taking a year off, whats the best thing to do?

[dokrah]

k. thnx!

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[neopentanol]

Hi,

I am currently very confused. I want to do something that will benefit my chances of getting into medical school of course. I have a year off since I just graduated and am still applying to medical schools. Here are my options:

1. I can take a non-paid internship with doctors without borders in NYC. I always wanted to live in NYC, and I want to work with DWB on field after getting my md. The benefit would be that if i ever mention that i want to do international medicine with DWB, at least admin wont think im a big fat liar.

2. Wait around for a clinical research position at UCSF. I have had one interview already, and I sent out a zillion resumes, so I think I can get at least one of them to come through. UCSF has a bigger name, and clinical research can look good.

If you have any opinion on which to choose, can you please tell me what your background is? (aka med students, premed student, foreign med student, etc.)

Pre-med student here. How does your resume look so far? Have you done any research before? Is your application heavy in community involvement and volunteer work? I'd say those would both be amazing and rich experiences, so you should go for the one that you haven't done much of yet. If you have a fair amount of both on your app already, the DWB sounds a little more interesting than the clinical research, and its also a sure thing. You wouldn't want to be wasting the year waiting for a response from UCSF.

 

[scowdeva]

It seems that you have two great opportunities to pick from...I can see why that would be a hard choice! I would suggest that you choose the one that is most applicable to your future goals, such as if you plan on doing DWB after graduation or if you are more interested in pursuing a research path. Choose the one that sounds more interesting, and dont necessarily worry about what looks the best on paper. They are both respectable ways to spend a year!

 

[jon stewart]

i geuss it just depends. Are you weak in one area of your app?

for me its clinical experience so when i take my year off i will try and find a clinically related job....but i dont have much research either. But i am not really looking into research because i am not that interested in it.

 

[ADeadLois]

Hi,

I am currently very confused. I want to do something that will benefit my chances of getting into medical school of course. I have a year off since I just graduated and am still applying to medical schools. Here are my options:

1. I can take a non-paid internship with doctors without borders in NYC. I always wanted to live in NYC, and I want to work with DWB on field after getting my md. The benefit would be that if i ever mention that i want to do international medicine with DWB, at least admin wont think im a big fat liar.

2. Wait around for a clinical research position at UCSF. I have had one interview already, and I sent out a zillion resumes, so I think I can get at least one of them to come through. UCSF has a bigger name, and clinical research can look good.

If you have any opinion on which to choose, can you please tell me what your background is? (aka med students, premed student, foreign med student, etc.)

I hate to sound pessimistic, but here are a few things to keep in mind before making your decision.

(1) Unless you have a lot in savings or have other sources of income, it would be next to impossible to live in NYC doing a non-paid internship. The cost of living is simply too high.

(2) Clinical research can be very difficult to get, particularly only with a bachelors. Big research institutions (especially UCSF) pump a ton of $$ into clinical research, and they're not going to give significant responsibility to someone without much experience. That isn't to say that getting a position isn't possible, but don't go in thinking you're going to be dealing with patients or writing papers.

I would strongly recommend doing something that YOU want to do, not something to impress the adcoms. If you are lacking in clinical experience, you could still definitely volunteer in the evenings or on weekends. However, I would take a step back and think about what would make YOU happy (not the adcoms), and then try and weave considerations for your application once you've decided what you want to do.