As I started my third year, I was filled with uncertainty with how I anticipated this year to progress and especially as I start seriously thinking about med school applications. I feel like everything I've been building and working towards during the start of my time in college, including the trajectory of my third year will finally become relevant as I think about what I'll be doing after I graduate.
This year was particularly different and exciting as I have completed all my general requirements and core classes during my first and second years. All my classes now are on east campus in the medical school and will be more specific to my major and especially relevant to preparing me for the MCAT and medical school afterwards.
I was still nervous starting this year, especially as I heard how difficult third year can be as a pre-med student, from upperclassmen who have been in the same situation before. And I started feeling the same way as classes started picking up in material and my involvements continued to take up a significant portion of my time. However, I feel like I was able to experiment with different study techniques, study schedules, and other strategies that allowed me to keep up with my classes and coursework. I think the biggest struggle for me this year was staying on top of all my course material. This hasn't been a problem for me in the past, but there was a very drastic jump in the amount of material we'd be learning and a very fast pace at which we were expected to follow along and keep up with the class material. While it was challenging, I learned what techniques worked best for me, and I feel like I truly became a better student and succeeding in these courses allowed me to become more confident in my abilities as I envisioned myself as a med student as well. The course material was very interesting, despite the difficulty, and I feel like I was becoming more confident in being able to retain a large amount of material and information in a short period of time, which is an important skill that is constantly tested in med school.
I also continued working as a PCA during the fall semester and enjoyed the course I took along with it, as I got to listen to different healthcare professionals who spoke about their career and their pathways as guest speakers. I quickly realized, however, the significant amount of time that working took up in my week and decided to take a break during my spring semester. I also took a break from a few other involvements during my fall semester, including Bearcat Buddies, and volunteering at Children's during the Spring. I also feel like I learned to set boundaries for myself and say "no" to some things or balance the amount of involvements/experiences I'm involved in at once. I felt that being able to do that allowed me more time to focus on the experiences I'm actively involved in and dedicate more time and effort to doing my best in those areas.
As a result, I also took a step back from research, as I continued to do more remote work and data analyses which resided on the dry lab side of things. Taking a step back from things allowed me to dedicate more time to studying for my classes, which were significantly more difficult than last year. And this allowed me to be more focused and prioritize certain tasks over others and dedicate time for the others at a different period.
Because I had a much lighter research schedule during the school year, I applied for SURF CCHMC in the spring to be able to perform research this summer to hopefully finish up on my current project which I had started during the summer before my second year. I'm also focusing on studying for my MCAT and catch up on studying and research work during the summer which I hope to continue during the fall and spring semesters of my senior year as I work on my capstone project.