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I think I'm going crazy...
- Thread starter Gladiolus23
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1. Take a break from Facebook and SDN. You know what you need to do. You don't need to read the pre-allo forum if it makes you feel unhappy.
2. Remember that people post their shining moments online but rarely their moments of disappointment. Everyone struggles with something, and everyone is afraid of failure. Posting triumphs instead of fears and failures, though, makes people feel a little better about themselves in comparison to others.
3. People lie online. It's a little pathetic that people feel the need to impress strangers, but they do. Take every claim you read with a grain of salt.
There will always be people who make a better score or get better grades or go to a better school. It's just a part of life, and unfortunately SDN and Facebook have the tendency to rub it in your face. You don't have to be the most competitive applicant to go to med school. You just have to be competitive enough.
I hope this helps a little.
ETA: As for your grades, have you visited your school's tutoring center? They might be able to help. I like to think of the sciences as languages. They all sound so foreign and confusing when you first start studying them, but if you put in enough time and practice to become fluent, suddenly things will start clicking into place. You'll develop an intuition and will begin to understand why things work the way they do, rather than trying to memorize how to do certain types of problems. If you're already putting in a great deal of time, the tutoring center might be able to help you use your study time more effectively.
2. Remember that people post their shining moments online but rarely their moments of disappointment. Everyone struggles with something, and everyone is afraid of failure. Posting triumphs instead of fears and failures, though, makes people feel a little better about themselves in comparison to others.
3. People lie online. It's a little pathetic that people feel the need to impress strangers, but they do. Take every claim you read with a grain of salt.
There will always be people who make a better score or get better grades or go to a better school. It's just a part of life, and unfortunately SDN and Facebook have the tendency to rub it in your face. You don't have to be the most competitive applicant to go to med school. You just have to be competitive enough.
I hope this helps a little.
ETA: As for your grades, have you visited your school's tutoring center? They might be able to help. I like to think of the sciences as languages. They all sound so foreign and confusing when you first start studying them, but if you put in enough time and practice to become fluent, suddenly things will start clicking into place. You'll develop an intuition and will begin to understand why things work the way they do, rather than trying to memorize how to do certain types of problems. If you're already putting in a great deal of time, the tutoring center might be able to help you use your study time more effectively.
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delete facebook
hit the gym
hit the gym
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I told myself the same thing and I ended up not getting in anywhere last cycle just sayin
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I told myself the same thing and I ended up not getting in anywhere last cycle just sayin
Well that was helpful.
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I definitely understand where you are coming from. I am about to take the MCAT, and it's really difficult to see what seems like everyone else post, "Darn, I only got a 37 on today's practice test!" or "My average is a 39, so I'm feeling okay!" while I'm getting low 30s. I absolutely get the feeling of frustration and despair and heartbreak.
So help it motivate you to work harder. I'm not on the path to get a fabulous MCAT score, and I know that. But I can make my GPA and ECs that much more stellar to try and compensate. I can hone my strengths so that my weaknesses aren't so glaring. Figure out what you're good at, and make that as strong and good and wonderful as it can possibly be.
Also, try asking for advice from these people you know who are suceeding. People love to talk about themselves, so if you ask Jane Smith why she got into med school this year and if she has any advice, she'd probably love to tell you all kinds of information. Chances are, she was worried she'd have difficulty getting in as well, and thinks that she did x and y differently than other people which increased her chances. Find out what x and y are for her, and see if they work for you! Use other peoples' past successes in order to help you get started on succeeding yourself. It's a learning opportunity!
Finally, don't lose the forest for the trees. Your goal is to be a doctor, not a professional MCAT taker or med school applicant. Once you go through school and residency, nobody at all will care if it took you 1 or 3 application cycles to get in. Nobody will remember or discuss their MCAT scores or undergrad GPAs. In fact, I bet it will hardly even matter where you go to med school or complete your residency! None of that will matter to your patients or to your co-workers. Yes, there are some hoops you have to jump through and bridges you have to cross in order to get to that point, but once you're there, none of these stressful things that are going on right now will matter. So remember that! Your difficulties at this stage in the journey will not define the end goal. Your MCAT score or grasp of undergrad science will not determine how many lives you affect when you're a physician. Don't forget the reason why you're fighting for this.
As said beautifully by Randy Pausch, "The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who dont want it badly enough. Theyre there to stop the other people. If you have an hour or so to spare, I'd highly recommend checking out his Last Lecture. It's available on YouTube, and it's a great inspirational story about how to achieve your dreams and live your life.
You can do this, OP!
Whether it seems like it or not, everybody cries and rips their hair out and thinks they're never going to make it and that they are inferior. Everybody does at some point or another, and if they haven't yet, they will. Don't let your struggles now break you -- let them inspire you to work harder, keep fighting, and enjoy the reward that much more when it comes. 
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There's always going to be someone better than you. Get over it.
If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Stop visiting SDN and FB so regularly.
Not a whole lot of people post when they're going sh-tty (e.g., omg, guys, got a 22 on my MCAT!). You usually see good news, so keep that in mind; what's represented on FB and, to some extent, SDN is a very skewed view of things.
If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Stop visiting SDN and FB so regularly.
Not a whole lot of people post when they're going sh-tty (e.g., omg, guys, got a 22 on my MCAT!). You usually see good news, so keep that in mind; what's represented on FB and, to some extent, SDN is a very skewed view of things.
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Your situation reminded me of an article I recently read.
http://news.discovery.com/human/psychology/facebook-can-make-you-unhappy-130814.htm
Get off fb and sdn for awhile. I've been off of Facebook for over two years now and I can truly say that I've been more productive than I used to be.
http://news.discovery.com/human/psychology/facebook-can-make-you-unhappy-130814.htm
Get off fb and sdn for awhile. I've been off of Facebook for over two years now and I can truly say that I've been more productive than I used to be.
Beware of the SEVEN DEADLY SINS: Envy, gluttony, lust, pride, sloth, greed, and wrath.
This is an ancient problem most people have experienced. If you search youtube for meditations or ministry about it you should find plenty of answers.
Creepy scene of 7 deadly sins from Metropolis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qzNyKwVIo0 The 7 deadly sins make their appearance in all kinds of literature, art, movies, video games. It's worth google imaging.
This is an ancient problem most people have experienced. If you search youtube for meditations or ministry about it you should find plenty of answers.
Creepy scene of 7 deadly sins from Metropolis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qzNyKwVIo0 The 7 deadly sins make their appearance in all kinds of literature, art, movies, video games. It's worth google imaging.
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I told myself the same thing and I ended up not getting in anywhere last cycle just sayin
u sure ur not...lying?
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Tebow...is that you??
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This video made me delete my facebook. I never looked back since. Take it with a grain of salt though, if you look deeper, you'll find some ulterior motives that largely drive these ideas.
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkR3c0uuYIQ[/YOUTUBE]
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Intriguing vid. Thanks for sharing man
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The solution is to not compare yourself to your peers directly. Who cares if someone volunteered 50 more hours than you or if they got a higher grade (95% versus a 93%). I mean, you guys are doing almost the exact same thing! But that can be easier said than done.
I know how you feel because I was always comparing myself to one of my friends. He seemed to do everything right and always succeeded. I mean, he put in way more effort than anyone else and he definitely got results from it. Everyone loved him and enjoyed him being in their classes. I found myself comparing everything that I had done to what he had accomplished and I almost stopped being premed because I felt like I couldn't compete with people like him. Heck, I decided to hold off on applying for another year to become more competitive. He told me to not worry about what other people have done and just focus on my own goals.
I followed his advice and also ended up at a top 10 school (or top 5 or 15 depending on the list since they vary). He ended up getting a full ride scholarship to HMS, but I also got into a great school (sans a huge scholarship). All I had to do was stop worrying about what others were doing and focusing on my own goals. If I saw a friend do something super cool that I wanted to be a part of, I contacted them to ask more about it. Otherwise, I just congratulated them and then went back to working on my aspirations.
Trust me, it all works out in the end.
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Thank you all so much for your kind words of encouragement! I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. And I feel a bit better now =) I'm going to go get rid of Facebook right now (those videos rly helped!)
I think if I just make a few changes like this in my life, it would get a 100 times better.
I think if I just make a few changes like this in my life, it would get a 100 times better.
