Pre-med, pre-dental, pre-nursing, pre-PT, pre-optometry, pre-chiropractic, pre-PA, pre-anything that falls in the realm of any of these. I think we are the only people who understand how we feel on the daily basis.
They say college is the best time of your life...best or most stressful...or both? Can't decide if I've made more memories in the library or anywhere else in my life. All those all nighters pulled at the library, sitting at a table with your classmates trying to figure out chemical equilibrium and some aspect of biology thats low-key pointless. All the hours we spend in tutoring to get extra help in hopes of even scoring slightly higher on the next exam.
We've spent countless hours sitting in lecture trying to understand what our professor is talking about. Probably even longer on ALEKS, Sapling, OWL, or any other homework website trying to figure out problems that will never be on exams. Who else wonders who that ONE kid is in ever lecture that can just miraculously make an A on every exam, like not just A, but like 95+? Thank you so much for ruining the curve, we are all going to find you one day. Am I the only one who goes to my profs office hours after the exam to review and just be like "when did you ever teach this, or when was it on my homework, or why would you even put that on there???" Who else sits in their other classes like history and polisci for attendance points, but actually just to sit there and work on chem homework or lab write-ups?
Whats worse than class is lab. I'm sorry but, half the time what even is going on in lab? I know I'm not the only one who's this lost! I honestly have no clue how I've made good grades in chem labs and gotten this far, absolutely no idea. I feel like everyone is lost but we're all lost together, so its okay. We all know that chem lab finals and bio lab practicals are the worst, so why even try? Fail together, curve together! Just kidding....not really though.
Do you ever just sit there and wonder who came up with all this stuff we force our brains to merely memorize? Who came up with the organization of these classes and who decided they were required for us to take? Everyone says that there is a point to these classes, but lets be real first and second year courses are straight weed outs. AKA they're trying to see who's brain can handle the most pressure and kick the rest of us out, or something like that. I mean when will I ever need to know coffee-cup calorimetry to cure a patient?
As bad as what I'm about to say sounds, we all know we think it. Every time a student who's liberal arts or some other major along those lines rants about stress, we just get a little mad in our heads. We just don't really understand what they stress about when we have a bio lab quiz due in two hours, chem homework due tomorrow, chem pre lab due Wednesday, history paper due Friday night, and a math test Thursday. So, their stress just doesn't make sense to us. No one can tell us that they don't have it easier either. It's not a bad thing, it's just a fact, the course loads we have to take are larger and harder. There's no sugar coating it.
This isn't even half of it. On top of all the pressure from the classes we have the constant thought glooming over our heads about acceptance rates and applications for our choice of post-grad schools. Every time we make a bad grade on even a homework or quiz, the only thought the clouds anything we are thinking about is "Wow I'm never going to get into med school" or "Wow they're gonna hate this" when in reality we know they're never even going to see it.
Even though, we all say we hate this life that we've chosen, we all love it. There's a twisted sort of fun in chasing that amazing GPA, balanced social life, summer internships, somehow managing to do a cool study abroad for the post grad applications, maybe fitting in a minor, and the other things we do to seem perfect to whatever pre-med related path we are heading down. There's a sort of rush in the lifestyle, and we all know that one day in ten years when we are doctors, it will all be worth it, and we will probably say that college was the best time of our lives. Working hard today, to see that one day.
