After months of deliberation, I turned all the plans I made before attending university on their heads and went a way I never imagined. Though I still plan to make it to the destination I intended for myself since high school sophomore year, I’ve stepped upon an unconventional route, one that I feel lonely on, despite having heard of many others taking and succeeding on before.
Though I’m still pre-medical, I’m not a science major anymore. I’m now an arts majors. Specifically, a Mass Communications major.
Yay, journalism!
I’m excited. I feel happier. I feel relieved. I feel like I’ve found where I belong, even though I haven’t taken a single class for the new major,
But the switch wasn’t easy, and I look back on it now with both doubt and pity. Was I lying to myself when I thought I could be a science major? Did I really think I could do all those sciences for another 3 years?
I revel in the sciences, but since college started, I never felt like I belonged in any of the science majors I chose. I need to be able to balance sciences in preparation for medical school, but I’m afraid of burning out or being stuck with a useless degree if I don’t make it.
I should have succeeded as a science major, but is that what I really wanted to do?
No, and it took me a long time to stop telling myself that it’s what I wanted.
I made up my mind around early February. I was very scared of telling my parents about the switch since they believe that a science major would be the most advantageous. Finally, I found the courage to tell them of my plans. Mom was not too thrilled, and she said something unforgettable to me.
“I’ve never heard of a Mass Comm major tracking to medical school.”
Challenge accepted.
I’ve heard that the choice of an undergraduate major doesn’t necessarily matter to medical schools, and I’ve also heard that non-science majors have a better chance. While those and other factors may have come up before the switch, I kept myself away from that mindset. I didn’t want to leave to give myself an advantage; in fact, I feel like I’m at a disadvantage right now, taking fewer sciences and possibly cramming 18 credits each semester for the next two years.
I’m not looking for an easy way in; I want to show people that I can do what I love even if it’s not my goal. Journalism might just be a back-up, but I love writing. I love writing articles and opinions. I love writing what I want to say when I feel like I don’t have the voice to say it.
And I feel I could do something different with medicine with a different background. Many of the problems in medicine come from communications issues, and usually, other doctors try to solve those problems, only to end up proliferating them. I dream of doing something different there, and to help rebuild the bridges between patient and practitioner. I want to be ethical, and I want to communicate, not to shove science down people’s throats.
I also encourage other pre-medical students to leave the sciences and focus on something else. Try communications, the social and behavioral sciences, try what you would rather be doing than science. Medicine is not and should not be all about sciences anymore; it is also a social construction, one that needs immediate and constant rebuilding.
As I take this unconventional route, I know how challenging it will be, especially being someone surrounded by other pre-medical students in science majors. I want to stand out among them, not just for medical school admissions, but because I don’t want to be the student that conformed to a safe path; I want to be the student who did try something weird by doing what she loved.
