinking about that since it's related- the infamous question about where do you see yourself in ten years. I guess I have general answers about inclinations I have at this point that I can give, but I can't help but think of the possibilities I haven't examined yet. I'm contrasting that with previous posts (I'm just going with memory here), about interviewees that make the best impression are those that come in with a well thought-out plan for their future. I rather tend to think it's naive to have such a plan. I'm not sure that would impress me.

 

[MossyFiber]

As far as I can tell, it's better to say "I think [broad specialty] is interesting because. . ." vs "I want to be a [sub-sub specialty that may or may not exist]... because [I like to work with my hands / the salary is highest / it's the most competitive field / etc]."

 

[no beans]

So is it not necessarily what field/specialty you are thinking about that will show direction, but whether you want to be involved with teaching, research, etc that is important or all of the above?

 

[TheMightySmiter]

I think you should probably exhibit about 3.2 units of direction. That should suffice.

 

[Sephiroth]

I think you should probably exhibit about 3.2 units of direction. That should suffice.

I feel like direction would be a vector unit, not a scalar, though. If so, does that mean only the magnitude of direction matters?

 

[Big N Tasty]

I feel like direction would be a vector unit, not a scalar, though. If so, does that mean only the magnitude of direction matters?

I feel like you're missing a cross-product in there somewhere...

 

[TheMightySmiter]

I feel like you're missing a cross-product in there somewhere...

If you cross the direction in which you want to go with the direction you think would sound better in an interview, the result is...an arrow poking your eye out? By the right hand rule of course.

 

[Big N Tasty]

If you cross the direction in which you want to go with the direction you think would sound better in an interview, the result is...an arrow poking your eye out? By the right hand rule of course.

Well that's not helpful at all! Perhaps it was a triple product...