Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.

- Earl Nightingale

Five years ago, if someone would have asked me where you see yourself in 5 years , I would have envisioned myself in still school, yet instead of still in undergrad, I saw myself at my white coat ceremony in my beginning year of Medical school.

The story is so cliche (still working on how to write my personal statement), but I always wanted to be a doctor. I've been saying it since I was three years old, my dad thought it was so cute that everywhere we went, he would ask people to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up just so they could hear a little kid voice say "a pediatrician"!.
I honestly can't pinpoint where my love of medicine originated... my mom is a Certified Medical Assistant (CMA) and on teacher workdays, I would accompany her to her office and play in the exam rooms with stethoscopes and gloves and perform checkups on my dolls. If only Doc McStuffins had been around when I was 5, she would have been my idol (she secretly is my idol!). As I grew up, my fascination never waivered. When career day at school came around, and we were told that becoming a doctor takes 8 years + after high school, some of my classmates shied away, but not me, I was game! I knew the journey was going to be a long one, but it was my DREAM, but more than that, it was a GOAL.

Long story short, I breezed through high school and got into my dream school, UNC (tarheel pride!), Freshman year I adjusted well, entered as a biology major. I had always loved biology in high school and even placed out of Bio 101 my freshman year. By the end of the first year, I had no idea why everyone kept saying college was so difficult...

Enter Fall semester of my sophomore year. I was ready to take on my pre-med courses as many pre-med sophomores do, so I enrolled in Cell Biology/Genetics, Chemistry 102, and Physics 1...

the sophomore slump hit so fast it made my head spin. It was the absolute worst semester of my college career .  I was 19, prideful and tenacious so I refused to drop any of my courses at the detriment of my GPA, I cried so many days.

After that semester, I lost confidence in my ability to perform well in science classes, I was acing my psychology and other humanity classes, but struggling in my biology and chemistry courses. This in turn made me question myself, I had always been a good science student and always made good grades and now I wasn't... if I wasn't good at this anymore, then what was I good at?


I fought these self-deprecating thoughts and pushed on, knowing that I would probably have to pursue a post-baccalaureate program or a Special Masters Program to be admitted into Medical School. I had to realize that "no, it wasn't my original plan A", but life is full of plan B/Cs, hell plan Es!

My pre-med advisor for my post-bacc program gave me some great advice this year. She told me that medical schools don't necessarily want straight A students, don't get me wrong, you have to perform well in your coursework, but some students that have only made straight A's may have never had to face failure and failure builds character. 

Medicine is messy, life is messy, everyday won't be a success, all you can do is learn, move on and bounce back. In my 25 years of life experience (lol), I've learned that the key to life is resiliency. 

No one likes to talks about the obstacles once they reach their goal, I wish I had heard stories similar to mine about the failures it took before the successes in the journey to medical school. So if you're like me and have hit a few snags in the road, you're journey doesn't have to end.

Your body is resilient, your mind is resilient, you are resilient. Try again tomorrow!