Session 168 When you know you want to pursue medicine, but are currently in another program or job, what should you do? Quit or keep going? Questions here are pulled from the Nontrad Premed Forum. If you haven’t yet, please sign up for an account. It’s free. Then ask away! [00:42] Next Step Test Prep Today’s episode is sponsored by Next Step Admissions Consulting. Next Step Test Prep has reached out to me to help them build an admissions team and I’m currently their Director of Curriculum with their admissions services. I help them find advisors to help you on your journey. I want to make sure that they speak in a very similar language that I speak, and that they care for their students as much as I care for you guys. If you need help with your applications, writing your personal statement, writing your secondaries, your interview prep, all of the extracurriculars that you have to write, go check them out, Next Step Test Prep. Use the promo code MSHQ to save some money. Jump on a 15-minute free consultation with them, and they'll get you started in the right direction. [02:40] OldPreMeds Question of the Week: “I started listening to the old pre-meds podcast about a week ago, and have gotten to episode 105. I’m addicted. This podcast has given me the confidence to go after my dream of becoming a physician. My desire to become a physician came gradually through life experiences starting when I was a very young child spending a lot of time at the University of Michigan’s Children’s Hospital with my older brother. Various experiences and classes throughout high school further sparked my interest in becoming a physician. However, at that age, I did not have a realistic view of how my life was going to go. I thought I would be married and having kids by 25 years old. I am now 26 with no husband or kids (but I do have a serious boyfriend at least). In high school and throughout university, I thought it would be impossible to have children and be a doctor with medical school debt. Due to encouragement from family members, I defaulted on the idea of becoming a speech language pathologist, but my heart was never in it (hence the 3.4 GPA). I graduated with my BS in 2014, but did not continue onto my master’s degree (the minimum for SLP practice) until the fall of 2018. I knew I did not want to do SLP, so after I graduated, I taught English in South Korea through the EPIK program at 2 public middle schools. After a year, I came back and became a production mechanic for a jet engine manufacturer and advanced to being a digital radiography inspector after 3 months. From 2014 to 2018, my desire to go to medical school became stronger. I have many friends who are in medical school and residency, and watching their victories and struggles made it easier for me to picture myself in their position. This past year I told my boyfriend (who is currently a DO internal medicine resident) that going to medical school was my dream. His reaction was very discouraging. He encouraged me to enroll in an SLP master’s program instead. So I applied to an MS SLP program last winter and was accepted. I enrolled in the program hoping that my desire to become a physician would melt away. However, through my SLP classes and interprofessional education experiences, my dream to go to medical school is stronger than ever. I do not want to waste more time and money on SLP when I know that I want to practice medicine. However, my boyfriend and family think it’s best for me to finish the program (graduating in December 2019 after 3 more semesters) before starting to work on prerequisite courses and extracurriculars. I would really like to start my journey now. I think that a formal post-bacc would be best for me, although I am open to doing a DIY post-bacc. My next semester is starting up in January, and it is so excruciating to keep doing this program when I know what I really want to do. GPA: Undergraduate BS in Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education (Pre-Speech