This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UFL chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.
Confession #1: That title is a lie. I am in fact scared to say these things but in the name of possibly relating to others, here I go.
- I cringe everytime I refer to myself as premed. Even more so because I’m Asian.
- I immediately assume people think I’m an airhead, or worse, just another Asian kid whose parents forced them into medicine. I’m not. And I’m extremely grateful my parents aren’t like that.
- I think if I grew up less academically validated, I would’ve chosen a different path.
- Yes, I love that medicine allows you to help people, but obviously helping people isn’t exclusive to medicine. Another big reason why this field appeals to me? The endless academic milestones. I like how concrete those checkpoints are. They give me direction.
- Sometimes, I feel threatened by other pre-meds.
- When someone else says they’re pre med, I secretly worry they’re making my chances of getting into medical school harder. I hate that I do this and I know it feeds into toxic pre-med culture, and I’m working on it!!!
- I’m embarrassed by how little I socialize.
- The friends I made during my freshman and sophomore years are all at FSU. I have a long-distance bestie who I text maybe every other day and only see during breaks. Other than that, radio silence. Most of the time, I don’t think about it. But when I see friend groups hanging out, I suddenly feel like something’s wrong with me.
- My GPA is not cute.
- If my straight A high school self saw what grade I got in physics last semester, she would actually evaporate into a thundercloud just so she could strike me with lightning.
- I’ve still only shadowed one doctor.
- And I left early that day because my period came out of nowhere. I completely bled through the scrubs, and my vision was going black from cramps. In the extremely unlikely chance that one of the doctors I emailed about shadowing is reading this, I’d like to say: hi, please email me back or I will cry.
- Most of the things I do aren’t even health related.
- I worry if medical school admissions will look at my involvement and question my commitment to medicine. Even my parents, who I give updates to regularly, have questioned me several times if this is what I really want.
Even if you’re not going into healthcare, I hope that this can be a reminder that your journey towards your goals doesn’t have to match up with the majority or with what’s considered ideal. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. All roads lead to Rome. Several ways to brew coffee. You get the idea!