<p>Dead thread has become zombie thread.</p>
<p>Has OP made any changes in the past few months?</p>
<p>Yes, hahaha.
I am much more comfortable in what I’m doing. I met with a few doctors including the CMO in our ministry of health and they talked to me and also helped me to devise a backup plan.
:)</p>
<p>Backpacking is dangerous without money. Volunteering in a 3rd world country is noble but also very dangerous because of politics and health issues. You can be raped, shot, or ransomed because you are a foreigner. You also need to get multiple shots just to travel to South Africa. </p>
<p>Do your research before you volunteer or travel.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Hello Punkchique,</p>
<p>I see this happen all the time to young students who first enter Universities and want to enter prestigious positions after College.</p>
<p>They want to become a doctor, they want to go to a prestigious law school, or they want to go into investment banking.</p>
<p>The only problem they cannot foresee right now is at the age of 18 they just really don’t understand that becoming one of these professions would most likely result in not “fully living” the undergraduate College experience. As in, in order to do so you will probably have to make some significant sacrifices in the short term.</p>
<p>So when you enter College as a Freshman you see all of your friends going out and having fun(whatever people at Michigan State do, which none of my friends who went to Michigan State seemed like they had spent an extensive amount of time reading books) and you realize that if you want straight A’s because you want to get into the perfect program you simply cannot do this. </p>
<p>You get angry, you are sick of staying inside because all of the other people around you are not working as hard as you are. You start to wonder why you are doing all of this. You start to ask yourself why you even bothered to start down this road in the first place.</p>
<p>After about the first three to six months at least 50% of the students who came into College thinking “I must be a doctor” quit because internally they don’t really want to become doctors. They just want to go out and have fun like everyone else.</p>
<p>Hence, what you are going through is not a crisis at all. It is just merely a simplification or a justification to yourself that you don’t want to become a doctor. You aren’t willing to give up the short term.</p>
<p>I would bet that this is temporary, though it may not be. I imagine (if this turns out to simply be fear for the future manifesting itself) that you will be very disappointed that you did not finish your education. At least at one point in your life, you seemed to have your heart set on being a doctor: I am sure that that feeling will rise back up again. </p>
<p>Even though becoming a doctor will take a significant amount of time, it will not stop you from doing the things you listed. Stay in good shape and maybe you could have both: a successful career as a doctor as well as the “young” life you currently want.</p>
<p>All I am saying is that you may very well regret it if you make a rash decision.</p>