I give up!!!! I really do!

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

<p>I'm extremely sorry for the rant but it seems that I'm heading for a nervous breakdown and putting my thoughts into words may help delay that a little longer. </p>

<p>God I'm freaking reduced to a whimpering pile of nothing. I started out from high school with a stellar gpa, recs etc. and got into a decent university (UIUC). First semester went pretty bad with a 3.2 gpa but I consoled myself that the classes I took were upper level classes that were way more challenging and exciting than the intro stuff that makes you relive high school in my case. But after starting the second semester happily enough, I think I'm not meant to be a doctor. Bio and psych are the two fields I thought I was good at, I suck at math and physics based stuff but history, bio and psych I was happy with. Now my microbio class is kicking my arse and my chem class gives me nightmares. I get maybe 4 hours of sleep or less during the week and maybe 10 each on the weekends yet despite all this I'm stuck with C's in all my classes which is way worse than last semester, I had to drop my pysch classes to stop hurting my gpa and may take some other blow off courses. I've had it I want to help people and even just freaking work for free I don't want money and I thought I had the willpower and caliber to become a surgeon but its not working. I freaking give up, f*** college and everything to hell. I feel that I have no other options left, there is no other career I'm interested in. I'm thinking of just dropping out and stop wasting my parents money, enrolling in community college and flip burgers (if that's even possible in this economy.) WHAT SHOULD I DO? Since listening to myself has gotten me nowhere I wanna ask everyone on here. I think I'd be awesome at nursing or its allied fields, should I try that? While I know nursing is no cake walk its requirements are way less stringent than the ones for med school. Or should I take the PCAT and apply for pharm school? I never considered that as an option so please enlighten me about the in's and outs of the process, please. Idk if there is anything left to do with my life, I feel like a waste of space and hate to think how disappointed my parents will be. I thought I was smart, I really did but I guess I'm dumber than the average joe. FML.</p>

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<p>I think I’m bipolar. Should I dose myself with lithium accordingly?</p>

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<p>The only part of your rant that really bothered me is when you said you don’t want to disappoint your parents. I have no idea what your reasons are to become a doctor, but make sure you want to do this for YOU. Reevaluate why you want to go into this profession. Do you have a premed adviser you can talk to about this? Maybe you can also reevaluate your studying habits. Talk to your professors during office hours if you haven’t already. Don’t give up yet. It will be an uphill battle from now on, but if you really have a passion for this and will do whatever it takes to succeed, then you can do it!</p>

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<p>You are almost certainly not bipolar. (I suppose it’s a possibility, but it’s definitely not a probability.)</p>

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<p>No, for all sorts of reasons.</p>

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<p>There are two things that I can think of that might be going on here.</p>

<p>1) You made the mistake of thinking that AP courses really were the equivalent of introductory college coursework. I know that at least two of us medical students on this forum have repeatedly warned high schoolers against using their AP credits to go straight into 200-level science courses because students either don’t have the appropriate knowledge base to do well or they don’t have a good grasp of college-level expectations.</p>

<p>2) How are your study skills? If you were a star at your high school, you may have not had to work very hard to get the grades you wanted, and so your time-management and study skills might not be what they should be in order to succeed in college. Have you considered make an appointment at your college’s tutoring service to get some help?</p>

<p>If you ask me, it sounds like you’ve made mistake #1, and there might be some #2 in there, as well. I’d advise you to take several deep breaths and calm down. Make an appointment with your academic and/or pre-med advisors because you’re going to need their advice for planning your coursework. You can bounce back from this and get into medical school, but you need to start thinking about how you can avoid these mistakes in the future.</p>

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<p>Congrats, you’ve had a nervous breakdown, you are officially a pre-med.</p>

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<p>I’m not going to make any judgments about your viability as a medical school applicant, or whether you’d be a good physician or not. It’s still rather early.</p>

<p>I do think that you’ve taken to college a study HARDER approach when the real key is a study SMARTER process. There should be absolutely no reason why you’re turning in 20 hour days 4 or 5x a week. At that point, as a rule for college students, you’re being counterproductive. </p>

<p>You need to look at how you’re studying and why that’s not resulting in better grades. Are you spending inordinate amounts of time reading textbooks when everything that is tested comes from lecture? Are you doing practice problems from a TA that are nothing like what is on the actual exam? Are you spending hours on chemistry problems working to find the right answer any way you can, but your exams give partial credit for having the correct setup?</p>

<p>Those are just some examples of things that could result in you spending huge chunks of time in entirely unproductive ways. YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST TAILOR YOUR STUDY METHODS TO YOUR EXAMS. You have to be flexible about things when it comes to studying, if something isn’t working the answer is not to keep doing it more but to throw it out and try something different. If you’re trying to drive to New York City, it doesn’t matter how fast you go if you’re on the road to Seattle. </p>

<p>Now, I also think it’s always appropriate for students to take a step back and examine if medicine is right for them. There’s no shame in saying, ‘you know what? I think this other field is a better fit for my talents and personality’. Wanting to help people is not a valid reason to become a doctor. There are lots of ways to help people - from hotel concierge to engineer to guidance counselor to children’s story book author - so make sure there are other reasons why you think being a physician is right for you. Not being able to think of any other suitable career is not option - although I don’t think that’s your fault, most HS students and college freshmen haven’t done any career research to have a good idea of all the career options out there. If you were to compile a list of careers based purely off of what entering college freshmen say they want to be you’d think that doctor, lawyer, nurse, teacher, engineer, businessperson, and the occasional architect were the only professions that existed in the world. Personally, I too fell victim to that myopia. I also was one of those people who couldn’t imagine myself as anything other than a doctor. If I hadn’t gone to medical school, I would have gotten a masters in college student administration and become a Director of Fraternity/Sorority Life…a career that I didn’t really realize I could enter until second semester of junior year, and one that I didn’t realize I would enjoy doing until late first semester of senior year. The point is that there is more than one career out there that is a great use of your talents and fits your personality and the things you enjoy doing. </p>

<p>It’s possible you have bipolar, but there’s nothing you’ve said so far that could lead me anywhere towards that diagnosis. If you’re worried about mental health issues, please go to the campus health center and seek help. Based on latest reports, about half of all 19-25 year olds meet criteria for at least one mental health diagnosis ranging from mild phobias to severe schizophrenia or personality disorders, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility. If you’re worried, go seek help.</p>

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<p>You guys are so awesome! The advice is so helpful but my problem is that my lecturer puts me to sleep, which is why I’ve always been a bookish guy. I can read the text and apply the info too but when he conjures up arcane facts that he may have mentioned in passing, I just feel powerless. I have to notes other people took but idk I just cracked this morning, I feel way better now. Ty.</p>

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<p>k guys I’m depressed as hell again. I just got my score for my microbio exam and I just wanna say that I won’t be getting close to a B if I get 100% on everything else. I had planned to get out in 3 years but idk now community college looks like a nice option, its disappointing to eat humble pie after so much effort but I accept it, I’m not worthy. I talked to my parents about dropping out but they want to “talk”. I already had over 60 credits by the end of first semester and will probably have a few more. Any ideas on how not to waste the $30,000 I just spent?</p>

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<p>More bad ideas - graduating in 3 years is generally not a good thing for medical school admissions. Why did you want to graduate in 3 years?</p>

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<p>“The only part of your rant that really bothered me is when you said you don’t want to disappoint your parents. I have no idea what your reasons are to become a doctor, but make sure you want to do this for YOU. Reevaluate why you want to go into this profession.”</p>

<p>I agree with this. It may be that your parents are having more of an influence on your decisions than you realize.</p>

<p>If you don’t truly have a passion for medicine, it’s likely that you won’t do as well in your coursework as you would have otherwise. Could this be the real problem? I can’t know for sure that it is. But it’s worth thinking about.</p>

<p>Also, if your grades are seriously slipping, this is detrimental to transferring to other programs or universities. If your grades are starting to slip and studying harder isn’t helping, it’s usually better to leave the program before your GPA actually drops. Leaving a program that’s not working for you leaves the door open to other careers you might decide you’re interested in. Failing out closes the door to many careers.</p>

<p>There’s nothing wrong with community college. I know of someone who started at a community college and ultimately became a Rhodes Scholar.</p>

<p>You are worthy - it might just be that you’re in the wrong program and/or environment.</p>

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<p>~

  1. You made the mistake of thinking that AP courses really were the equivalent of introductory college coursework. I know that at least two of us medical students on this forum have repeatedly warned high schoolers against using their AP credits to go straight into 200-level science courses because students either don’t have the appropriate knowledge base to do well or they don’t have a good grasp of college-level expectations.
    ~</p>

<p>The number 1 reason I will not be reporting my AP scores to wherever I go to college. I take the tests so I can get exempted from finals here in HS, but I will not be placing out of courses in college. I’d rather start out maybe a small leg up on people, even if it means I’m bored to tears freshmen year. It seems med schools care way more about the number of your GPA, rather than how it is in context with where you went, and what classes you took.</p>

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<p>^Even if you’ve taken the AP class in HS and take it again in college you wont’ be “bored to tears”. AP just skims over college material.</p>

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<p>Agreed with sciencenerd. You will NOT be bored to tears. Introductory level courses in college have more breadth and depth than high school AP classes.</p>

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<p>You took too much advanced work too fast. Your advisor is an idiot. You jumped from being a tippy-top high school student to only being one of the top quartile in college. You needed A’s in the Intro courses for your GPA. Hardly anyone except a few super-duper biology geeks can excel in Microbiology as a freshman. You don’t even need it for med school. You need to learn to study to achieve in upper level courses.</p>

<p>You are not going to medical school at Harvard or Wash.U.St.L. You probably will not win a Nobel prize in medicine (possible, you are still young). You can get your $hit together and go to a good medical school and be a competent caring physician.</p>

<p>Part of college is learning that while you may be the smartest little boy in the county, you are not that smart in the larger world and have to pick your battles and work to achieve your dreams.</p>

<p>Good luck with your academic recovery. You have what it takes. Don’t take on too much too soon.</p>

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<p>wow, i dont know why people break down so much… im at Carolina and many of my friends freak out abt exams and crap… guyz just chill… i just chill do hw and read some before exam and pay full attention in class and i got A’s for the last semester… im in orgo and way hard classes and yet, im getting A’s in exam… dont let ur attention wander in class… dont take notes if u cant pay attention to what the prof is saying when ur taking notes…</p>

<p>but people learn differently… many times i can just remember almost the whole lecture… and during test, when im thinking, i think in the professor’s voice… that sounds complicated but thats how my brain works… its records the whole lecture… try that … pay attention in class and don’t stress, chill… u’ll be fine…</p>

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:frowning: .</p>

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<p>you need to chill and stop being such a whiny asian premed. your parents might want you to become a doctor but you have to take the time to find out what YOU really want. this is where a lot of your fear comes from – you don’t know what you want and you’re afraid that disappointing your parents will leave you with no goals and no objectives in life. deal with it.</p>