Attending medical school right after you graduated from college has a lot of advantages. One is that you have fresh learnings that are helpful in med school. Aside form this, you are still young and have the energy to combat stress and pressure in the competitive med school environment. But if the idea of going to med school appealed to you much later in life, you should not let age hinder you from achieving your goals. Apply for med school! Here are tips on how you can handle stress and pressure of medical school even if you are older than most students.
Be organized
To avoid too much stress, you should learn how to be more organized. Start with making a schedule. Planning your activities will help you track and handle deadlines and still enjoy a more balanced life.
Enjoy the process of learning
One of the best ways to keep stress at bay is to enjoy your moments in med school. You have to savor the knowledge you acquire while listening to your professors or while reading your books. In this way, studying won’t be an obligation anymore but a way to satisfy your curiosity. It should open the gates to infinite discoveries.
Have a personal life
A lot of students take for granted their personal life in order to cope with the difficulties of med school. They just don’t realize that forgetting their personal life will lead to further stress. So go on, take time to watch movies with friends or go shopping once in a while.
Age should not be a hindrance to succeed in med school. There are many younger students who are more stressed and burnt out because they fail to organize their activities and enjoy their stay in the academe. Another reason is that they have forgotten that they also need to unwind once in a while.
When you write your personal statement medical school, you have to know the pitfalls that you have to avoid. John Hopkins University has some tips. Read on to know some of them.
Avoid cliches on your personal statement medical school
How many times do you think admissions committees have read the phrase, I want to become a physician because I like science and I want to help people?
Phrases such as the one mentioned above won’t grab the attention of the admissions committee. So avoid them. Instead, try to be original. Write through your own voice.
Avoid showing that your application is a manifest destiny
You have not always known that you want to be a physician (or dentist, etc.). See above. Similarly, who cares if everyone has always said that I would make a good physician. What do they know?
Instead of saying that your decision is prompted by a calling, you can just state your real reason. The most important thing is you should be sincere and honest.
Avoid aiming for grandiosity
Claiming that you plan to cure cancer (or HIV, or healthcare disparities, or anything else) shows a grave lack of understanding of whatever problem you are planning to solve.
You have to get real. You should not give the impression that you are a hopeless dreamer who dreams of changing this world.
Avoid being insincere
This includes information that may be factually accurate but is presented in a misleading way.
Being insincere include discussing info that is probably true but presented in a wrong way.
Harvard Business School shares some interesting points about sincerity:
Sincerity
The secret of success, said the French novelist, essayist, and dramatist Jean Giraudoux, is sincerity. Once you can fake that you’ve got it made. Though Giraudoux was being humorous, he touched on a fundamental truth about writing–that sincerity, or at least the appearance of sincerity, is crucial. Nothing alienates readers faster than insincerity in any form–hyperbole, hype, hypocrisy, untruth. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating your readers’ ability to recognize insincerity. Write honestly.
You have to use an honest voice. Remember that the admissions panel reads thousands of essays every year and for sure, they have a way of seeing through your lies.
When you write your personal statement for medical school, you have to avoid the pitfalls of writing cliche, being too self-centered, and aiming too high for grandiosity. You also have to avoid being insincere.
When you are going to apply for medical school, you have to give your best shot because there are many others like you who are also vying for a place in medical school. One of the requirements that could give you the chance of success for the admissions is your personal statement medical school. To know some important pointers, you can visit KU Medical Advising. Read on to know some of the pointers mentioned in the said site.
Use your own voice
Make your statement personal. Don’t derive your statement from a friend’s essay, or an example from a website, and don’t use quotes or cliches. Use you own words!
You need to speak through your own voice. By doing this, you lend originality and uniqueness to your essay. You have to keep in mind that the admissions panel has a way of seeing through your words. So be sure you are sincere in what you say.
Organize your personal statement medical school
Let your structure flow from the content you have chosen. Many essays use both time and another type of element, e.g., a chronology of personal stories, life changing events, places you’ve lived, important activities, influential people, or recurring themes.
An organized and well-thought essay is neat and could grab the attention of the admissions committee. This is why you have to strive to write one. Make sure that your personal statement medical school is clear as well.
Self-reflect
Saying you want to help people and like science doesn’t cut deep enough. It doesn’t differentiate you from any of the other candidates who are applying, and doesn’t differentiate the role you desire from the countless other careers that involve helping with science. What can you do as a member of the profession that you could not do in other professions?
You have to discuss things deeper. By doing this, you will impress the admissions panel by the maturity of your mind.
Show your emotion
Write with feeling! Admission committee members are looking for a passion for the profession. One way to convey your passion, is to use emotional language. Write and talk about your feelings!
You have to show your passion through your essay. However, you have to be careful not to overdo it. Emotional appeal can be effective if you play your cards well.
Use examples
Using specific examples to illustrate your point is another great thing you need to do. According to UCLA’s admissions site:
Thousands upon thousands of personal statements discuss initiative. Only hundreds show us initiative with concrete examples of demonstrated motivation and leadership. But examples are only one part of the equation: we also need to see how you have assigned meaning to your experiences and how you have grown from them. We want you to prove to us with written examples that you have a sense of who you are, where you are going, and how you are going to use your education and your experiences to accomplish your goals.
Again, in order to write a personal statement that could give you better chances of admissions to med schools, remember the tips mentioned above. Go deeper, self-reflect, be clear and organized, and use specific examples.
