Decisions, decisions...

I'm home sick today - what I thought was a nasty bout of allergies was actually the hints of a cold...I think. Not a head cold, more like a bronchitis type of thing (though I hope it's not that bad). So I've been working a little from home and now I'm thinking even more about some new decisions I have to make.

CONUNDRUM #1: If you read my FB profile at all, you know I was accepted into LaSalle's pre-med program. Very exciting...but a little bit of a bummer because I just realized they only offer daytime courses. (DUH! That's definitely the kind of thing I should have looked at before applying.)

• PROS: It's a good program at a great school that happens to be close to the city's best teaching hospitals. Plus they have some really good experiential learning opportunities that would definitely add to the credibility of my med school app.
• CONS: I'd be missing a significant amount of work (because there's almost no way to make up those missed hours since the classes are typically 3-4 days). And it's definitely a lot of drive time.

CONUNDRUM #2: Still haven't heard back from Stockton re: acceptance or rejection into their pre-med program. I think they'll accept me, but even if they do, more decisions to make.

• PROS: I work there so I'd get a decent tuition discount, plus fitting classes into my schedule wouldn't be too difficult. I like the faculty and because I wouldn't spend a lot of wasted time driving, I'd have more time to study. (On a side note, I recently got an adjunct teaching position with Atlantic Cape Community College in Atlantic City for the fall, which wouldn't really be feasible for me if I were traveling to and from Philly all the time.)
• CONS: Inaccessible to Philly hospitals where I could get great learning/volunteer experiences. Also, being a student where I work has posed some challenges in the past - it's awkward to be sitting in class with your own students and my student personality is VERY different from my work personality.

CONUNDRUM #3: I've recently been rethinking my decision to apply to Drexel's Evening Post-Baccalaureate Pre-Med Program. I still have some materials to get in but I keep second-guessing myself.

• PROS: It's a great program within an actual School of Medicine, not to mention the fact that it's also near all the city hospitals. It's an evening program designed for the full-time working professional like me, and the curriculum is right up my alley. It's a straight two-year program with a basic course structure and all the courses are specifically for students in the program, so I wouldn't be taking undergrad courses like in the other programs. Plus, I can easily add undergrad classes into the mix for areas in which I feel a little weak (like anatomy and physiology).
• CONS: It also requires lots of driving (although probably not as much as the LaSalle program) and is more competitive to get accepted into, which means that I may wait and wait for a response only to find out it's a NO. Not that this is a huge con, but it's also situated in a very M.D.-focused school as opposed to the D.O. focus I'd like to take, so I'm unsure if there would be any inherent conflicts there.

Ultimately, I believe you make what you can out of your own education - it doesn't necessarily matter if you're not accepted into the best and most expensive program available to you, as long as you work hard and GO AFTER opportunities rather than waiting for someone to hand them to you. So I suppose wherever I end up will be where I'm meant to be and because of my commitment to this goal, I'll get a good experience wherever I go. But there is still the question of whether time and money should be my focus or location and experience should be my focus, because I don't think I'm going to get both, no matter where I end up.

Ideas?

t.