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I have been an undergrad for six years, and will likely be an undergrad for another three. I became very ill in my junior year of college, and had to take two years off; I returned, finished up my junior year with a 4.0... and my illness promptly reared its ugly head and I withdrew again a few weeks into my senior year.
I'm now regrouping and living at home with family members, attending a much, much cheaper local state university while commuting from my parents' house. I've also changed majors, to something that may actually pay the bills if I graduate and don't get into med school (biology). The thing is -- my family are not happy that I still want to be a doctor! My father is fairly supportive, but my mother walks away whenever I talk about my plans for the future, because she says it "makes her sick" to hear me talk about med school. She doesn't think I can do it, that I'm tough enough. My maternal grandfather, who's a psychiatrist in Australia, has told me that if I just can't hack it, I should give up. The only person who's really supportive is my uncle, a scientist in Singapore, who I see only very occasionally and only really speak to online through e-mail or facebook.
None of my family in the US have a science background - I started out studying philosophy, just like both of my parents and my brother - and I know they'd rather I went to law school or grad school, even though their official reasoning is that med school is "too hard" and that I might get sick again. As if first year law school (at any place decent enough that you could get a job after) or grad school (at any program that's fully funded) aren't stressful!
The most infuriating thing is that, of all the doctors I've seen over the years for my illness, none of them have said that medicine or med school aren't an option for me (or for people with my diagnosis in general). NONE of them.
I feel like we're all in shock and stress over how ill I've been and how long I've been ill the past four years. I was precocious as a kid, and I think my parents had this image of my life where I'd be clerking for a federal judge at 25 or something, and now that I have totally different aspirations (not to mention a totally different set of realistic goals) they don't know what to make of me or how to talk to me. They don't understand that I get excited by calculus or biology, they don't want to talk to me about my coursework (I swear to god, my father tries to relate everything back to American political thought - it's sweet, but it's not what I'm looking for!)
I know these are minor, minor, minor gripes. I am blessed to have family that supports education in general, family that has helped me through my illness for better or for worse. But it's hard to keep up the will to do something difficult when people are telling you, "You'll never make it, it's not worthwhile, you should do something else."
I'm now regrouping and living at home with family members, attending a much, much cheaper local state university while commuting from my parents' house. I've also changed majors, to something that may actually pay the bills if I graduate and don't get into med school (biology). The thing is -- my family are not happy that I still want to be a doctor! My father is fairly supportive, but my mother walks away whenever I talk about my plans for the future, because she says it "makes her sick" to hear me talk about med school. She doesn't think I can do it, that I'm tough enough. My maternal grandfather, who's a psychiatrist in Australia, has told me that if I just can't hack it, I should give up. The only person who's really supportive is my uncle, a scientist in Singapore, who I see only very occasionally and only really speak to online through e-mail or facebook.
None of my family in the US have a science background - I started out studying philosophy, just like both of my parents and my brother - and I know they'd rather I went to law school or grad school, even though their official reasoning is that med school is "too hard" and that I might get sick again. As if first year law school (at any place decent enough that you could get a job after) or grad school (at any program that's fully funded) aren't stressful!
The most infuriating thing is that, of all the doctors I've seen over the years for my illness, none of them have said that medicine or med school aren't an option for me (or for people with my diagnosis in general). NONE of them.
I feel like we're all in shock and stress over how ill I've been and how long I've been ill the past four years. I was precocious as a kid, and I think my parents had this image of my life where I'd be clerking for a federal judge at 25 or something, and now that I have totally different aspirations (not to mention a totally different set of realistic goals) they don't know what to make of me or how to talk to me. They don't understand that I get excited by calculus or biology, they don't want to talk to me about my coursework (I swear to god, my father tries to relate everything back to American political thought - it's sweet, but it's not what I'm looking for!)
I know these are minor, minor, minor gripes. I am blessed to have family that supports education in general, family that has helped me through my illness for better or for worse. But it's hard to keep up the will to do something difficult when people are telling you, "You'll never make it, it's not worthwhile, you should do something else."
