Question for those who decided late in college/after graduation

[virtuoso735]

I have a question for those who decided late in college (senior year) or after graduation that medicine was the career path they wanted to take. Did you have a formative experience that made you want to go into medicine? If it wasn't a specific experience that made you seriously consider medicine, what was it? I was just wondering what makes a person who decides later in their college career or after graduation compelling to admissions committees. It seems as though most premeds start their freshman year knowing, or have parents or relatives who are doctors, so I'm curious how those who started later compellingly explained their decision to pursue medicine.

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[HeronsBeak]

I'm at the end of my sophomore year and just decided to make the switch to medicine. I started out in biomed engineering, then made my way to comp engr, and almost took a job with the government before realizing what I wanted to do with my life. I thought about law enforcement after school. Basically I always wanted to have a job helping people, but hadn't found the right way for me to do so. Government work seemed too reserved and secluded from the people you are helping, and law enforcement puts you in harm's way and makes it hard to have a family. Medicine just made sense for me, there was no "moment of realization" for me, just a logical process of narrowing down fields of study. That's how I plan to explain it, and I don't think you need some extravagant story to tell them, as long as you are honest about it.

 

[StBernardsRule]

While most people aren't going into medicine "for the money" (myself included), it is easy to forget how much the general attitude and advice you get changes when the economy fluctuates. When I was an undergrad the economy was booming incredibly hard so a lot of the advice I got is "don't go into medicine, go into field XXXXX and become super rich then do whatever you want." Might seem silly now but when you are 18 years old with little idea what is going on you don't really have the perspective to know better. More people apply to medical school in a weak economy and fewer in a strong economy for a reason.

Also a lot of people try stuff out and find out they just don't like it that much, so they try something new.