- Joined
- May 20, 2018
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- 38
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**Disclaimer: Wrote this when I was very emotional and pissed. It's also the time of the month which does not help.**
Long story short, I’m 21 now, but I’ve wanted to be a doctor since I was 10 or so, of my own accord, mostly. No family pressure or anything like that.
I started off as a molecular and cellular biology major but struggled a lot in Organic Chemistry 1, earning a B-minus, the lowest grade I’ve ever earned in my life.
What made it worse is that I knew a handful of people who excelled in the class (A’s) whereas I literally had to convert bond-line notation to carbons and hydrogens. I fell into a deep depression after that and had to drop out of the following semester because of it. I’ve been struggling with depression and anxiety over being fundamentally more stupid than others since 10th grade.
I took some time off of being premed to pursue other interests in policy, consulting and marketing, but later signed up for Organic Chemistry II to get back on it. I noticed some improvement in my organic chemistry skills, but would have likely only earned a B+ at best. I often made careless errors and just wasn't good at some things. I ended up taking that (and every single other class) P/NP that semester and received a P in it (Spring 2020 and COVID).
My science GPA as of now is a 3.6 and my cGPA is a 3.78 as an economics major. However, likely because of the emotional trauma I suffered in Organic Chemistry 1 and earlier circumstances, I’ve adopted the toxic mindset of “if you’re not first, you’re last” in every single one of my premed classes. I feel like I have to overcompensate for my earlier failings, basically. I was also raised in a stereotypical Asian family and taught to be academically competitive (i.e. me doing well wasn't good enough, others had to fail).
I’m taking general biology over the summer right now. I do not think I am failing the class, but I feel incredibly average in the sense that I seem to get tripped up by what everyone else gets tripped up by and am likely not performing at an A level.
We had a quiz out of 20 where the mean was roughly an 11 and the SD was a 3, and I scored a 13.25. I spent the entire day being super harsh on myself that I wasn’t an SD above and telling myself how stupid I was and how I’d never be a doctor. Biology doesn’t feel intuitive to me, and isn’t that all doctors do? Solve biology problems all day?
Anyway, tldr: if I am way better at other subjects, like economics and data science, and suck massive balls and have performed at the level of an elementary schooler in every BCPM class, and am ******ed at anything science-related, am I better off forgetting being a doctor, considering my history of anxiety, major depressive disorder, and emotional trauma related to being an underachiever in premed classes?
Moreover, it doesn't help when you have premed friends who took organic chemistry and physics AT A COMMUNITY COLLEGE and then tell you "Yeah I was better at puzzle solving classes like organic chemistry and physics" the minute you learn you've gotten a "B" on an OChem 2 midterm not even because you can't draw mechanisms but only because you left off a bunch of formal charges.
Also, here are all of my science grades so you can see exactly what I mean by "average" and "elementary level" I bet someone who is better at science would have all A's and maybe one B+ in some insanely hard class like graduate physical chemistry.
Long story short, I’m 21 now, but I’ve wanted to be a doctor since I was 10 or so, of my own accord, mostly. No family pressure or anything like that.
I started off as a molecular and cellular biology major but struggled a lot in Organic Chemistry 1, earning a B-minus, the lowest grade I’ve ever earned in my life.
What made it worse is that I knew a handful of people who excelled in the class (A’s) whereas I literally had to convert bond-line notation to carbons and hydrogens. I fell into a deep depression after that and had to drop out of the following semester because of it. I’ve been struggling with depression and anxiety over being fundamentally more stupid than others since 10th grade.
I took some time off of being premed to pursue other interests in policy, consulting and marketing, but later signed up for Organic Chemistry II to get back on it. I noticed some improvement in my organic chemistry skills, but would have likely only earned a B+ at best. I often made careless errors and just wasn't good at some things. I ended up taking that (and every single other class) P/NP that semester and received a P in it (Spring 2020 and COVID).
My science GPA as of now is a 3.6 and my cGPA is a 3.78 as an economics major. However, likely because of the emotional trauma I suffered in Organic Chemistry 1 and earlier circumstances, I’ve adopted the toxic mindset of “if you’re not first, you’re last” in every single one of my premed classes. I feel like I have to overcompensate for my earlier failings, basically. I was also raised in a stereotypical Asian family and taught to be academically competitive (i.e. me doing well wasn't good enough, others had to fail).
I’m taking general biology over the summer right now. I do not think I am failing the class, but I feel incredibly average in the sense that I seem to get tripped up by what everyone else gets tripped up by and am likely not performing at an A level.
We had a quiz out of 20 where the mean was roughly an 11 and the SD was a 3, and I scored a 13.25. I spent the entire day being super harsh on myself that I wasn’t an SD above and telling myself how stupid I was and how I’d never be a doctor. Biology doesn’t feel intuitive to me, and isn’t that all doctors do? Solve biology problems all day?
Anyway, tldr: if I am way better at other subjects, like economics and data science, and suck massive balls and have performed at the level of an elementary schooler in every BCPM class, and am ******ed at anything science-related, am I better off forgetting being a doctor, considering my history of anxiety, major depressive disorder, and emotional trauma related to being an underachiever in premed classes?
Moreover, it doesn't help when you have premed friends who took organic chemistry and physics AT A COMMUNITY COLLEGE and then tell you "Yeah I was better at puzzle solving classes like organic chemistry and physics" the minute you learn you've gotten a "B" on an OChem 2 midterm not even because you can't draw mechanisms but only because you left off a bunch of formal charges.
Also, here are all of my science grades so you can see exactly what I mean by "average" and "elementary level" I bet someone who is better at science would have all A's and maybe one B+ in some insanely hard class like graduate physical chemistry.
- General Chem and Lab: A/A
- Organic Chemistry 1 and Lab: B-/A
- Calc I: B+
- Calc II: B+
- Stats (for econ): B+
- Biological Anthropology: A
- Psych Research Stats: A+
- Physiology: A
- Organic Chemistry 2: P (took everything P/NP during Spring 2020 because of COVID).
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