What are my chances?

[arasczz]

I have recently expressed interest in potentially pursuing a future in pre-med and I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice. What are my chances of being successful?

Admittedly, I am bad at math. For as long as I can remember, I struggled in school and as I continued to go up in grades, the math kept getting more and more challenging for me when I was already having trouble since the beginning. I'm not sure why I struggle so hard, but it's frustrating when I tried so hard too. I had a few tutors in school, would stay after class, during countless lunches, and after school for hours with teachers working on problems I missed and to understand the math better.

It's frustrating for me because I genuinely want to be better and I do genuinely want to be a doctor some day. I know it understandably requires a lot of math, though. I was wondering if it would make a difference if I sat down and studied really hard, took extra classes, and got tutoring to help me better understand math to prepare for pre-med? I've always been driven when it comes to accomplishing goals and it's discouraging to think that I won't be able to entertain something because I don't understand it. I kind of feel like it's possible to accomplish pretty much anything as long as you put in the time and effort and genuinely want it enough.

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[Aksea23]

I don’t think you should let your math skills totally deter you! I am admittedly terrible with biology, but have gotten so much better at it over the past few years by finding out which study strategies work for me. I think if you have the drive and determination, you can definitely set realistic goals and stepping stones for yourself. Chemistry and physics will definitely be hard, so you’ll probably need to plan on having a tutor. If you struggle with those courses, that’ll help point you in the direction you should go (as far as figuring out if you on the right track or if you need to find other strategies that will work better for you). I highly recommend shadowing if you haven’t already to see how physicians from different specialties may or may not need and use math each day.

 

[Dral]

You'll be fine. I did it, and I suck at math. The only thing related I was ever good at was geometry. I was an ace at that. My brain thinks in images, not in abstract ways like math and language.

Instead of brute force (been there, done that), step back and try to figure out how your brain works and how you learn.

For example, I tried all of senior year of high school trying to understand calculus. I practically begged my teacher to explain it in a way I could understand it. Took college calc and did ok. I then took calc based physics and learned about how velocity, acceleration, etc relate to derivatives and integrals. I could finally put a real life application/picture in my head to it. I got it after that.

I ended up dropping calc based physics after the first exam (despite getting a B+ on it though) because I decided I didn't want to tempt fate...off to algebra based physics and As.