What Would YOU Do?

[HCHopeful]

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I'm trying to figure out my summer options, and it appears I have three. One being a research position at the United States Meat Animal Research Center (MARC), a summer undergraduate research program at UNMC, and a public health internship at a company in my hometown.

I did an internship at MARC last summer, doing 520 hours of research with a supervisor. I talked on the phone with him today, and he invited me back to be a co-lead on one of the projects they will be starting this summer. It is in the field of genomics, focusing on antibiotic resistance. He told me I would be a co-author on the paper. This is GREAT, but he said he'd like to know 100% that I'm on board before getting everything together, which means I'd have to leave the UNMC program in the dust for sure.

The UNMC program would be focusing on either internal medicine, internal medicine and alcohol, or cancer research. It is also at my in-state school, and the one which I hope to get into. This research would most certainly not lead to any co-authorship, just a poster presentation at the end of the summer.

The public health internship would be for 120+ hours over the summer unpaid. It would focus on rural healthcare, which is something I plan on doing once becoming a physician.

I just don't know which is the best option. I will be applying for medical school in June of this year, so whichever I do will be listed as a future accomplishment.

Another potential problem is that the MARC option is not set in stone. My supervisor said he would have to talk to the "higher ups" to be sure I could be a research lead. He told me he'd have everything figured out by the first week in March. The deadline for the UNMC program is March 1st. If, for some reason, the MARC position doesn't work out, I'd like to have the UNMC program to fall back on. This creates a problem, because he said he wanted me 100% on board. I would also ask for a letter of rec from him for the UNMC program as well, which further complicates matters.

What would you do? Apply to UNMC and ask him for a letter of rec, while explaining that MARC is my first choice? Put my faith in him that he will work everything out and I'll have nothing to worry about?

Thanks, everyone. Much appreciated.

Little extra information of what I've done already regarding research and UNMC:

• SMDEP at UNMC
• Research at MARC summer of 2014
• Shadow-a-Student Program at UNMC

I have other volunteering and extracurricular activities, but I don't think it necessary to list at this point.

 

[mcatjelly]

Throwing this back at you: what do YOU want to do? Because--provided you're not lacking in a particular EC area, in which case you should work on filling that gap--THAT's what you should be doing. An EC you enjoy will be infinitely easier to talk and write about come application season than one you did based on someone else's advice.

 

[HCHopeful]

Well I'd like to take the first option, but the fact of the matter is I have no guarantee that I'd be a project lead at MARC. In that case, I'd like to take the UNMC option; however, I won't know about the first until the first week of March, which is after the March 1st deadline for the UNMC program. The issue with that is, the same man who wants me to commit wholly to MARC would need to write me a letter of rec for UNMC. If he doesn't, my chances of getting into the UNMC program are dimished quite a bit.

See the dilemma?

 

[moop]

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