I am taking a couple of years off before I go to medical school. During this break, I wanted to get a job that would help me get into medical school. Initially I was thinking about doing research, but I realized since I did three years of research during my undergrad, I should do something else with my time off to make my application stronger (I just graduated in May 2005). I have volunteer experience in the community (3 years of tutoring at a public school) and some in a hospital setting (senior year during college, but I volunteered for four years during high school [ i don't think they will count that]). I have leadership experience and my grades and MCATs are okay. I have shadowed a D.O. so I have that covered. What I really need is to figure out what type of job I should get for these 1-2 years so that during the interview process I don't look like a total idiot who wasted his time off. Please any advice would be helpful. Thanks in advance.
Need Some Advice!!
- Thread starter jade82
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Just holding any job and surviving in the "real world" is great experience for your medical school application. If you can get a job doing research it would be ideal since you can pull in cash while possibly publishing and gaining a valuable LOR or two. You can never publish too much research and that will even help you with your residency applications from what I have read. However, any job at all will be good so don't sweat it if you can't find a spot in a lab. Good luck
jade82 said:
Only research if you like research. Since you have experience with it, ask yourself if it is really something you want to dedicate each day of the last medicine-free year of your life to. Basically, are you doing it for yourself or for the resume? If you really like it then by all means do it, otherwise I doubt it would help your application at all. Many jobs have opportunities to prove yourself. I worked with software for a year, and got to meet with clients. Everyone at my interviews was interested in that since it was a bit different.
Remember, everyone will be trying to do the "right" things to impress the schools, but doing what you are really interested in is the only way to measure what is right. As long as you pour your heart into what you are doing, you won't be wasting your time. The diversity of our class' backgrounds seems to attest to that.
But don't take my word for it, I just started med school last week (although it seems like months) and I won't be reading your application
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jade82 said:
I would do something that you enjoy. Give some thought on tying whatever it is you end up doing to reinforcing your decision to go to medical school. You may consider doing some Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) work, or phlebotomy, working with disabled children (maybe you have an interest in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation), etc.
Wook
