Your undergrad "lowest of lows" moment

[Chris127]

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We have all experienced tribulation in our pre medical years, whether with relationships, academics, or other subjects. What moment in your undergrad do you recall feeling so down, so drained that you questioned your current path and future? Fortunatley as a freshman, I havent experienced any yet, but I am sure I could learn a lot from people here about what these moments consisted of and how they pulled themselves up.

 

[BaylorGuy]

I dont really remember the summer of 2004...however, my GPA does.

 

[Hoberto]

To talk about that I'd need some sort of anonymous username.

🙁

I'm feeling pretty down right now.
I hate reactor.

 

[Thundrstorm]

Fall semester of sophomore year. I had 20 credits of challenging courses (including two labs) and 3 part-time jobs. I had an awful roommate. My father was unemployed and I was financialy independent for the first time in my life. I had no health insurance, and was under such stress that I started having heart palpitations. I would come home and cry all of the time. I got straight Bs that semester, which, thanks to some B minuses, gave me my first sub 3.0 GPA ever, dropping my cumulative by .3

Since that time, I have learned to better balance my time and stress level, and even though my GPA never got back to what it was, life went on, and it got a lot better. Even though I thought that my 2.93 semester would ruin my life (I was so melodramatic), three years later, I'm an MSTP applicant and I already have 2 interviews. I'm not bragging, just hoping that if someone reads this at their darkest time that they will get a little perspective and realize that things will get better.

The way I pulled myself out of my depression? I took a light schedule the next semester, and cut back to one job, and I prayed alot. I started to learn how to enjoy college as an experience in and of itself, not just a path to med school. Later that year, I decided to hold off on applications untl I was excited about it again. Sometimes, you've gotta get real low to make important changes.

 

[beastly115]

I got an A- on a test once.

To pull myself up I studied for the next test.

 

[Shredder]

We have all experienced tribulation in our pre medical years, whether with relationships, academics, or other subjects. What moment in your undergrad do you recall feeling so down, so drained that you questioned your current path and future? Fortunatley as a freshman, I havent experienced any yet, but I am sure I could learn a lot from people here about what these moments consisted of and how they pulled themselves up.

getting a C in orgo 1

observing pre allos on sdn for the first time and regularly since

 

[neovenom]

i know these could seem minor in comparison to others, but some of my low points include:

- freshman year when i got a C on my first gen chem exam.
- made an 18 on my baseline MCAT for the kaplan class.
- senior year when i had to drop biochem because of a bad first exam.

all was well in the end though. i made an A in that chem class, made a 28 on MCAT, and got into the medical college of georiga.

 

[Kiroro]

Right now...

now that I'm done with MCAT and applied to all the med schools, I have no motivation what so ever for studying anymore.... and I have 3 exams this week... 🙁

I figure I'll get into at least one med school before this semester ends, so I'm pretty much aiming for straight Bs or even a few Cs for all the left over classes.... They are all senior engineering classes and getting too hard for me to do as well as bofore anyways...

 

[oompa loompa]

if your greatest woes are academically related, then you've lived a pretty charmed existence, IMO. But yes, I know how frustrating it is to feel overwhelmed and unmotivated.

 

[firebird69guy]

Chem 1 lab, freshman year, fall quarter:

We had all been forewarned by our general chemistry instructor and TA that the burets we were using were VERY expensive. If we were to break anything, we would have to pay for it. The burets were between 60 and 70 dollars. When they told us that, I was like.. yeah whatever I'm not going to break it, I'm not clumsy. Well, I had brought in my cd player and was listening to some music while titrating (yeah, stupid.. I can't believe how nonsocial I was that year). I blame the following event on the ghetto clamps that we were using to hold the burets up over our solution: It was getting to be the end of the period (after a ton of work had been done) when I clamped my buret (which, incidentally was full of potassium permanganate). I somehow knocked the clamp which knocked the buret off which caused the buret to ever so slowly fall to the lab table. It seemed like forever before it hit the table and rolled onto the ground, splashing me and a few students standing next to me, including this HOT chick that I had been talking to earlier. It also knocked my solution over (that I had been titrating) and it spilled all over the table and onto the floor. RUINING everything.. Everyone looked at me like -ohhh you gotta pay now buddy... LOSER (That's what I wouuld have been thinking anyways, if I was them).

Well, I hadn't been doing all that well on the quizzes and tests, and was feeling pretty low already. I had a ton of units that quarter (you guys know, pumped up to do well in college). So yeah.. everything just piled on right then, and I knew that I would get a zero on my lab for the day (which were weighted pretty heavily), AND had to pay 70 bucks for some stupid, clumsy accident that I caused. Everything just went wrong in that class, and I ended up having to drop with a W. However, I still know the hot chick and even though I made a fool out of myself, I ended up tutoring her in chem 2 a year later (after she flunked out of Chem 1) =) It all worked out!! To this day students from that class still bring it up..


I have a few other low stories, this is the one that came to mind..

 

[firebird69guy]

I got an A- on a test once.

To pull myself up I studied for the next test.

HAHA nice.. you belong on SDN for sure

 

[hardy]

We had all been forewarned by our general chemistry instructor and TA that the burets we were using were VERY expensive. If we were to break anything, we would have to pay for it.

That's what they always told us in Ochem... but even though we broke tons of glassware in our lab, even some really expensive one, they never made us pay for it, puh.

 

[riceman04]

We have all experienced tribulation in our pre medical years, whether with relationships, academics, or other subjects. What moment in your undergrad do you recall feeling so down, so drained that you questioned your current path and future? Fortunatley as a freshman, I havent experienced any yet, but I am sure I could learn a lot from people here about what these moments consisted of and how they pulled themselves up.

First year, first semester general chemistry final....That exam made me want to transfer out of Rice....that was the pits...and then I could not get the entire winter break off b/c I was a team manager for the girls basketball team.... 🙁 🙁 🙁 .....that was the worst time ever in college.....but I stuck through it and I ended up doing well (starting 2nd semester that is)

 

[tomorrowgirl99]

Lowest moment?...

Probably right now. I hate all my engineering classes and regret even picking this major. My favorite class right now is biochem. 🙁

 

[ronin13]

Second semester of my second year.

Broke up with my girlfriend of 4 years. She promptly starts sleeping with my best friend. To compensate, I get drunk every night and start hooking up with random girls, who find out about each other and start making my life hell. Probably wasn't the best choice.

I get an incredibly horrible case of bronchitis, and leave it undiagnosed so long that I break a couple of ribs from coughing. Stay up all night drinking (while taking antibiotics) the night before my organic chem final, get a spectacular D on the test, my lowest grade ever, by far.

I pulled down a 3.3 that term, which isn't too horrible in the scheme of things. Lessons learned - be responsible for your actions.

 

[firebird69guy]

I get drunk every night and start hooking up with random girls

At least you got some experience out of it! =)

 

[ronin13]

At least you got some experience out of it! =)

Haha, yeah. That's one bit of life "experience" that won't be going in any of my essays.

 

[cyclist05]

The quarter I got a 1.7. 😳 Sadly, there was no real reason why it happened... I was just really lazy.

I worked hard after that, though, and have managed to get two interviews at my state schools so far. There's proof that one bad quarter doesn't always kill you.

 

[waitman192]

2 low moments:
1. Fall semester sophomore year (2001). My friends dad died in the WTC attack, my uncle died, and a lady closer to me than my grandmother died. All of this (including funerals) occured within a 8 week period. My mom was also just recovering breast cancer, and my dad was diagnosed with my skin cancer. I also decided to take on an 18 credit load that semester (including orgo). I remember walking from one of my professor's offices to my dorm room and had essentially decided to drop out. How I got over it? I ended up calling one of my friends and talked to her for 2 and a half hours and she convinced me to stick around. I don't remember exactly what she said, but obviously it was good enough to make me not drop out.

2. A week during fall semester senior year. I had a 20 page research paper due on a Tuesday, a 30 page lab report for pchem due the next day, a 15 page psychology lab due on the Thursday and an hour long presentation on the Friday. It could have been a lot easier had a I worked ahead, but some of my best work comes out when I work on it the night before (and I was an undergrad student) How I got over it? Slept the entire weekend.

 

[Bluntman]

That's what they always told us in Ochem... but even though we broke tons of glassware in our lab, even some really expensive one, they never made us pay for it, puh.

Haha...yea same here. There was even this one guy that hand-picked some choice pieces of glassware to go home and make a labware bong with.

 

[mustangsally65]

Hmmm. Probably my fall semester of my junior year, so fall 2002. I had a job that was quickly going downhill because the only other employee at the gift shop was stealing merchandise and leaving early and setting the time clock forward so she got paid for many hours she wasn't there working. This happened in the summer, and then my cat had a reaction to a vaccination and was sick with autoimmune hemolytic anemia for two and a half weeks before she died in my arms. Right before the fall semester started, my mom was daignosed with a gynecological cancer and had a surgery scheduled for early September. I was working at least 40 hours a week and taking 18 hours at school. I also was living at home and taking care of my 13 year old brother while my mom recovered for a few months. By November I'd started working at one place on the weekends and another place three days a week. I was doing all the household shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry etc. as well as picking my brother up from school and going to class myself, and working full time. I ended up with walking pneumonia in November, and had to take a few days off and just lay around. Just as things were starting to get better, my mom needed an emergency hernia surgery the first week of December. I took her to the hospital at 6 in the morning, and left to go pick up my brother at school in the afternoon. We went back to the hospital, and then went home before dark as there was an ice storm coming in. My mom got to come home a few days later.

My gpa didn't take as bad a hit that semester as it could have, but I did end up with a C and a B-, as well as two B's.

 

[MercyKillerDoc]

I misread a problem on a test which lowered my grade by 15%. That tormented me for months afterwards because I felt like such a ****ing *****! especially since I knew the answer. Careless mistakes are the hardest to live with.

 

[prana_md]

Summer before my last quarter of college ...

In restraints and sedated at 3 a.m. in the E.R. after punching a police officer in the face and threatening my best friend. He (my friend ... the police officer was actually pretty cool about the whole thing) didn't speak to me for six months. My parents had to drive overnight to come get me out of the hospital.

Don't do antidepressants, antihistamines and alcohol all together.

Pretty scary. Freaked me out and made me a lot more serious about taking care of my grey matter.

 

[45408]

what kind of pathetic school makes you pay for the glassware if you break it? You paid for it in the first place! in some measure anyways. I've broken a few pieces, but nothing real exotic. I know some people who would always take "souvenirs" from their labs. 🙄

 

[maxflash04]

Last year (freshman year): Being diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, moving away from home, and going to the ER every month or two because my UC symptoms were out of control. It was the worst year of my life. UC is more controlled, taking tons of meds, and retaking a class to ensure I get an A instead of the C I had earned. I thought that year would hender the possibility of getting accepted to a medical school until I spoke with my pre-med advisor, checked out mdapplicants, and discovered SDN.