Black Don't Crack ... Especially Not Under Pressure

Obviously, I loved the Renaissance album as soon as it dropped. The vocals, the beats, but chile… the message. We always passively listen to the words of a song, but when you went through undergrad in a pandemic, took the mcat twice, did pre-med as a non-STEM major, and let’s not forget to mention spending a semester living in a hotel due to hurricane Ida taking out your apartment… the lyrics hit a little different.

Becoming a doctor has been a dream I’ve chased for a long time, and if for some reason I woke up tomorrow back in highschool, I’d do it all over again… but maybe with half the stress, and double the sleep. There is nothing wrong with working hard for a goal. There is something wrong, however, with neglecting yourself in the process. What God has written for you will happen. There is no need to push yourself towards exhaustion searching for something that’s been inside you all along.

During one of my med school interviews, my interviewer told me “ships are built for storms, and so are you. When you realize that storms are just a part of life every time one comes you might start to think, ‘hey, I kind of like the waves’ ”. If every time something difficult came up, I took the time to “enjoy the waves”, I probably would have written this years ago.

So as you go through your pre-med years, learn to float… and grab a cocktail or two on the way. You were meant to be here, in this moment, pursuing this goal. Once I believed this, everything else fell into place.

People will often tell you that there is a specific “pre-med” path to take. My advice: create your own path. Follow the basics: pre-requisites, shadowing, internships, but fill in the gaps your way. There is no easy way to med school, but there can be a fun way: a way that is fulfilling and shows medical schools the sides of you that a GPA and MCAT score will not.

The best advice I received as I was preparing to apply for med school was to use my application to tell a story. The story I chose to tell was one of resilience and restoration, but that was the story that my life events led me to tell. What will yours be?

I hope this blog helps you discover how to do that, but to also “enjoy the waves”