Oh man, two finals next week, plus a the culmination of an extracurricular project I’ve been working on for weeks.
Instead of dwelling on the time crunch, I figured I’d just combine a bunch of thoughts I’ve had today in a really disorganized and random fashion. (Lazy and yet, strangely efficient).
1. Med school and reality tv. You know how, on reality tv shows, the host will commonly make an announcement about some ridiculous and made-up challenge that all of the contestants have to meet? And it’s solely so everyone watching at home can be entertained by all of the drama and in-fighting that ensues?
That’s what it’s like when your med school asks your class to break into groups of 2 or 4 (but not 3!) for a clinical course that will last an entire year.
2. You know what would really suck? Being a pre-med from Alaska. No state school, and you have to shell out $1,000 every time you have an interview. It’s not like a regular interview season, where you’re just irritated about the cost – I come from a decently middle-class family, and that cost would be out of the question for me. I wouldn’t have been able to afford to interview until I was 30, by which point I personally probably wouldn’t have wanted to.
Man. Pre-meds from Alaska. I don’t know how they do it, but I know I respect it.
3. The internet is awesome. We’re learning about fungi tomorrow, and while pre-reading I realized that I actually know a fair amount about the subject material because of the comments made to this post.
I don’t know how people lived before the internet, but I imagine that it must’ve involved a lot more work.
Action Potential 
Financially, traveling for interviews would be expensive for an Alaskan pre-med, but at least if they get accepted and decide to attend UW, they won’t have to pay out-of-state tuition because of the UW’s WWAMI program. I imagine visiting family back home would be difficult though, heh.
Forgot all about the WWAMI program – you’re right, that’s something of a consolation!
I seriously like your blog a lot. You’re a good writer. I kinda half-ass read most of the med-blogs I follow, but I look forward to your posts because you know how to inject some humor. Thanks for that. 😉
And do people even live in….*gulp*….Alaska?
(kidding, we have a friend from there – but seriously, I would freeze to death. For real. I have popsicle fingers in Texas, I would be human freezer burn in Alaska)
Oh man, thanks so much for this. I’ve been having a really crappy day, and reading that about my writing was exactly what I needed. I feel ten times better. 🙂
Yeah, being an Alaskan pre-med in Alaska would be unfortunate. =/
As a DC resident, I didn’t have any state school options of any sort. >< But I was living near New York City when I was applying so making it to most of my interviews wasn't difficult or excessively expensive. I took the train to most of them.
Also, wow. That comment thread seriously is a goldmine of info.
I lived in DC for a year or so, so I’m surprised I didn’t even think about how residents would be out of luck with state schools. Glad you were able to take the train instead of flying, though!