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Venting because my friends don't get it
- Thread starter irishnerd26
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The vast majority of pre-meds are not committing 67.5 hours per week to a job. It is not always clear cut. Nobody ever said that it was. But, for the vast majority of pre-meds, it is. You have a lot of 'suck cost' time. 30 minutes of wake up time, 20 minutes of shower/dressing, 60 minutes of driving, 60 minutes of prep time for the next day. That is 15 hours a week of sunk time per week. The reality for some is that they have to work either for themselves or for others. Your average pre-med doesn't have those commitments. Of all the applications that have crossed my desk, I would say that maybe 3% have had 40+ hour per week time commitments that they 'HAD' to do. ie. others were depending on them for it. Maybe 10-12% had the same commitment that they were choosing to do for whatever reason (money for lifestyle was the main thing) that they saw as as 'mandatory'.
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Warning: I am a tad OCD...
4 minutes after my alarm goes off, I am in the elevator on the way down. I sleep in a fresh/clean set of scrubs, roll out of bed, brush my teeth, grab a yogurt/grapefruit and my lunch and walk out the door. It takes me 3-5 minutes to drive to the hospital, depending on how many lights I get stuck at, I reduced this time by increasing the distance, but decreasing the number of lights I go through. It take 2 minutes to get to where I park, if I get stuck behind a patient/family, it can take 5 minutes. If I have conference at 7am (and I don't need to see anyone before I go to it, like now while I'm on research), my alarm is set for 6:45. I am never late.
I am obsessive about what I'm eating right now (competitive endurance rock climbing), but I'm not obsessive about actually eating. I don't mind eating the same thing every day for breakfast/lunch and that makes things easier to prepare and buy in bulk.
When I became a surgical resident, I was working 80-100 hours/week between clinical duties, studying and research. I charted every 15 minutes of my life for 2 weeks and then started trying to make every last bit of it more efficient. It has worked very well. A little anal retentive, but I have so little time as it is, might as well be and get a few extra minutes free a day.
4 minutes after my alarm goes off, I am in the elevator on the way down. I sleep in a fresh/clean set of scrubs, roll out of bed, brush my teeth, grab a yogurt/grapefruit and my lunch and walk out the door. It takes me 3-5 minutes to drive to the hospital, depending on how many lights I get stuck at, I reduced this time by increasing the distance, but decreasing the number of lights I go through. It take 2 minutes to get to where I park, if I get stuck behind a patient/family, it can take 5 minutes. If I have conference at 7am (and I don't need to see anyone before I go to it, like now while I'm on research), my alarm is set for 6:45. I am never late.
I am obsessive about what I'm eating right now (competitive endurance rock climbing), but I'm not obsessive about actually eating. I don't mind eating the same thing every day for breakfast/lunch and that makes things easier to prepare and buy in bulk.
When I became a surgical resident, I was working 80-100 hours/week between clinical duties, studying and research. I charted every 15 minutes of my life for 2 weeks and then started trying to make every last bit of it more efficient. It has worked very well. A little anal retentive, but I have so little time as it is, might as well be and get a few extra minutes free a day.
He very clearly stated that it was based on the assumption that it was a 40hr class/work week, which is by far and beyond the majority of pre-meds. It was a very specific post for the majority of people, you can always find some exceptions and he wasn't calling the exceptions lazy by any means.
You simply jumped in trying to show how "busy" and "not lazy" you are like the post was somehow directed at you and calling you and EVERY other premed as lazy, and that was simply not the case and in fact, was specifically defined to be for the average premed. Your example doesn't even relate to the post, besides the fact that it is nothing like what he was originally saying. Nothing against you, but in that regard your post just seems to be a nice humble brag about how you are able to work a ton and still do the MCAT, etc etc. and how for some reason that makes you better than the average premed.
Plus you (like myself) took the MCAT while already out of school and done with the prereq classes it sounds like. You may not have been able to dedicate full-time studying like some people seem to do, but the MCAT still is a test that is almost completely a review of all the classes you have already taken. The MCAT isn't nearly as bad as many other tests out there in that regards, and many people in this thread were bringing up that fact combined with the fact that most premeds should have an abundance of time to study for this test.
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Like I said, I have nothing against you and hope you don't think I'm angry or hostile against you. I can definitely see and sympathize with your point that some premeds (like yourself) actually do work really long hours and very hard, which I would assume and hope Adcom members recognize and respect. Judging by the fact that you got accepted, I'm sure your hard work while taking the MCAT as well as hard work during undergrad was noticed and liked by schools, congrats on the acceptance! You can rejoice in the fact that you won't be putting in nearly as many hours for the next couple of years haha.
