Mid-life crisis/Junior in highschool

Hello people of the planet Earth, I am currently a junior at my high school and am facing a mid-life crisis. So I decided to join this program called the “Blue Ridge Scholars Program” where through your city’s community college you stack up on a bunch of dual enrollment classes in order to achieve your associates degree and high school diploma at the same time. The first semester you take the classes in high school and the second semester and so on you take at the college. Now the thing I cCANNOT stop stressing about is how colleges will see me and what the heck I should do with my life? I am very very interested into the medical field, specifically surgery (neurosurgery/surgical oncology). I have shadowed a cardiothoracic surgeon once and that was it. I decided to not go into cardiothoracic surgery since it is surrounded mainly around old people. But anyways onto the point. I know some say you will change your mind and so on, but I am really interested into it guys. I just think it is so cool how my hands are able to cut open into a human body and fix it. Anyways, I can’t stop stressing about the future. Like pre-med, med school, residency, all the damn exams I have to take and the work I have to put into it. I am not Albert Einstein and I do tend to procrastinate at the end of the day, but I do get my work done. I am an average All A’s and a B or sometimes two B’s student, but I have improved greatly. My freshmen year I had a 1.5 because of the people I was around and the decisions I was making. But now I currently have a 3.2. I was wondering if you guys could give me somes tips on what to do. I am completely brainless. So many people have told me to not focus on the future and just focus on now but let’s be honest, that is hard as hell to do. I just really need help guys, sometimes I wish I was not interested into med because of how difficult it is. The other thing I am worried about is how I’ll look since I am not taking AP’s… :frowning: life is so stressful please help you guys I am beg anyone just anyone help PS the colleges I have around me are colleges like JMU, GMU, UVA, VCU, VT, etc. PLS HELP

Take a deep breath and step back a moment. You’re getting way, way, way ahead of yourself.

You need to take one step at a time.

Your first concern is to do well in your co-enrollment classes. Why? Because all co-enrollment classes will be included in your AMCAS GPA for med school admission.

You should also work on improving your work habits/study skills. Procrastination will severely hinder your ability to do well in college and beyond.

Next, you need to have a serious talk with your parents and find out how much they can afford to pay each year toward college for you.

Once you have a good idea of your financial constraints, you can start looking at college costs and what you can afford. You should attend a college that offers you the best combination of net cost, opportunity and fit. You should not go into huge debt for your undergrad education since there is little financial assistance other than loans for medical school. Med school is very expensive.

Finally, when you get to college, choose a major you like and that you will do well in. If you still plan to pursue medicine, take your pre-reqs and do well in all of them. Gradually add some ECs until you have all of the following–research, community service, clinical volunteering, tutoring/coaching/teaching, leadership roles. Choose ECs you enjoy and are meaningful to you. Don’t get involved in any activity just because you think it’ll “look good” to med school adcomms.

Remember that med school admission is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes years of consistent hard work and excellence to gain an admission.

Now for the lecture–

First of all–paragraphs are your friend. Many posters find reading your wall o’text tedious and hard to follow. (Also, communication skills? One of the 6 basic competencies required for med school applicants.)

There are no guarantees that you’ll be able to qualify for neurosurgery (which is hugely competitive and you’ll need to be among the best in the country to qualify for) or surgical oncology (which is a post-residency fellowship level specialty). If you wouldn’t be happy working in a primary care specialty, then you should reconsider med school.

Medicine is filled with high stakes, standardized exams. (The MCAT is just the first of many, many exams that you will taking throughout your career.) If you can’t deal with the stress of exams, then medicine isn’t a good career for you.

If you don’t want to work with an elderly patient population, then unless you plan to work in pediatrics, pathology (where you only deal with tissue specimens and dead bodies ) or possibly OB/GYN then medicine isn’t a good career for you since just about every specialty will have a patient population that includes the elderly and often includes a large number of elderly.

BTW, observing a surgery is very cool, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’d actually like surgery as career. A surgical practice isn’t just cutting. You’ll have several clinic days every week, as well as hospital rounding and managing your pre- and post-op patients everyday.

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junior at my high school and am facing a mid-life crisis


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What? Do you plan on dying at age 30?