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Medstudent

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Everything posted by Medstudent

  1. For what it's worth, I know ~30 former Vandy undergrads who are now in med school, a few of them were music majors. Only about 20% of them were Greek. When they say Greek life dominates a campus, that mostly means that the on-campus parties tend to happen at frats/sororities. If you're not a big partier and drinker, no one forces you to go to those parties. Besides, a lot of the assumptions about frats/sororities aren't always true. For example, one of the schools with the most active Greek lives I've ever seen is MIT. I think most would argue that it's a pretty academically-inclined school, and it's hardly the stereotypical frat/sorority school. However, most MIT students go to those parties (and they're super fun). Mind you, I was never Greek, I just wanted to dispel some common misconceptions about the Greek system in general. I had many friends in frats/sororities as an undergrad and they were brilliant people, many of whom didn't drink.
  2. Vanderbilt? It offers both the BM and engineering, it is in a great music city (right by Belmont, in fact), it's very Southern, it has a great football stadium and is in the SEC but by no means is it a party school, it's very academically inclined and well-regarded nationally and the campus is beautiful. Plus it's a nice student body size- not too big, not too small. It's definitely more right-leaning than I'd prefer ;) I'd avoid the California state schools while this education budget crisis is going on over there. Emory is another good option.
  3. I'll say that if she absolutely cannot pull off a 4-year college from the get go, cc CAN be an option but with some important caveats. She's absolutely have to get a 4.0 there, no question. She should absolutely not take any sciences/pre-med related courses. And she'd have to transfer to a good 4-year college- I'm thinking UT, Rice and all those previously mentioned or a good OOS private school (you'd be surprised at how much merit and money money is out there, especially if you come from a poorer background and from a less represented state at that school). For example, if she were to graduate from high school with high grades but maybe not as high an SAT score or the opposite situation , making her unable to get into a good college from the get-go, she could go to cc. Here, she could take writing classes to help her with the SAT, or basic math classes to fill in her gaps, some basic science classes would be ok with the understanding that she'd have to retake the real version when she got to a better college. She could also explore other options here (medicine is a long, hard, expensive road, it's best to examine all your options before committing to it), such as psychology, social work, nursing, etc. She could do this for a year or two, absolutely get as close to a 4.0 as possible, possibly work and save up some money, then reapply to GOOD 4-year colleges. I think that way could be totally workable. It would lengthen the path (she'd likely get into the 4-year college as a freshman, or just not be able to finish in 2-3 years if she transferred, what with a major and premed) but as someone who's still along the way, I can assure you that the path is so long anyway that another year or two wont make too much of a difference. I know she's still a 9th grader so she'll likely change her mind before then, but as a public service, please remind her of how tough this road is. This is now my 9th year of education after high school (took two years off to work in there, to improve my chances of getting into a top med school) and I still have another year to go plus graduate medical education, which is between 2 and 10+ years. People I went to college with are making up to 6 figures already, 5 years after our graduation. Nurses in my hospital make upward of 60k, not to mention nurse practitioners who make up in the 90s with a masters degree. The reality isn't quite Grey's Anatomy, and my feeling about it is, if there's anything else you can see yourself loving as much as being a doctor- you should probably go for that.
  4. See, I disagree. It may stem from the fact that I grew up with only women. My mom was a SAHM with a linguistics degree when I was little, but when my dad died, she found herself needing to support three daughters, two of whom were college-age (I was 11). She comes from a very, very traditional society, and while her parents had wanted her to go to college, my grandfather had strongly encouraged "womanly pursuits", so she didn't pursue any of the "hard sciences", math or economics, and it never really occurred to her to go to grad school because by the time she'd graduated college, she was already married to my dad. She never had a full-time, real job because my dad's work made him move around all over the place and she followed him with daughters in tow. By the time that we were finally settled in one place, she was a SAHM through and through, and she loved it. So when she found that she HAD to have a job so we wouldn't starve, she had to make a lot of sacrifices and had to start from the very bottom for it. The vast majority of her salary in the beginning went toward our education. Because of what happened to her, our gender is irrelevant. In fact, we are encouraged to pursue practical fields, and she feels very strongly that we must at the very least have the potential to be 100% financially independent. If we choose to have kids, great, but we must be able to support ourselves and our kids regardless of the presence of a second salary. When my dad died, my oldest sister was a freshman at MIT, and my middle sister was about to start college at an equally well-respected, expensive college. We literally lived on almost nothing for a few years so that they could have that opportunity. THAT'S how important it was to her. So, unsurprisingly, it's that important to me. I actually get somewhat frustrated by receiving "girl-specific" advice. Even now this happens to me. Just a few weeks ago, I was doing a plastic surgery rotation and my boss, the surgeon, was this very nice, young guy who has four daughters. He asked me what field I'm interested in, and I told him I wasn't sure quite yet. He started recommending pediatrics and dermatology to me, which I found somewhat strange since he's a plastic surgeon, but I figured hey, maybe he just doesn't love his job. Next day I hear him talking to my male classmate, and he's telling him how much he loves surgery, how much fun it is, etc. So I go up to him and tell him that I, too, am really enjoying surgery and am considering it as a career. And he goes on this rant about the lifestyle, and how I won't want to be away from home that much, and won't I want to see my kids before they go to sleep (why doesn't HE?!), etc. I was horrified. I could not believe that I had been written off so quickly. I agree that lifestyle considerations should be important- but aren't they just as important for men as they are for women? Anyway, this conversation just made me think of that. I realize it may not specifically apply to anyone else on this board. I'm just touchy when it comes to this subject.
  5. I agree. I've had PCOS my whole life and it would definitely make a big difference in my life if I couldn't have OCP's. I've been on them since I was 17 and when I'm not on them, I have horribly painful periods because of the cysts, my hair falls off, my mood is all over the place, and a lot more unpleasantness. I agree that you shouldn't expect to be able to get true birth control at a Catholic school- that's what you're signing up for. And I do think it's ridiculous to blame getting pregnancy on a lack of OCP's- last I checked, condoms are cheap. But to not give hormones because they can be used as birth control...that's stupid. It'd be like not giving methotrexate to girls with psoriasis or Crohn's because it causes spontaneous abortions. OCP's are useful for many conditions besides contraception- to throw the baby out with the bathwater (pardon the pun) is unnecessary.
  6. I think we're both saying the same thing, sort of. I agree that there are many, many schools that are good enough, and there are many, many careers that are good enough. The issue isn't whether you can be successful no matter what you do- of course you can. Heck, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs didn't even graduate college and they made more money than most of us can even fathom. There are certainly plenty of people at my school who went to lesser-known schools. Maybe even one or two from Podunk U. However, the question that was asked in the OP wasn't "is it possible to be successful if you choose the cheaper alternative", but "would you make your kids choose the cheaper alternative". My answer is, if the more expensive alternative would help them achieve their goals, then I would do whatever I need to do to make it happen for them. No, where you go to college isn't a huge deal, but it isn't insignificant either. The truth of it is, when you start applying to med school (particularly the prestigious med schools) you begin to realize that a large percentage of the people you're on the interview trail with went to Prestigious U. It isn't pretty, but it's the truth. Every year it becomes more competitive, and every year each minor leg up counts more. That means that if you talk to a doctor in his 40s, he went to med school at a different time. Again, it is absolutely possible to go to a prestigious med school from a non-prestigious college, but if I were to put my money on something, I'd put my money on the more prestigious place. It's not just the name- it's that the professors are well-known, and the research coming out of the university is impressive, and there are many opportunities to get money to help with that research, and the premed advisor is well-respected among admissions officers, and there are opportunities to go on mission trips, and your classmates' parents are doctors who'll help you, and the alumni donate lots of money for the amazing medical library...etc etc. Heck I didn't even go to a school like that, and I got along just fine. But the issue is whether I'd push for my kids to have every possible door open to them, even if it meant shouldering the debt myself...and the answer is yes. I was raised to think that way. It may not be "right", but that's how I'd do it. PS- I'm sort of making a fairly big comparison in my mind. I mean, in my head I'm comparing, say, Harvard to random-state-U. I realize the choices are often not that disparate. If my kids were to have to choose between, say, Stanford and UC Berkeley, they'd have to give me a really good argument for why Stanford is a better option since it costs so much more. Same for UNC vs Duke, etc.
  7. *shrug* I didn't borrow nearly that much, but my mom would have been fine if I had, so I'd feel selfish taking that option away from my kids. I think it would be largely dependent on their plans for the future- if you're just going to be an English major or a pottery major or something, you can go to a state school. I'd still encourage them to go to the very best state school there is, and I'd still contribute as much as I can, but I'd be less likely to cosign 100k worth of loans. My mom cosigned my undergrad loans (30k total I think, I don't remember exactly) and she contributed a chunk of her salary while she could afford it. For med school, I just took out Staffords, and I'll likely finish up med school + residency (with interest building the whole time) with 150-180k (again, not sure exactly how much, but that's the ballpark). And this is with a) maternal help during college and some small scholarships at the time, b) a job in between that paid off ~8k of my college principal, and c) a full-tuition scholarship for my med school (my loans are just for cost of living). Most people finish residency with 250k+ of debt. It is what it is. I can't imagine telling my kids not to follow their dream because of the debt. I think it makes sense to tell them to pick a cheaper school if where they go won't really matter anyway, but for something like med school or a Wall Street-type job, it absolutely matters. I feel like it'll be my job as a mother to support their dream if that's what they want to do, and I'd never tell them to go to a school that's "beneath them" in terms of grades/scores/whatever if they really need their school's name to accomplish their goal.
  8. Money was never a factor in my college choice. We didn't have that kind of money saved- I don't think we had ANY money saved- so I gambled a bit on myself eventually making enough money to pay back any loans I took out. I had good grades, great SAT scores, great ACT, all that good stuff, so I knew I'd get some money wherever I went, and we didn't have much in the form of assets or savings so I figured some need-based money was coming my way regardless. I applied to 19 colleges, most of which were reaches with a couple of safeties I hoped I wouldn't have to rely on cause I barely knew what they were about. My requirements were (in no particular order): a nice, comfortable campus (I like grass, not asphalt), a big beautiful library, an excellent national reputation, a great premed program (possibly with a med school associated with the university), location in a city I liked that was not within 2 hours of my house but no more than 6ish hours away, medium-sized student body, and a good "feeling" about the students who went there. I visited all my top 6ish choices and essentially ranked them in my own mind based on those criteria. I applied to a few because my mom wanted me to, and then the safeties. Ultimately I chose my school because of all the ones I got into, it was the one where I felt the happiest and most comfortable. It wasn't the highest ranked, and it was one of the most expensive, but it was also the one where I had gotten along with every student I'd met. Ultimately I did get some need-based aid and some merit-based aid, but yes, I got out of college with some loans (not sure how much, I think 50ish?). A couple of things: I took the risk of taking out a lot of loans because I KNEW I'd be going into medicine. If I had thought I'd want to go into something in which the salary is more variable/risky or if I had had no idea of what I wanted to study, I might have been a little more cautious when it came to my choice of school. I'm really glad that my mom never pushed me to pick a cheaper school- ultimately, it is my responsibility to pay that money back, so I don't think it should have been my mom's choice. She gave me whatever amount of money she could afford every month, and the rest was my responsibility. But yeah, I gambled on myself because I've always been an academic and I knew what I wanted to go into. Second thing: someone mentioned how grad school should be a factor: I agree, except for a different reason. Because I knew I'd have to someday apply to med school, it was doubly imperative that I pick a school with a good (national) reputation. A regionally respected school or a little, unknown school would have given me a much steeper uphill battle to fight. My premed adviser knew the admissions officers of most med schools in the country, she knew how to argue for each student, and we churn out numerous premeds every year, so the med schools know us well. We have our own med school, too, so that helped a ton as far as volunteering/ shadowing/ research opportunities. My school ended up being a really fantastic choice for my interests. Additionally, you'll be hard-pressed to find too many med school/law school grads with no debt- it's just part of the deal. I have a full tuition scholarship and I still have debt for cost of living. Ultimately, it's hard to get out of a med/law school education completely debt free- so to some extent, college seemed like a no-brainer. A school that increases your chances of getting into a good law/med school in the first place + you'll have a ton of debt no matter what after grad school is done...it just made sense to me. I realize some wouldn't agree, but this was my philosophy.
  9. I will say this. If I remember correctly, the OP's daughter was considering med school (or I might be completely wrong and hallucinating...). If so, med school does tend to be a little pickier. Not that they won't accept someone with a more unusual background- numerous transfers included- but they tend to prefer people who stuck with one place or two at most. Med schools are really big on stability- they want to know that no matter how far they push you, you'll stay in school and won't quit. They are also wary of people who take classes in a bunch of different colleges because it makes their gpa harder to evaluate- did you take harder classes at easier colleges and easier classes at harder colleges? All of a sudden your average gpa doesn't mean much because there are so many factors that go into it. Anyway, this may not apply to the OP at all, and I'm not sure how grad school works, but just as an fyi, med schools are definitely on the touchier side.
  10. I think you should. It has a lot of the benefits you're looking for- great campus, high-ranked med school associated with it, an early acceptance program to said med school, lots of money and opportunities for research, a hospital on campus, a safe neighborhood, and a well-respected neuroscience major. Yes, a lot of the students are rich, fratty Southern people, but most premeds can't afford to mess around that much so your son probably wouldn't be associated with those people much anyway.
  11. :iagree: Yeah, I went to college relatively recently and no one ever had that lifestyle. I was as studious as you're gonna get (I had to be), as were my friends, none of us were big drinkers or partiers but I dont think we ever would just come home from classes and listen to classical music, cook gourmet meals, discuss intellectual pursuits and sat in silence. We would have found that extremely bizarre. I guess if I had really wanted to be around old tomes and dusty shelves I could have probably gone to the law library and brought an ipod full of classical music...but I guess the lighting would have been fluorescent so that wouldn't work for your daughter either. I'm not sure that any on campus housing on any campus will be quite like that. We had a "discussion" dorm of sorts with frequent lectures followed by discussion time, and it was pretty rowdy and some very strong opinions were always thrown out. The "healthy living", quiet dorm still had all the lights on all night and people would come back from the library at 3 am on a regular basis and the doors would slam when they entered and left. Honestly, I mean this in the best way, but it sounds like your daughter really just needs to become a little more flexible. This is what the "college experience" is. The food isn't super healthy, you don't get oodles of sleep, and even the most serious students feel the need to unwind. I guess the issue that I have is the implication that you're either a "party kid" or a super serious, quiet student. I went to a nationally renowned school and took grad classes at an Ivy league, now I go to a well-respected medical school. In 9 years of post-high school education at some of the best universities in the country, I've never seen what you're describing. The intellectual conversations with the brilliant, serious academics are there, but they're interspersed with...well...normal life. Pizza, fluorescent lights, all nighters, parties on weekends. It doesn't make these students any less serious, I don't think. Anyways, I'm with everyone else- the only way she'll find this kind of living is really off campus.
  12. Yeah, to me honestly it sounds like cluster headaches, auras without migraines, or a new symptom of your epilepsy. MS is a possibility but considering your history, my guess would be one of the former. PCOS can come with its own brand of fun (I have it, so I know :glare:) but it sounds like your thyroid was checked and while diabetes can certainly cause pins and needles/eye issues, your presentation would be unusual. For one thing, diabetic retinopathy and neuropathy usually happen after you've been diabetic for a while, and they would have picked up something by now, especially if you go to the doctor on a fairly regular basis and your GP is with it, which it sounds like yours is. Secondly, it's usually bilateral. Third, the neuropathy (the "pins and needles" feeling) is usually in the hands and feet at first, since it's due to crappy circulation and that's where most of the vascular problems generally arise. I've never heard of it being under the tongue, to be honest. Anyway, it sounds like you know what to do!
  13. Really, you don't have to justify this choice to anyone. It's your decision, it's your life. You'll always have people who agree and people who disagree with whatever you choose- you just have to go with what you think is right for you. There's no reason for you to look for validation or absolution. The only thing I worry about with you is that you often declare that you "don't like stress" or pressure. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't like being stressed out either. But any job in the medical field carries its own special brand of stress. If you mess up, not only will you get in trouble with your superiors, but you may hurt the patient. This HAS to be in the back of your mind as you do your job. And the schooling is stressful, too- lots to learn, lots to study, lots of pressure to get it all done in time and well. Standardized tests are a part of it. Some measure of competition with your peers is inherent to the process. And most importantly, you're working ON people- which means that if you're messing up say, starting an IV, your patient will often yell and curse and call you names and demand someone higher up. This has happened to me plenty of times. You have to smile and nod and do what you can to swallow your pride and keep going. You have to grow a thick skin. Now, I'm not saying you don't have one- the internet isn't the best way to figure out someone's true character by any means- but I just want you to go in with the attitude that you may not love all of it, and you'll probably be stressed some of the time, and you'll get through it cause everyone else does. As long as you love the work despite the stress, it's worth it.
  14. I had a good friend from high school who was going to my college, and we lived apart our freshman year and together our sophomore year. It was a great compromise- by sophomore year we already had our own circles of friends (which were entirely different) so we were good roommates but without the added drama of constantly depending on each other for social outlets. I think living with a friend from home, especially as a freshman, can put a strain on a relationship because you become dependent on one another- you don't go out if your roommate isn't out (and vice versa), you try to match up your schedules, etc. And too much closeness is never a good thing for a friendship, in my experience. You might throw that into a conversation, maybe. Just muse that it might be best for their friendship if they create their own circles and then merge them, instead of trying to be together 24/7 from day 1.
  15. This is an impossible question to answer because everyone is very different. I lived 4 hours away for college and couldn't have been happier. I was very close to my family, my mom was/is very nosy and interested in my day to day life, so it was a big adjustment to go from that to being totally on my own- but I needed it. I really needed to cut the umbilical cord, and I was able to because of the distance. I could have probably gone home once a month if I'd felt really committed, and for the first 6 months, I just about did. I went from having my own bedroom and bathroom to living with two girls in a tiny room and sharing my bathroom with 9 other people. It was a massive pain, and I wasn't always very happy about it, but again, it was really good for me. I learned to be more patient with other people's annoying habits and became more aware of my own. I also learned how to compromise on things, and how to set ground rules for happy living. I learned how to speak up for what I needed on a daily basis. It really was good for me. That being said, it was hard at times. The noise was certainly an issue- I'm an incredibly light sleeper and had a crazy schedule so I often wouldn't go to bed until 6 am or something, when other people were up and about. Drunk people stumbling around in the middle of the night when I was trying to study was the norm. And not all roommates were especially considerate, so I had to learn how to suck it up, for lack of a better word. Dorm living is all about learning how to suck it up. It's a useful skill, to be sure, but yes, occasionally frustrating. The good thing is I'm the least shy person in the world and usually have no problem expressing my opinion about things or communicating with people. I LOVED the social aspect, loved that I could walk a foot and hang out with my closest friends, loved that I was within walking distance of all the academic and social resources I could possibly need, restaurants, bars, etc. There was no chance of being bored. There were shows and lectures and free athletic classes and a multitude of things to do at any point in time. And best of all- my friends and study buddies were right there! I could schedule a study group meeting at 2 am at someone's dorm, stop by the all-night cafe and pick up some coffee and snacks, and walk home at 4 with no fear of anything happening to me because it was still campus. The campus police was there 24/7 and would drive us home when it was really late at night and we felt uncomfortable, which was a huge plus. All in all, I had an amazing time and I thought it was well worth the noise, annoyance, frustration and occasional home sickness (though I was less and less homesick as time went on, which made it really easy for me to move across the country after I graduated in order to help my career). Anyway, just wanted to give the other side of things. Only you can know which option is right for you. I'd say either way, make sure if you do live at home that you have an easy and safe way to get to and from campus even at crazy hours, especially if you're in nursing when you may have to do some clinical stuff at night and you probably won't want to drive very far on no sleep. Be willing to trek back and forth a lot for study meetings since people who live on campus are often involved in a lot of on-campus clubs that take up the afternoon and are only free to meet up to study at night. And make sure you set up very well-defined rules with your parents from the get-go about your freedom and responsibilities. Basic chores are fine, but they should be willing to let those go during, say, finals week when you probably wouldnt be washing your dishes on campus either. Your time should be your own, and it shouldn't just be an extension of high school.
  16. I'll offer a slightly different opinion and say that this is the time to try and open as many doors as you can. This is the freest you'll ever be, this is the most energy you'll ever have. If I remember correctly, you wanted to work in the neonatal ICU setting- at least at my hospital, those are all BSN RN's with advanced critical care training. Now, I don't know that that's the case at every hospital, but I guess I just don't see a reason to close that door (or delay entering it) right now. Yes, you can go back to school. Zillions of people have done it. If you want to become an NP or an advanced practice nurse of some sort, you can do it later on. But life always gets in the way. First you're tired of schooling and just want to work for a while. Then you meet someone, get married, and don't want to spend so much time away from him. Then you have kids...etc etc. It seems like it's super far away, but you don't really have control over when all this stuff happens a lot of the time. Being nervous about entering a tough field is natural- frankly, I'd be worried if you weren't- but you're young enough to have the energy to pull it off, and you'll be surrounded by other people going through the same thing, and you'll all help each other out. You could come out in 4 years with a degree that keeps a lot of doors open and job opportunities, or come out in 2-3 with a degree that allows you fewer options, somewhat less money, and as many or fewer job opportunities. Why? I understand that debt is an issue, but nursing isn't a terribly paid field, and as you pointed out, there are jobs out there, so it's not an impossible task. You're not married, you don't have any tethers right now. So why wait?
  17. This is not at all an anomaly. I went to a mid-size school (~4000 undergrads), my sister went to a small liberal arts college (~1000 undergrads) and we had a very similar experience. You'll be EXTREMELY hard pressed to find a place where they have strict quiet hours and no drinking whatsoever...maybe a college in a dry county? But even then you can't avoid noise altogether. We had quiet hours on campus- after 10 pm on normal days, after 12am on exam weeks. I had one RA that was a giant pain about it and would get mad when we were doing just about anything at those hours, but none of the others cared unless we were grossly disruptive. I honestly think it's a little unreasonable to ask a dormful of college students to be quiet after 10pm. I had many, many nights of studying into the middle of the night and while I always wore headphones and didnt bother anyone, I couldn't help it if I woke up my roommate- frankly, there wasn't anything that I could do about it. As for people partying and honking outside the window...I'm afraid that's part of the "college experience" people always want. I knew that whenever the Red Sox were playing, I could expect some serious noise outside from students and neighbors alike. Weekends were bound to be noisy as people let off steam. I know it's frustrating, but part of living in a dorm on a college campus is about learning how to deal with people who aren't at all like you. Otherwise, you might as well keep living at home. I lived in a substance free dorm and let me tell you, it made no difference. No one did drugs (or if they did, I never knew) but plenty of people had beer in their rooms and many/most returned home drunk from parties on the weekends. Our RA's didn't really care, and even if they did all that meant was that we had to be a little more circumspect about the partying. And even when none of us partied at all, the people outside the window did. :iagree: I think off campus housing might be the only option, although you might want to go somewhat far away from the campus because I know where I went to college, off-campus housing was often way more rowdy than the dorms because they had no rules. Edit: I also would like to point out that this is largely dependent on majors and extracurriculars and jobs and such. With my schedule, I'd be in class until noon, lab until 4, voice stuff until 6, then have club meetings or work or whatever until 9 or 10. That's when I started my homework, and I often wasn't done before 1 or 2 at best, 6 or 7 if there was a test coming up. One of my former roommates was a music major and the practice rooms were limited so she'd always have to go at like 10 or 11 pm. We had no nursing major, but clinicals can have night shift.
  18. I think that she should talk to the housing office regardless because she is disrupting the peace and the rest of the roommates don't know how to talk to her. However, as someone who has dealt with many a young woman looking for attention, let me say that I would be VERY skeptical of her claims to have DID. It's EXCEEDINGLY rare, so much so that many psychiatrists don't believe it exists (Im not saying that I agree with that by any means, but I'm just saying that it's really, really unusual). Of course it's possible that this girl truly has it, but it's also possible (and statistically far more likely) that she has a borderline or histrionic personality disorder, loves attention and gets it by being disruptive, loud, difficult, and then throwing out a super rare diagnosis so everyone will be too afraid/uncomfortable to talk to her. If there's no good evidence that she has it, she's not currently in treatment or on any meds, she still seems very high-functioning in the other areas of her life- I'd take her claims with a gran of salt.
  19. I think it's all about expectations. You're not going to like all of it all the time. I feel like a lot of people who find in the end that they don't like the field they thought they'd love had seen it through rose-colored glasses. Picking a future career is tricky because it requires you to be a romantic and a pragmatist at the same time. I've wanted to be a doctor since I was about 6 years old. First I wanted to be the guy from E.R., then I loved the science, then I loved talking to people. I did my due diligence- I shadowed, I did research, I took time off before med school so I'd have a clear mind when the time came to start working. And I don't love it every day- far from it. I've wanted to quit med school about 100 times since starting. The work is brutal, the hours are miserable, and there are days when I'd throw it all away just to stay home and sleep for a few hours. Not all patients are inspiring and wonderful- many are cranky, frustrating and rude. And yet you have to leave your own biases, opinions, and fatigue at the door, listen to people complain about how tired they are because they had to wait for you 20 minutes when you've been on your feet 20 hours- it's part of the job, just as it will be for you. And you'll have to deal with those fatigued, cranky doctors who'll expect you to know what to do when you have no idea. Someone once told me to imagine the worst part of the job- which for you may be the paperwork, the angry/rude staff, the long and laborious education process, the terrible hours, dealing with a patient population you have zero interest in before getting to work with kids, or even facing issues like child abuse, people vomiting/pooping on you, creepy male patients hitting on you, etc. If you can live with that, and you think that what you love makes it worthwhile, then do it. It isn't always going to be that bad, but it will be that bad many times, and you need to know that from the get-go. Just know that many people have gone through it before you and they survived, and so will you. So I think the what-if's are a good thing. The ones who get in trouble are the ones who can't imagine a universe in which they don't love everything about their job- they're in for a rude awakening. What if you hate nursing in nursing school? Really examine why you went into it in the first place, spend some time shadowing in the environment you thought you'd love and see if what you hate is nursing school and not nursing itself, then consider whether it's worth it to go through with it. What if you hate nursing as a whole? No problem, nothing in life is set in stone, so you can change your mind and go a different direction.
  20. Aw, it's my pleasure. It's such a bizarre, confusing, and frustrating process and you're expected to know what to do from day one. Happy to help whenever I can. Plus, it's a nice break from studying ;)
  21. This affected me as well when i was applying to colleges, so I'm playing devil's advocate here a bit. I think the problem is that these financial issues haven't happened in a vacuum. People have been affected, but so have universities and especially private LAC's for which a lot of the money comes from wealthy alumni (who can no longer afford to share as many of their millions with their alma mater). I know it seems ridiculous that schools that charge 50k a year have financial difficulties, but if I remember correctly tuition only really covers like 25% of true costs (I may be completely fabricating this number, but I remember something similar). Schools are always in a competition with one another- one school gets green dorms, everyone has to get green dorms. One school has a campus in Rome and one in London, everyone else struggles to get those. A university that is stagnant and doesn't grow doesn't attract donors. This leaves less money for scholarships. I think the issue with merit aid is that with a limited pool of money for financial aid, the more "politically correct" choice will always be to save that money for the extremely poor and meritorious. When thinking of middle class kids on an individual basis, this seems unfair (I was on the same boat a few years ago), but you have to think of the applicant pool as a whole. Would you rather tell the trustees, the donors and the outside public that you're spending 10 million dollars on the kids who busted their butts in an inner city public school while living in low-income housing, always taking the bus and working part time to help the family out...or would you rather say that you're helping the white kids whose parents make 60k a year? i totally understand that that's not a lot in many parts of the country, and that taking 40k out of those 60 can't be done. But the thing is...it technically could. If the family is making 20k a year, then it LITERALLY can't. And so when schools are choosing who to give the money to, that's who they choose. Another issue is that "merit money" is a tricky thing to define. A lot of the time some of the kids with the best grades, SAT scores etc also had the best opportunities. Maybe they went to a well-renowned private school where they had better guidance and support. Maybe they had moms who could afford to quit their jobs and focus 100% on their education. Maybe they had SAT prep classes, tutors, internships. I'm not saying every middle class kid does- far from it- but all that background isn't on an application. They don't know if mom and dad payed for you to go to this or that famous summer camp or if you had a scholarship, they don't know if that A+ in chem was due to your own hard work or a private tutor or your mom was a chemist before she started homeschooling you. They don't know if you had a SAT prep class or not. Someone who is making 60-70k a year can technically afford those things, so they can't possibly know if you did or not. And I would argue that the very-low-income child who couldn't possibly afford those things SHOULD get more aid than the one who did. There's just no way to measure true effort. Anyway, I hope this makes sense. I genuinely do understand the situation because I was in it- I had some (not a lot) merit aid for college, my mom paid a small portion, I had two work-study jobs every semester, and took out loans for the rest. I lived at home during the summers and took public transportation to work. It wasn't terribly glamorous, and I had almost zero free time, but it was my solution based on the fact that I really wanted to go to this private university and I really didn't like my public one. Even though I have some loans from there, I don't regret it for a minute.
  22. Inactivated vaccines can't actually give you the flu. However, when your immune system is working hard, you may (not everyone does) have symptoms like a fever, lack of appetite- feel pretty crummy all around without a real source. It's your immune system doing its job. The "flumist" vaccine (i think they had that one for h1n1 last year if I'm not mistaken) is live-attenuated. This means that if you're generally very weak and have a pretty terrible immune system, you may get the disease from it, and if you're healthy you'll probably get a much milder version of the disease (similar to what I described above- you just won't feel very good for a few days). Most people have this kind of reaction to the FluMist. We're required to get the flu shot. I had never had it before. I've had the flu exactly once in my life and it was miserable, and I get those icky, feel-like-crap symptoms a few days after the flu shot every year. I guess I trust that those symptoms are better than the real thing...that, and I'm required to get the shot anyway :tongue_smilie:.
  23. Well, the main reason they care about whether students take classes at a CC during high school is that taking a college-level class should count as college work, regardless of when it was done. It counts toward your med school gpa. Otherwise, there'll always be the risk of people taking all the premed classes as high schoolers (at CC's, or elsewhere), not doing all that well, but then being way ahead of their classmates when they take them again at a 4 year college. Their thinking is- if you want to take college classes that's your prerogative, but a) they should count toward your gpa, and b) you shouldn't get to take premed classes at an easier place. I know it's frustrating, but as of now, that's the policy. For what it's worth, MD schools ("allopathic medical schools") average all college grades, while DO schools ("osteopathic medical schools") replace the grade of a class if you've taken it twice. I've actually known a whole bunch of people who took CC classes in high school before they really had a study system down or before they were serious about their grades and their CC grades really brought their gpa's down come application season. Some schools have tough gpa cutoffs, and if you get a B, it's a 3.0. It doesn't matter that it's hard to get a B in chem when you're in 10th grade or whatever, that's a 3.0 to be averaged with your 3.7's and 4.0's. Take a couple of classes, and that can really hurt you. Hmm, well I was told by my premed adviser that it's not something "looked at favorably". I didn't get rejected despite it, and neither did a couple of my friends who took orgo elsewhere too. Has someone gotten rejected outright for that? I doubt it. I'm guessing it would have to be part of a pattern of "taking the easy way out", or it would have to be a much higher grade than what you're getting at your college for them to truly question it. But that's just my guess. There's really no "rule", but with only 40something% of applicants getting into med school nationally every year, most people are very wary of doing ANYTHING that might compromise their application, even if they're not 100% sure it will. By the time you graduate, there will certainly be a few things on your application you'd like to change, so it's best not to add something else that they can find questionable from the get go. I wish I had a good answer for you. Med school admissions is an inherently unfair process, I'm afraid. Students take easy classes and get a better gpa than those who really challenge themselves, they stumble into research projects that get them published while others work their butts off for years and when the data doesn't pan out they don't get a publication, and all colleges are different in terms of how difficult their classes are, how tough the competition is, etc. Brilliant kids don't get in every year, while others get in for odd reasons. It's TRULY a crapshoot, which is why most people try to control the few things we actually can control and not make anyone on the committees angry. With thousands of applications at each school, the most minor thing can get you overlooked, and there's no way to appeal a decision once it's made. My application year was one of the most stressful years of my life, I assure you. I got a full ride at a top 20 med school but got rejected from most of my safeties. Makes zero sense. As for auditing, all I can say is that if you have an official transcript (aka there's an actual transcript that says you've audited a class), it goes into your med school application. Will it make a difference? Maybe so, maybe not. If there's a grade, it goes into your gpa. It doesn't matter when you take or audit the class.
  24. I was in college years ago, so no. I was a literature major, so I definitely didn't know any medicine.
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