Toughest feedback you've received secondary essay

[futureMD2321]

I'm pre-writing my secondaries and one of the prompts was "What is the toughest feedback you ever received? How did you handle it and what did you learn from it?"

Basically I was an ultra competitive student in high school and had a friend call me out on it which I didn't really understand in the moment because I didn't think anything was wrong with my level of competition. But then I reflect on it entering college and come to the understanding early on freshman year that it wasn't a healthy way to go about school and so I put an emphasis on creating collaborative team environments in classes to support classmates and help each other succeed and how I have built upon this idea throughout college and will transfer it into medical school.

Just wondering how it might come off to someone reading it because obviously they wouldn't want a student who is going to try and be competitive with others, but I think I did a good job at explaining how I've grown from it and changed my ways.

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[Goro]

Sounds fine! Go with it

 

[Hollow Knight]

This is shockingly relevant to medical school, I'd appreciate that essay honestly. Nobody likes gunners

 

[deleted929944]

It all comes down to the actual writing whether it comes off as genuine or not.

There's nothing wrong with being competitive or even ultra competitive. You wouldn't want a quarterback or surgeon who is okay with settling for the bench. You can be competitive and a team player - try your best but also help others to be their best, even if they might be better than you one day. And if you're sincere about it, people see that you're really in competition with yourself, trying to do the best that you can, not competing with others and pushing them down.

Your being called out was probably due to some associated toxic behavior, not necessarily the actual competitiveness itself. So I hope in your essay that you're still competitive and trying for the best, but that it's now tempered with considerations for others.

 

[futureMD2321]

It all comes down to the actual writing whether it comes off as genuine or not.

There's nothing wrong with being competitive or even ultra competitive. You wouldn't want a quarterback or surgeon who is okay with settling for the bench. You can be competitive and a team player - try your best but also help others to be their best, even if they might be better than you one day. And if you're sincere about it, people see that you're really in competition with yourself, trying to do the best that you can, not competing with others and pushing them down.

Your being called out was probably due to some associated toxic behavior, not necessarily the actual competitiveness itself. So I hope in your essay that you're still competitive and trying for the best, but that it's now tempered with considerations for others.

I completely agree, and that's how I attempted to have my essay be framed. I basically wrote that I realized I wasn't just being competitive, but not wanting others to succeed or be better than me. Then realizing the toxicity of this way of thinking and transitioning to still competing to be the best that I could be while leaving behind this idea of essentially praying on others downfall.

My main reflection really came down to realizing that in any medical career this level of toxic competition is only hurting the patients and how I want to build a collaborative environment throughout med school and beyond.