- Joined
- Mar 6, 2017
- Messages
- 41
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- 11
Wow. The last time I posted on here, I hadn’t even graduated from HS yet. 🥲
My most-recent thread (if you look at my profile) was my soliciting thoughts regarding my time at a one-year biblical studies program. I’m happy to say that I graduated from that program with high honors. After that, I didn’t immediately enroll at a college. I got married to my middle and high school sweetheart (we’re doing great), traveled, moved, and worked full-time to garner some real-world experience. In regard to my faith, I’ve ironically been deconstructing for almost a year now. I was raised as a conservative, evangelical Christian, and I’ve reached a point where I’d now describe myself as a universalist. I’m still figuring out what I believe, really. Aren’t we all, to some degree? I write all of that to provide some context for where I’m at now in relation to my former religious studies.
My wife and I have moved back to our home state (NH). I’m starting at a community college this fall to save money on my education. New Hampshire has a great transfer program for community college students, so I’ll finish my degree at one of the state universities. On a different note, I’ve landed a great non-clinical job that pays an exceptional amount. Moreover, the work schedule is flexible. I intend on sticking with this job for my entire undergraduate career.
Needless to say, I’m still planning on becoming a physician. I’m writing this post because I’m looking for a variety of advice. My hope is to not take a gap year after undergrad, since I’ve kind of done a “backwards” gap three-years. I want to put my nose to the grindstone and apply to medical school as soon as I can. I understand that life happens and something might come up that would make it a wise move for me to defer my applying; I’m hoping that a situation like that doesn’t happen, but obviously I wouldn’t waste money and time if I need to wait. Because I’m challenging myself, I want to use the few months I have before my start of college (woot!) to set myself up for success by crafting a general game plan for the next several years. To try to accomplish that, here are some of the questions that I have:
1. After reading my situation, what are some general exhortations that come to mind?
2. What do you recommend I do to maximize my time spent at my community college? I understand that I won’t necessarily have the same resources available to me that I would have if I began at a four-year institution. Has anyone here either attended community college themselves or are familiar with others’ situations who have done so?
3. I’d like to do research in college, but I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to do at CC. I imagine I’ll only be able to start doing research once I matriculate at the university. When that time comes (roughly a junior in college), will I be “late to the party” in terms of being able to have some meaningful experiences (not necessarily the “official” meaningful experiences related to AMCAS)?
4. I come from a military background. My father, his four sisters, and his father all served in the armed forces. I’m interested in carrying on the tradition, and not just for tradition’s sake. Because of my interest, I’m strongly considering doing the HPSP through one of the branches, with my first choice being the Navy. Physically speaking, I believe I’m eligible after having done some preliminary research. Does anyone have any advice or resources—or both—that would be helpful to me? I haven’t done any looking into ROTC. Would that be worthwhile if I decide to commit to applying for the HPSP? Regardless, I intend on seeking out shadowing opportunities with military physicians so that I can get a good feel for military medicine and see if it would be the right fit for me and my wife.
5. Being married relatively young (by the way, we are waiting a while on kids) and living close to my family and my in-laws makes for an unusual (but enjoyable!) set of circumstances. Do any other non-trads have some practical advice for balancing the pre-med journey with maintaining healthy familial relationships? My family knows I’m going to be busy, and they have affirmed their support, however, I don’t want them to feel neglected. Any wisdom in this matter is appreciated.
6. In high school, I shadowed physicians for 20 hours and volunteered at my local emergency department for 91 hours over the span of three years. Would it be beneficial if I restarted my volunteering at the same hospital, and if so, would it make sense to include the high school hours on my medical school applications (since it continued when I entered college)? Or should I pursue entirely different clinical EC’s and start fresh? The reason I hesitate in doing the latter is that I can’t discount the value of the experiences I had; they relate to my decision to go down the path of medicine. I had great interactions with patients, doctors, and other healthcare professionals. But are those experiences “valuable” in the eyes of medical school admissions committees? If they are, how should I include them in my future applications? And to clarify, I intend on doing a different clinical EC or two regardless of if I volunteer again at the same hospital; I’d like to branch out into other areas as an undergrad. I was more limited in high school, so I took what I could.
7. When the time comes to apply for medical school, should I discuss my gap years after high school and how they all relate to my decision to attend CC, start college “late”, etc.? I assume that I should—and I guess I’ll have to considering that my biblical studies transcript will be sent in—but I’m feeling a bit lost as to how exactly I should go about doing so. During my gap years, I looked into a variety of other careers, but everything has circled back to medicine, specifically working as a doctor. I truly believe it’s what I’m meant to do, despite how hokey that might sound; I can’t imagine myself being satisfied doing anything else. I’d love some general guidance as to how I might convey my gap years in a way that makes sense to the admissions committees. Thankfully, I have time before I would have to do so, but I want to start thinking about it in advance.
I know I’ll have more questions as everything progresses. This is an exciting time in my life, and it’s a joy to me that SDN exists as a free wealth of information to assist so many people, including myself. I appreciate the community here. I’m looking forward to posting more—and responding to others’ posts when I can—throughout my journey. I hope to be able to rejoice in an acceptance with you all someday.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post—I know it’s a lengthy one—and craft a response; I greatly appreciate it.
I’m glad to be back on SDN!
My most-recent thread (if you look at my profile) was my soliciting thoughts regarding my time at a one-year biblical studies program. I’m happy to say that I graduated from that program with high honors. After that, I didn’t immediately enroll at a college. I got married to my middle and high school sweetheart (we’re doing great), traveled, moved, and worked full-time to garner some real-world experience. In regard to my faith, I’ve ironically been deconstructing for almost a year now. I was raised as a conservative, evangelical Christian, and I’ve reached a point where I’d now describe myself as a universalist. I’m still figuring out what I believe, really. Aren’t we all, to some degree? I write all of that to provide some context for where I’m at now in relation to my former religious studies.
My wife and I have moved back to our home state (NH). I’m starting at a community college this fall to save money on my education. New Hampshire has a great transfer program for community college students, so I’ll finish my degree at one of the state universities. On a different note, I’ve landed a great non-clinical job that pays an exceptional amount. Moreover, the work schedule is flexible. I intend on sticking with this job for my entire undergraduate career.
Needless to say, I’m still planning on becoming a physician. I’m writing this post because I’m looking for a variety of advice. My hope is to not take a gap year after undergrad, since I’ve kind of done a “backwards” gap three-years. I want to put my nose to the grindstone and apply to medical school as soon as I can. I understand that life happens and something might come up that would make it a wise move for me to defer my applying; I’m hoping that a situation like that doesn’t happen, but obviously I wouldn’t waste money and time if I need to wait. Because I’m challenging myself, I want to use the few months I have before my start of college (woot!) to set myself up for success by crafting a general game plan for the next several years. To try to accomplish that, here are some of the questions that I have:
1. After reading my situation, what are some general exhortations that come to mind?
2. What do you recommend I do to maximize my time spent at my community college? I understand that I won’t necessarily have the same resources available to me that I would have if I began at a four-year institution. Has anyone here either attended community college themselves or are familiar with others’ situations who have done so?
3. I’d like to do research in college, but I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to do at CC. I imagine I’ll only be able to start doing research once I matriculate at the university. When that time comes (roughly a junior in college), will I be “late to the party” in terms of being able to have some meaningful experiences (not necessarily the “official” meaningful experiences related to AMCAS)?
4. I come from a military background. My father, his four sisters, and his father all served in the armed forces. I’m interested in carrying on the tradition, and not just for tradition’s sake. Because of my interest, I’m strongly considering doing the HPSP through one of the branches, with my first choice being the Navy. Physically speaking, I believe I’m eligible after having done some preliminary research. Does anyone have any advice or resources—or both—that would be helpful to me? I haven’t done any looking into ROTC. Would that be worthwhile if I decide to commit to applying for the HPSP? Regardless, I intend on seeking out shadowing opportunities with military physicians so that I can get a good feel for military medicine and see if it would be the right fit for me and my wife.
5. Being married relatively young (by the way, we are waiting a while on kids) and living close to my family and my in-laws makes for an unusual (but enjoyable!) set of circumstances. Do any other non-trads have some practical advice for balancing the pre-med journey with maintaining healthy familial relationships? My family knows I’m going to be busy, and they have affirmed their support, however, I don’t want them to feel neglected. Any wisdom in this matter is appreciated.
6. In high school, I shadowed physicians for 20 hours and volunteered at my local emergency department for 91 hours over the span of three years. Would it be beneficial if I restarted my volunteering at the same hospital, and if so, would it make sense to include the high school hours on my medical school applications (since it continued when I entered college)? Or should I pursue entirely different clinical EC’s and start fresh? The reason I hesitate in doing the latter is that I can’t discount the value of the experiences I had; they relate to my decision to go down the path of medicine. I had great interactions with patients, doctors, and other healthcare professionals. But are those experiences “valuable” in the eyes of medical school admissions committees? If they are, how should I include them in my future applications? And to clarify, I intend on doing a different clinical EC or two regardless of if I volunteer again at the same hospital; I’d like to branch out into other areas as an undergrad. I was more limited in high school, so I took what I could.
7. When the time comes to apply for medical school, should I discuss my gap years after high school and how they all relate to my decision to attend CC, start college “late”, etc.? I assume that I should—and I guess I’ll have to considering that my biblical studies transcript will be sent in—but I’m feeling a bit lost as to how exactly I should go about doing so. During my gap years, I looked into a variety of other careers, but everything has circled back to medicine, specifically working as a doctor. I truly believe it’s what I’m meant to do, despite how hokey that might sound; I can’t imagine myself being satisfied doing anything else. I’d love some general guidance as to how I might convey my gap years in a way that makes sense to the admissions committees. Thankfully, I have time before I would have to do so, but I want to start thinking about it in advance.
I know I’ll have more questions as everything progresses. This is an exciting time in my life, and it’s a joy to me that SDN exists as a free wealth of information to assist so many people, including myself. I appreciate the community here. I’m looking forward to posting more—and responding to others’ posts when I can—throughout my journey. I hope to be able to rejoice in an acceptance with you all someday.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post—I know it’s a lengthy one—and craft a response; I greatly appreciate it.
I’m glad to be back on SDN!
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