<p>If you want to keep quoting from my posts out of context to make it seem like its ridiculous then good for you. In fact, yes, they might seem a little ridiculous - deal with it. Last time I checked, having a goal in life you want more than anything else was a good thing .</p>
<p>Refusing to seek help when you need it is a sign of weakness not of strength.</p>
<p>Please Kamasutra go seek some professional help, its nothing to be embarrassed about. This fear of failure could hold you back your whole life. No one will know you needed it, you don’t have to tell anyone, the records are private, no future medcom or employer will see them. If you don’t want to talk to someone at your school make an appointment for winter break, or if you don’t want your parents to know make an appointment at your school. Right now you’re stuck in a catch 22 and you haven’t been able to get out of it yourself. If someone else can help you achieve your goals then why not take advantage of that? Aren’t the rewards of becoming a doctor and achieving any other dreams you have worth it?</p>
<p>Also, many medical students seek counseling and if you decide to do psychiatry you are actually required to go see a psychiatrist at your school in many programs (maybe all?)</p>
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<p>Against my better judgment, I’ve decided to post again.</p>
<p>Having goals in life is great. Becoming fixated on a single goal - getting into medical school - as the only metric of success by which your entire life to date will be judged and as a cure-all for your life’s problems is not great. It’s troubling to me because it suggests that you lack appropriate perspective.</p>
<p>I strongly encourage to take a step back and re-evaluate what it is that you really want out of your life. My guess is that you’re tired of feeling mediocre and would like to excel at something. If you can get your act together and excel at school, that’s fantastic. That being said, it is a-okay to not be the kind of person who excels at school - all it means is that you will have to figure out what it is that you can excel at.</p>
<p>Giving up, blaming other people for your difficulties in handling your problems, and continuing to labor under the delusion that medical school is all that matters in life are bad but easy choices to make. The good options you have, like transforming into an outstanding student and taking time off before applying to medical school or finding another fulfilling career path, are not going to be easy. You’ve been given some good advice in this thread, just as you asked for in your original post. It is up to you to decide what to do now.</p>
<p>RE: UBC in Vancouver</p>
<p>Speaking to this question only, UBC is an excellent school. It will not be easy though, the CD is near par with the USD and you will pay international fees and will not be eligible for financial aid. It will not be cheap.</p>
<p>They have a well respected biology degree, but do be aware your grades may not be automatically higher. You may have heard the Canadian grade scale makes 80+ an A, but they thing is, they grade accordingly, in no way should it be considered an easy A situation.</p>
<p>That being said, it is a beautiful place to live and if you need to conduct any US business, you are only an hour from the border.</p>
<p>Shades is right. You’re defining yourself into virtually guaranteed failure and engaging in passive aggressive attacks on everyone who points that out.
How would you expect people to respond to a post saying that you’re 5’6" tall and will always be unhappy if you can’t be a starting forward in the NBA? Or that you’ll always be unhappy if you can’t be a famous movie star? All that means is that you’ve decided that you’ll always be unhappy - period. </p>
<p>You’ve written a lot of explanations for why you are unhappy, have a low GPA, etc., but the current reality is that for whatever reason you’ve gotten yourself into a position where no medical school in the U.S. is likely to accept you - and are insisting that you’ll always be unhappy unless you become a doctor. You can either make choices from here on out based on a realistic appraisal of your self and your realistic options, or you can demand pie in the sky and attack anyone who points out that you’re not going to get it. That’s why people mock you - you just aren’t being realistic. Reality may not be fun, but it’s not optional.</p>
<p>Another comment on the feelings and comments here:</p>
<p>You’ve stated that you did not perform to your potential, in part due to emotional reasons- not being content, not applying yourself, etc.</p>
<p>If you do pursue any sort of graduate studies, be that MD, PT, DO, PhD, etc, you really need to have worked through that stuff in your life. There is no time for finding yourself when you are in grad school, you need to be ready to hit the ground running.</p>
<p>My M1 DD has found it to be very intense, there is no down time.</p>
<p>Echoing somemom and others. </p>
<p>Med school ain’t the time to find balance in your life. If you somehow manage to get in without having your “issues” dealt with, med school will find you and poke your wounds with a pointy stick. Heck, even if you are balanced med school will still find you and poke your wounds with a pointy stick. You’ll just have mastered some coping skills to get you through.</p>
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<p>Fantastic insight, curm. Many of us students go to some type of counseling during our 4 years to learn to better cope with our demons. As a whole, medical students have great coping skills, which is why they were able to handle things on their own before, but medical school takes stress to a whole new level. A lot of students suddenly find their coping skills inadequate and often turn to counseling to learn new strategies and keep perspective.</p>
<p>@ somemom: Thanks for the input somemom, I know it won’t be easy or cheap, but maybe a change in environment maybe beneficial because im clearly not succeeding here and spending an extra year could help me GPA wise. Since you know something about the school, im hoping you don’t mind a few questions because I would like an opinion from someone other than a UBC admissions officer lol. Im interested in microbiology and immunology program there, how rigorous would say that is? Is there a large international population? How hard would you say it is to make friends and settle socially there as a third year transfer (I know this depends largely on my social skills etc, im wondering in general)? What about undergrad research (Vancouver campus)? Do you have the same opportunities as you do in US universities (meaning, being a tutor a TA, shadowing at hospitals/volunteering, joining/starting clubs (I heard joining clubs in Canadian uni’s was different than the US unis, it was a more strict procedure))? </p>
<p>And I know that med school won’t give me any room to deal with these problems, im trying to solve my issues as fast as I can and get back on track so that hopefully I will be ready come med school time.</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>@ kluge: Michael Jordan got cut from his high school basketball team. I don’t know if he was 5’6" then but did he take that as a sign to pursue “other career options?” No. It only takes one Michael Jordan to prove the NBA is still possible. So why the hell should I quit pursuing what I want? Yea I maybe stupid, yea I maybe screwed, but thats just all the more reason to keep trying.<br>
An interesting theory from quantum physics that I recently read about was that humans perceive the world through two circles, the outer circle being the reality, the inner circle being the consciousness. Whatever we experience in the outer circle (reality) we interpret in our consciousness. However, recently arguments have been made through quantum physics that our outer circle - our perception of reality is actually our consciousness, and that out inner circle is our reality. This doesn’t mean that if you believe that you can survive jumping off a 50 story building and survive, that it will happen. It doesn’t transcend the laws of nature and science. What this means is that your reality is internal and you alone can control how you perceive the world. I believe that I can control mine, and I believe that I can achieve my goals, I just have to get over my fear of failure, I have to stop looking in the past at what I could have been, I have to stop being afraid of what could go wrong if I fail in the future and just learn to act. Once I conquer this, my reality is what I make of it.</p>
<p>@shades_children: I do want to transform in an outstanding student, I do plan to take some time off after I graduate to travel and do research (hopefully abroad). I have other goals as well - fitness goals, goals to improve my guitar skills, goals to learn how to trade in the stock market, goals to be more sociable and likeable, etc. The only thing that’s preventing me from proactively pursuing these goals is, once again, my fear of failure. Beating myself up for what I did not do, not acting now because im scared of what will go wrong if I fail in the future “omg if I don’t ace my anatomy final im screwed.” etc. I only recently found out that I had a fear of failure, and it explains everything. I know I can shine once I get over this damn fear and put an end to my mediocrity.</p>
<p>@ ChemFreak: Part of it is social pressure as well, as an Indian I was hesitant to go see a counselor because its not something that’s accepted in our culture. People look down upon counseling and you get labeled as a weak or incapable even though that’s ridiculous. None of my friends in our cultural circle ever had to go through counseling, they just got that Cornell or UChicago acceptance while I was immobilized by fear and got rejected as a result. I guess im just not that lucky so I have decided to go see a counselor. I guess sometimes it takes strength to admit that we are weak.</p>
<p>@BDM: Thanks for being so helpful! Please quote this too!!!</p>
<p>I appreciate the advice the rest of you have given me.</p>
<p>Michael Jordan was never “cut” from a basketball team. As a 5’11" sophomore he played on his schools JV team; as a Junior (and 6’3") he was put on Varsity. [FanIQ</a> News: Michael Jordan Was Never Cut From His High School Team - , Michael Jordan](<a href=“http://www.faniq.com/article/Michael-Jordan-Was-Never-Cut-From-His-High-School-Team-1792380]FanIQ”>http://www.faniq.com/article/Michael-Jordan-Was-Never-Cut-From-His-High-School-Team-1792380) He was an athletic star as young as his Little League years, and was ahead of the curve in almost every respect at every point in his life. Although becoming a professional athlete is almost always a longshot, it was never a particularly unrealistic goal for Michael Jordan. </p>
<p>That’s the difference between you and MJ. He was a prospect at 15 who was considered a “can’t miss” for Varsity the next year by his coach – and he could (and did) grow 4 inches in one year between his sophomore and junior years of high school. You have a 2.73 GPA after 2 1/2 years in college. You can’t raise your GPA by more than .6 before graduating. That’s the trap you’ve set for yourself that folks are trying to point out to you - you are creating your own can’t-win scenario.</p>
<p>What is possible is that if you took some time off from dreaming and thinking about yourself and what might’a, could’a, should’a happened in the past, completed your college education and started working in a job that’s actually a realistic career for you, you might find satisfaction and and appreciation of your self-worth in something other than your job title. </p>
<p>Most people who are happy in life aren’t happy because they’re a doctor, or a lawyer, or a business executive or whatever - they’re happy because they are productive members of society, with families and friends and positive personal values. If you can accomplish those things it won’t matter what your job is.</p>
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<p>All true. More to the point, OP actually has expressed no interest in actually being a doctor. His interest in medical school is twofold:
1.) He hasn’t bothered to think of anything else he likes.
2.) He wants to “feel like a winner.”</p>
<p>I’m glad that you have decided to go talk to someone OP. Regardless of ethnic culture, MEDICAL culture defines a psychiatric problem generally along the lines of something that is causing a functional deficit. Clearly a paralytic fear of failure is such a thing.</p>
<p>@kluge: You think I want to be a doctor because of the title? Sorry man, even if it was called something else I would still do it because I love medicine. Unfortunately, I realize what it takes later than sooner, but oh well. If people wanted to be happy by just being “productive members of society”, there are plenty of other easier, and quicker routes of achieving that. People become doctors because they like medicine. I am one of those people. Of course family, friends, and positive personal values are important, and I am thankful to have good friends, good values, and hopefully later a good family. Becoming a doctor allows me to practice medicine and allows me to feel fulfilled and content with my life - its not the only thing, as you said, friends, family, and my own values also help me achieve that contentment, this is just a part of it. If that is hard for you or anyone else to understand, or if its wrong for me to feel this way then so be it. </p>
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<li>I can raise my gpa by more than .6 if I transfer and do an extra year of UG.</li>
<li>I can do a post bac.</li>
<li>Im taking some time off after graduation to do other things.</li>
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<p>I have a game plan, I just need the courage to put it into practice. All of you can easily tell me to look into other career options because everyone is either in med school or going to be. You actually don’t know how hard it is to let go of something the further it slips away from you, so don’t act like you know what im going through, because you don’t. Don’t tell me what is or isn’t a realistic career for me based off a number and some internet posts. You don’t know me, none of you do so you shouldn’t judge what I can and can’t do. Please stop posting on this thread.</p>
<p>@BDM: </p>
<p>1) Im learning guitar, I like to hang out with friends, I like to read, I like to work out, I like to party (who doesn’t?), I like to have fun, I like Oreos, I like swimsuit models (female lol), I like movies, I like vodka + red bull with lime, I like beer, the list goes on of my "likes" …but I really like medicine, any other careers out there better suited for that boss? No? Well then the only other thing I can think of is going to Mars, hows the job market for that?</p>
<p>2) Yea maybe if you read my entire post in context, you would read about my high school experience, how that shaped my college experience, and how I want to make up for all of that lost opportunity especially since everyone around me in my cultural circle was being successful at Ivy League schools but me. Maybe you should do that instead of just quoting and assuming boss.</p>
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So you want to be a doctor because you like medicine. Okay. That’s the same as saying you want to be a police officer because you like policing. Or that you want to be an engineer because you like engineering. It’s a circular argument.</p>
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“Everybody else is successful” is not a good reason to want to be a doctor.</p>
<p>@mmmcdowe: Ill see how that goes, though a part of me really doesn’t want too. I guess its my cultural background that makes me so hesitant to do this. I don’t know or care if im weak, I just want to get over this problem so that I can live my life. I guess Ill look at it as being the first Indian to start a trend, and as you said no one has to know so I guess its ok.</p>
<p>@BDM: Its a circular argument that works.</p>
<p>What? No! I don’t want to be a doctor because everyone else was successful - that contributed to my fear of failure, because I wanted to be as if not more successful than them but I always was afraid to fail since I thought if I tried, I wouldn’t be successful so I didn’t try and I failed as a result. I wanted to achieve my goals just like everyone else was achieving theirs. However my underlying reason for wanting to be a doctor in the first place is because I find medicine fascinating.</p>
<p>Ive only been over that like a 100 times on here. Props man.</p>
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<p>No, circular arguments never work.</p>
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Fine. Let’s start over. Why?</p>