Doubting myself

[PaperPomeranian]

Hello all!

I am currently taking some post bacc courses as I have a degree in anthropology and a second one in primate behavior and ecology. I specifically chose to go that route to avoid STEM classes, but now becoming a physician developed into a burning passion, I realized I made some mistakes with my original bachelors lol.

I’ve never been good at STEM classes and I only connect that to my k-12 education where growing up, my home was severely broken and abusive. Because of that, my cognitive ability has given me intense anxiety and fear with any sort of STEM class. I was hoping that now that I’m in a significantly better environment, my level of learning would function better, but I find myself panicking and crying over entry chemistry classes (conversion equations, memorizing formulations, math in general lol) more than I did in high school! I’m not sure if my function of understanding numbers and formulas is poor due to my natural ability or because of my upbringing.

In the science field, facts and logic triumphs over hoping and guessing and I’m currently doubting myself to go through medical school due to intense struggling with basic chemistry (chem 139) and perhaps medical biology classes (currently taking bio 160, learning about atoms, elements and going into micro and macromolecules). Although I want to become a doctor, I’m afraid my competence in chemistry/math and biology classes will limit me, thus perhaps I’m “hoping and praying” versus looking at facts and logic.

For the primate degrees, anatomy, physiology, and psychology was involved and it wasn’t as challenging as math/chemistry (it was challenging, but in its own way). I did see other threads on this site about doubting ones self in medical school and saw many replies that doctors are studying medicine and the human body, not necessarily full-blown chemistry and math, although it looks as if they’re are heavily involved.

I know this sounds negative, but going into the science field, it’s important to be factual. For example, my spouse will never become a musician. His musical ability is incredibly poor. My spouse has made a career choice avoiding music and arts for this reason (and is happy about it!). So I’m wondering if its more wise to make a decision similar to this? My passion is to help people using all the wonderful and advanced knowledge of the medical sciences to improve life, but an anology I grew up with that seems to resonate with me is, a chicken envious of a flying hawk, will never learn to fly no matter what. If the ability isn’t there, it just won’t happen. In the military, we are taught “it is what it is” when unfortunate things happen.

Thank you for taking your time to read this post everyone. I tried to be as neutral as possible, but informative. I apologize if I posted this to the wrong area as I felt this could be posted to the Pre-med area, but also to the non traditional thread!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Dr. Let 'er Buck]

Doubting yourself AND no replies for a day. That probably doesn't help LOL. Let me take a stab at it here.

I was similar to you and started college when I was much older than the average freshman. Chemistry was and forever will be my antithesis (particularly ochem). I'd be lying if I said that chemistry knowledge will not be helpful, but there is some of it on the MCAT. The real kicker is that most schools want two semesters (8 credit hours) of general chemistry and another two semesters of organic. There really isn't way around these (or I would have taken it).

While it is what it is, there is another military saying which I chose to follow, "Embrace the suck". All of my school life I had runaway from difficult courses. Because of this, I was WOEFULLY deficient in math and physical sciences. I kinda shot myself in the foot decades ago. So, I had to embrace the suck and just power ahead. Sure enough, it SUCKED! But the mental shift I was able to accomplish helped. My school laptop has a black flag sticker on it which constantly reminds me that life will take no prisoners and neither will I. Instead of viewing school courses and insurmountable bullies which held sway over me, I basically decided that I was going to spit in their eye and plow 'em over.

The anxiety can also be a big problem. An informal survey of my pre-med friends found that nearly all of them are on some kind of anxiety medication. No shame in it. If you need it, talk to your physician. This path is cruel and vindictive, especially to non-trads. But I recently got my acceptance to my first choice M.D. school, which five years ago I would have bet a million dollars would not be possible by me.

Good luck in vanquishing your demons. It took a couple years for me to beat mine, but in the end I've become a much happier individual. And my wife and children notice the difference as well.

Good luck

 

[Stellaartwa]

We can't really advise you on what's "wise" for you or what's worth it to you. Pursuing a career in medicine is going to be a long, expensive, difficult and lonely path. It was worth it for me but I had to make many sacrifices to get where I am today. Do you have the self-motivation and passion to do the same? Only you know you.

I will tell you my story in the hope that something will resonate with how you're feeling. Throughout undergrad, I failed a couple classes, I got mostly Cs, a couple Ds. My most ridiculous example is that I withdrew from calculus 2 times and got a D+ in it once meaning, to date, I've paid for calculus 1 at the college level FOUR TIMES. Oy! As an undergraduate student, I studied for hours and hours the day before the test and still couldn't achieve the same grades as my peers. In short, I thought that I was unsuccessful because I wasn't as smart as them. I wasn't "math or science brained" like they were. I grew up hearing that girls just aren't as good at math and science as boys. Believing this lie allowed me to make excuses for myself instead of improve myself. How sad! It is the rare genius who has more aptitude in maths than the rest of us. For everyone else, it just takes A LOT of time and practice. EXPOSURE! The real difference probably lies in initial level of interest and encouragement throughout schooling -- not some innate "aptitude".

What I have come to discover is that my lack of success stemmed from my poor time-management, study skills and motivation. Once I discovered my problems, I changed completely. I went back to post-bacc and never missed a single lecture. I studied every single day for 2 or 3 hours. I stayed on top of everything. I turned assignments in weeks early to get them off my plate and make sure nothing "came up". No excuses. In the end, I was just about as successful as I could have been. I got almost all A+ and I did really well on the MCAT.

If you came here for a little confidence boost and that's it, I can do that. You are smart enough to finish all the pre-reqs. General chemistry is hard, you're absolutely right there, especially if you're weak in maths, but trust me when I say, with enough exposure (practice, practice, practice) you can do it. This is all a means to an end. You don't need to love this crap. You need to conquer it and move on. Don't let yourself get so frustrated that you give up. Go to office hours. Find the tutoring center at your university and use the resources offered. I can guarantee there are resources offered. I tutored throughout post-bacc and there were so few students utilizing that resource.. but their tuition dollars were funding it AND they needed the help.

Make getting an A your life's goal and I can almost guarantee you that you can get an A. Best of luck to you!