Hi all. I am feeling discouraged and need some advice.
I don't enjoy chemistry. I don't enjoy organic chemistry. I don't enjoy physics. I find it hard to stay motivated to study for the mcat with such dry, difficult material. anyone else feel this way? how do you stay motivated? is this indicative of what med school will be like? 🙁
There will be many days in med school that you don’t feel motivated to study. Starting on Day 1, you’ll be given more information in a single lecture than you probably got in a whole week in undergrad. And it doesn’t stop. Usually on exam days you’ll either have lecture in the afternoon for the next block, or you’ll have a reading assignment or you’ll just be getting ready for new material.
You’ll get tired, you’ll make a grade that isn’t what you wanted and feel unmotivated and like you can’t do it. You’ll get sick, you’ll have issues in your personal life, and still the material will just keep coming. You’ll become increasingly aware that all those times you didn’t “get” something in undergrad, and you told yourself you’d see it again, are coming to an end. Getting stuff now means impacting the lives of future patients.
But, you’ll also have triumphs. You’ll work hard and rock an exam, and you’ll find that you have skills you didn’t know you had. Some days, you’ll feel like you’re really becoming a doctor and that this stuff is actually fun. You’ll meet new people who are smart, accomplished, and funny, and you’ll all be in the trenches together. You’ll have support from your school, your classmates & upperclassmen to see it through. Sometimes you’ll hear something in lecture that clicks and makes you realize that most people don’t know the things we will know, and we’ll be able to help people with that knowledge. You’ll get to see up close what diseases do to the body in anatomy lab, and it will be a privilege as well as a humbling experience.
Motivation is fickle, what you need is self-discipline. Do you want to do this or not, really? Why? Hold on to that reason for dear life, because you’re gonna need it. For me, on the days I don’t want to study or go to class, I think about my family members who are currently being treated by doctors, and the future patients I’ll be treating years from now. Would they be ok with me treating their father or grandfather or child at the level I’m currently performing at?
As for how much organic chemistry and physics there is in med school, so far I’ve seen some biochem, very little organic, and a minuscule amount of physics. If this is really what you want, grind hard. If you’re not sure or you think you’d be happy doing anything else, run now while you can.
