Hi everyone,
My name is PB, and I recently decided to pursue a career in medicine five years after completing my undergrad studies. I was a business major at UNC-CH, so I hardly took any BCPM classes. Currently, I have a 3.23 cGPA and 3.67 sGPA, and I think post-bacc will pull those up to a 3.5 and 3.8, respectively.
I plan on spending the next year getting where I want to be financially (paying off all debts, saving just a little), and then I will begin post-bacc classes. I’m also going to explore volunteering opportunities in the meantime. If there are any other ways to strengthen my application profile, please let me know.
One more thing, I am a dude. My forum name misleads a lot of people for some reason.
Most reputable Postbac programs will have you volunteer in a hospital so you can see things like surgery and blood. That’s great and all, but there are other things you can do to help. If you currently have a hobby, stick to it! Med. schools like to see that you have some way to release stress, and if you’ve been doing it for a long time, all the better!
One way to combine paying off debts AND strengthening your application is getting a job as a research assistant. If you have any current interests in medicine (i.e. you think the kidney is neat), why don’t you apply for a part/full time job at a kidney research lab? The pay will most likely be ok, if not great, and you will also have valuable research experience under your belt.