Progress Report

Hey ladies & Gents,

So I know I was supposed to update you on my progress when it came to writing my personal statement & studying for the MCAT. Well lets just say…. It’s been slow moving on both fronts.

Personal Statement

So I started writing my personal statement last month and while I did get my basic story down I definitely need to go back and revise and really making sure it answers the question: Why medical school? I struggled a bit in trying to pick what was important to include and what wasn’t. I wanted to make sure that it told my story of perseverance but also did not want it to come off as if I was giving excuses and/or too personal.

My tips for starting your personal statement:

• If you are struggling to start just start writing anything and everything that comes to mind.
• Afterwards revise and pick out what really is important to include and really gives the best impression.
• It’s ok to have multiple versions of a personal statement.
  • If you are anything like me I kept coming up with different ideas of how I could organize or tell the story. So just open up different word documents and write as the ideas come to mind. Cut & Paste is going to be your best friend at the end of this all.
• BOTTOM LINE: Don’t get stuck in the details just write what comes to mind and then later you can go back and really take a look at the best way to organize your statement. Getting the content on the page is a great start especially when you don’t know where to start.
  • A lot of times they can start taking on a life/theme of its own.

 

MCAT

So it seems like it is taking me an eternity to get through the Chemistry book. It definitely is my fault as I have not been as disciplined as I probably should and could be (DAMN YOU CANDY CRUSH!). Also seems like my children have been needier then usual 😀 so only time I could study is early morning or late night. I also know that Chemistry is my weakest subject and considering I have not even taken OChem II yet and the last time I took OChem I was in 2010 I believe :-O .It has been a struggle to grasp the concepts. Especially the Reactions. (Like how am I suppose to know what the product is going to be, it could react there, there and there… so technically it could be all these answers :-/)

But anyway I’m almost done with Chemistry study and I know the other books should be able to go pretty quickly as it should mainly be review. My next subject will be Physics and now that I have actually taken physics I think it will actually be easier for me to grasp then the first time I studied for the MCAT.

So the MCAT app that I mentioned in an earlier post is MCAT Mastery and I can tell that I am just going to have a love/hate relationship with this app. I will do a more detailed description on the Pros & Cons of this app soon.

Bottom Line: Its a great app to study when your on the go and helps you easily track your strengths and weaknesses. So yea go ahead and buy it but not for the extravagant price of $30 they have it listed for. Download the trial version and I can bet in a week or so they will have it at a discounted price of $14.99. So definitely wait for that.

You Can’t Do that…

Have you ever been told that you couldn’t do or be something? Has anybody looked at you crazy after you told them a dream of yours that meant you would have to do what they think is impossible or unrealistic?

Well I can’t even count how many times this has happened to me. In fact, a part of me believed them that it wasn’t possible or no way it was going to happen for me. I was told by strangers and those close to me that I couldn’t do that or be that.

Most memorable of them was in High School people always said I was not going to amount to anything. I was just going to be a teenage dropout with a kid. People didn’t believe in me because I was out on my own by 16 and struggling to make things happen. I told them my dream of becoming a physician and they would tell me why not just be a nurse or something. My own mother has had a hard time supporting me. She most recently told me I should just become a Physician Assistant because now with 2 boys I need to give up my dreams of becoming a doctor because it was too much of a sacrifice. They would be teens by the time I was finished with residency.

I have had advisors do the same to me always suggesting I look at other options… But no matter how much I tried I could never come up with something that I felt I could be happy doing.

I remember breaking down in my advisors office after he suggested I look for another path. He ended up doing a prayer for me and I left. I went to the library and found the most remote corner of the library and sat there and cried until I felt better and decided that I WAS NOT GOING TO GIVE UP.

Its never been my personality to give up on something I really want. I figured I have to try. I have proved people time and again they were wrong about what I could and couldn’t do. I told myself this is no different.

I hope that if you too have been told that you couldn’t be or do something that you brush them off and use that as motivation to prove them wrong. You can be and do what ever you set your mind to.

I recite these quotes in my head every time I am feeling down or  thinking maybe they are right, maybe they will help you:

“It’s never to late to be who you might have been” – George Eliot

“Where there is a will, there is a way…”

“The only place where your dream becomes impossible is in your own thinking.” – Robert Schuller