More on Med School

I'm Weird

When I ride the trolley to work early in the morning, there are often many students who take the same trolley. One batch of them gets off at Liebknechtstraße and the second batch at Spielhagenstraße. At each of these stops is a school and the students are all on their way to class. They carry backpacks and textbooks and posters and lunchboxes. They talk about teachers and courses and tests and grades and planning prom.

Dear God.

It's so annoying.

Not because the students are disagreeable, but because when I ride with them, I feel distinctly at a loss. I like school. I am a good student. I do the learning thing pretty well. And after 14 years of class, suddenly not having homework or papers or textbooks is baffling. It's difficult not to be a student. Really difficult. I mean, I'm looking forward to finally getting my summer reading assignment from Mount Holyoke, whereas most high school grads can't wait to never again have summer reading. Freak.

I think this is one of the reasons I want to go to medical school. If asked to write a sentence containing the phrases "medical school" and "safety net" a reasonable outcome would be something in the order of, I have a safety net set up in case I get rejected from medical school. Why, oh why, is my sentence, I want to go to medical school because it is a safety net to protect me from never needing to actively study again.

Of course it isn't that simple. But the idea of planning my future in a series of educational gradients is quite attractive. High school, college, med school, residency, CMEs... Yep, sounds great.

How weird am I?


Two Neat Med School Programs

1. Mount Sinai Humanities & Medicine Early Acceptance Program sounds as if it were created just for me. Sarah's Special. Go read. It's super-duper cool.

2. The Atlantic Bridge Program is also attractive, though really it is just an application service to apply to Irish medical/dental/veterinary schools. Hmmm. I doubt my folks would be so thrilled at my spending four years in Ireland, and to be honest I'm not entirely sure how I would feel, but... I really do want to go back to Galway. If I get into the Mount Sinai program, I could probably do a semester/year abroad there, but if I don't, then the premed courseload will be in all likelihood too intense to take the time "off."