I'm 29 years old with foreign undergrad and US masters (Engineering). I have been contemplating medicine for years and always dismissed it as wishful thinking as I'm getting older and realistically have very low chance(or no chance?) of making it. I had ortho surgery recently and had lot of time to contemplate my life decisions. I visited hospital many times this past year and I had huge appreation for everyone who is involved in health care. At this point in my life, I want to give everything I possibly can and try my chances, for all I know I would soon be 40 or 50 and don't want to regret not trying.
I want to be precise in my attempt avoiding possible burnout/giving up early. I have long way to go starting from improving essay writing skills, getting volunteer hours, interpersonnel skills to taking pre req and scoring higher in MCAT. I'm planning to complete 60 pre-req semester hours - 30 while working full time in a year and another 30-32 (all science pre req) in formal post bacc. With my foreign undergrad, I believe I need to do formal, aggressive post bacc and do really well in it. It is not ideal for me to give up on my current career and do full time post bacc, but I don't see any other way.
For first 30 credits, I intend to take following courses while working full time - english writing, psych, socio, couple of upper level bio classes, calc/stats (although I have taken it, i might need to repeat it), health policy and crime victim. I have a bio background in high school (long time ago!). I have gone through syllabus in science courses and almost all of the topics looked familiar to me although I remember none of it. This makes me confident enough to take upper bio classes in not so competitive environment (evening extension class). Also, I have to prove to myself I'm capable of working harder and navigate it as I'm often going to find myself in unfamily territory if I want to go on this journey.
I want to post here to see if I'm being realistic here. I haven't discussed this with any living soul in real life so far as it does look bit crazy and I want to show in action rather than wasting time talking about it.
The most fun part is I'm neither green card holder or US citizen. I know how it is extremely hard to make it to US med school with my status. I would like to have green card soon, but I don't really have control over it and I don't know when it will happen. Besides that, I want to be as ready as possible. Any suggestion is welcome.
I want to be precise in my attempt avoiding possible burnout/giving up early. I have long way to go starting from improving essay writing skills, getting volunteer hours, interpersonnel skills to taking pre req and scoring higher in MCAT. I'm planning to complete 60 pre-req semester hours - 30 while working full time in a year and another 30-32 (all science pre req) in formal post bacc. With my foreign undergrad, I believe I need to do formal, aggressive post bacc and do really well in it. It is not ideal for me to give up on my current career and do full time post bacc, but I don't see any other way.
For first 30 credits, I intend to take following courses while working full time - english writing, psych, socio, couple of upper level bio classes, calc/stats (although I have taken it, i might need to repeat it), health policy and crime victim. I have a bio background in high school (long time ago!). I have gone through syllabus in science courses and almost all of the topics looked familiar to me although I remember none of it. This makes me confident enough to take upper bio classes in not so competitive environment (evening extension class). Also, I have to prove to myself I'm capable of working harder and navigate it as I'm often going to find myself in unfamily territory if I want to go on this journey.
I want to post here to see if I'm being realistic here. I haven't discussed this with any living soul in real life so far as it does look bit crazy and I want to show in action rather than wasting time talking about it.
The most fun part is I'm neither green card holder or US citizen. I know how it is extremely hard to make it to US med school with my status. I would like to have green card soon, but I don't really have control over it and I don't know when it will happen. Besides that, I want to be as ready as possible. Any suggestion is welcome.
