I am planning on getting some secondary essays pre-written and am really struggling with the "Greatest Challenge" essays. My background is non-traditional, as in, I'm adjusting my rearview mirror so I can still see my 30s and did not have any inclination towards medicine until a few years ago. As I consider the "challenge" essays, I try to apply LizzyM's "think temporary people", but I cannot bring myself to write about something so trivial as broken transportation. While it's all relative, that isn't a challenge--that barely qualifies as an annoyance--and I cannot bring myself to write such a thing. So here are two ideas I'm bouncing around, both of them "temporary" and dispassionately discussed in a interview:
1. My REAL challenge: a divorce in the midst of the Great Recession. Upside: this is the explanans of why I left my previous graduate program and why I chose medicine. It thus explains my history and my "deeper" coping mechanisms. Downside: the coping mechanisms are more existential, it is a fiercely personal topic, and dealing with it was a largely solitary effort.
2. Balancing work and research. My work is non-trivial, and my research is demanding, and I regularly put in 80+ hour weeks. Upside: I can talk about my research at length along with problem-solving, "concrete" coping skills, and leadership. Downside: such is research, so it may sound like I'm complaining about the mundane.
I can certainly spin other experiences as "challenges", but these two are of a different class. So, which would you go with?
1. My REAL challenge: a divorce in the midst of the Great Recession. Upside: this is the explanans of why I left my previous graduate program and why I chose medicine. It thus explains my history and my "deeper" coping mechanisms. Downside: the coping mechanisms are more existential, it is a fiercely personal topic, and dealing with it was a largely solitary effort.
2. Balancing work and research. My work is non-trivial, and my research is demanding, and I regularly put in 80+ hour weeks. Upside: I can talk about my research at length along with problem-solving, "concrete" coping skills, and leadership. Downside: such is research, so it may sound like I'm complaining about the mundane.
I can certainly spin other experiences as "challenges", but these two are of a different class. So, which would you go with?
) so you could work it into a good essay. 
