My cursed “MED SCHOOL APPS” spreadsheet lurks in the deepest, darkest depths of my computer desktop. It has been buried in its grave since the winter of my senior year, but I resurfaced the wretched thing recently to share with a friend going through the process herself. I double-tapped the Excel icon with bated breath and cringed at what popped up on my screen—a sickening mosaic of color-coding and conditional formatting, a testament to the premed neuroticism that led me to catalogue every primary submitted, secondary received, and interview attended. Generic rejection emails were documented coldly, too.
Even worse was my “Four Year Plan” tab, where I laid out in excruciating detail my exact progression through eight semesters and three summers of college that would deposit me squarely in medical school at their conclusion. Finish science pre-requisites by junior spring. Enroll in MCAT prep class. Get shadowing hours. Get TA position. Do research and crank out a publication (didn’t quite get around to that one). And on it went.
I’ve always been hungry for milestones—as are, I imagine, most of you. And nothing is more laden with milestones than the treacherous path towards medicine. Implicit within the lawful evil cells of my spreadsheet was the dead-set, single-minded determination of someone for whom the journey to medical school was an odyssey. The spreadsheet was devoid of any meaningful personal milestones, not because I hadn’t thought to document them, but because there simply hadn’t been any. I had whittled my non-premed self so thin that there was nothing to do but forge forward, locked in on the singularity of acceptance.
Side quests be damned.
And then, of course, I beat the game. I got the call on a D.C. Metrobus in early March 2020, listening to ABBA at an ear-shattering volume. As I stumbled off the bus and called my mom in tears, a switch flipped somewhere. My pipedream had come true. I was Penn Med. Main quest complete. Princess saved, bad guy defeated, treasure rescued.
During the following months, as I met my classmates virtually and struggled to produce a fun fact that was authentic and not deeply boring, I faced the lingering fear that I was the lamest admit in the entering class of 2020. I had no cool gap year experiences. I prioritized studying over fun in college and had long since put my hobbies on hold in favor of my AMCAS activities list. And so, as I emerged from quarantine, moved to Philly, and started my MS1 year at my dream school, I began the process of rebuilding the parts of myself I’d sacrificed to get here.
At first, becoming myself again required a methodical approach not unlike the one preserved in my cursed spreadsheet. Find boxing coach. Start new cross-stitch project. Curate monthly Spotify playlist. Go on daily walk. Bond with learning team. Make friends. I marveled at how quickly these activities became second nature. Classmates said hello when they saw me boxing on the Roberts Center patio. I sat through endless small groups while cross-stitching off camera. I’m known to usurp the aux cord at every party and even joined a cover band with my classmates (shoutout Pink Strings!), playing our first real gig on the day of the GI final. During the dead of winter, I went on frigid walks to the dog park and bonded with friends I would otherwise only see over Bluejeans. I’m comically close with my learning team—I’ve long since forgotten what was on our team exams, but I will always remember the “friends-giving” when Daniel cooked a duck instead of a turkey, Ritesh made me a balloon crown to celebrate my belated birthday, and despite staying out way too late we all dutifully called in to our 8 a.m. small group the next morning. Through saying yes to random dinners, coffee chats, and study dates in JMEC, I’ve built a social group of people so fun, so genuine and brilliant that it almost hurts.
For the first time since willingly putting myself into the premed pressure cooker, I’m learning to prioritize my personal, social, and existential happiness as much as my academic success. The change has been profound.
Of course, let me be real. I’m not writing this letter to gleefully tell you that, in the past 12 months, I’ve become a fully actualized version of myself. School is hard, imposter syndrome is a bitch, and a devastating global pandemic has a special way of putting life on hold.
But, I am here to tell anyone that relates even slightly—embrace the side quests. You’ve fought hard to earn a place on this ride, on the conveyor belt of medical education that will press, shape, and mold you into young medical professionals in a matter of years. Perhaps in the process of doing so, you’ve lost sight of some parts of yourself, put aside in favor of the professional gains. I urge you to use the (relative) freedom of this preclinical time to find those parts of you again. Run headfirst into self-discovery and find the new contours of yourself, not just as a newly-minted medical student, but as everything and everyone else that you are. Medicine will demand much of you. It will try to whittle you down. Make sure there is so much of you to spare that it never can.
I know you’re hungry for the main quest. And rightfully so—I hope you all get out there, tear it up, and become the absolute best doctors you can. But, remember that there is meaning to be found in the detours, the margins, and the complete digressions. New milestones await.
Julia Gasior is an MS2 at the Perelman School of Medicine.
Image by Tracy Du, an MS2 at the Perelman School of Medicine.
