A long time ago in a land far, far away (a.k.a., New Jersey), a child was born. Right from the start, the world knew an odd little duckling had been added to its flock - it's not every day a baby sits up, looks around, and goes, "What the f***?!" Hey, can you blame the kid?
And now here that kid is, 28.75 years later still looking at the world going, "What the f***?" A couple of days ago, I was brooding about how depressing it is to be aimless in life. All the way through elementary and high school, I said I wanted to be a writer and a literature professor. When I actually started college, I thought I might want to be a philosopher instead - then came the anthropology, business, and psychology phases. I kept plugging away at six years of school just to end up the same place I started - sitting in a metal box staring at four walls (no windows, by the way) and pushing papers all day, every day. Not very satisfying. But since I was already working in a college, I thought I might as well make a little more money at the job, so I started a graduate degree in Higher Education Studies. It took me two and a half months to figure out it was NOT the direction for me, so I waited another year or so and started a graduate degree in Counseling, which I will finish in May. I knew about a year into that it wasn't the right career, either, but by that time, I'd had so much invested in school (and so many loans to pay back), I figured I might as well stick it out.
The long and short of it is that I've learned a whole lot through every single experience I've had. For the last several years, I've been really interested in the health sciences and medicine, following interesting research studies (especially in the field of neuroscience), but I never thought med school was really in the cards for me. I don't have a hard science background at all and I've always been terrified of math. But a couple of days ago I was having a semi-serious late-20s crisis when I passed a hospital billboard and I thought, "What the f***?" Then I wondered why I've always taken the easy way out. Why have I always taken the comfortable route to the known ends, even though the known ends were not REALLY what I wanted to do with my life? Why have I never really applied myself to do something challenging but equally rewarding?
For me, there is no bigger or more serious challenge than studying to become a doctor. I will certainly have to overcome a number of issues (math-phobia, for instance), but the minute I realized this was what I wanted to do, I knew it wasn't just another hair-brained idea. An enormous weight was gone and I suddenly stopped being depressed and anxious - I just kind of knew that it was something I could do. I've struggled pretty much my whole life to stop floating and just PICK something - school, a career, a book to read. I've always had major option-anxiety, but this is something I have no anxiety at all about - this is the right thing to do.
Medicine is a field with very definite parameters - no wishy-washiness about it. You either do it right or people die. My specific interest lies in neurology, but I'm open to just about anything. And after some research, I've discovered that career-changers are not all that uncommon in medicine - there's quite a few people out there who have decided in their 20s, 30s, even 40s that they want to be doctors. Med schools seem to love those folks because they bring life experience to the table, so I'm hoping that works in my favor.
The first part of my journey is to get accepted into a 2-year pre-med program - I've applied to the three in which I'm most interested and have received a lot of encouragement from friends, colleagues, and family (you know, after they got done laughing at me). All the programs are designed specifically for career-changers without science backgrounds, so whichever one I attend will prepare me to take the MCAT and will give me all the basic knowledge in chem, bio, physics, and...ugh!...math.
I feel so good about this decision. I suddenly feel like waking up and going to work again because I know it's just the means to an end. There is now a light at the end of the tunnel and it has nothing to do with (okay, little to do with) money. I will finally be able to help people the way I want to and know I can. I'm really excited and I hope that you all will help support me on the path. I'm sure I'll need it.
t.
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