Good day to all the other insane postbacc premed people around the country. I stumbled onto this site earlier today and have been reading ever since. I can’t believe there are so many people around the country in my exact same situation. My name is Matt, I’m 32, and I realized this summer that the future in my career (Spanish and Portuguese translation, freelance journalism) looked dull, financially unpromising, and most of all, not intellectually stimulating enough. I am fascinated with tropical and infectious disease medicine, read everything I could get my hands on in the popular press about Ebola, avian flu, SARS, HIV, Kaposi’s sarcoma, different parasites, and decided that this is where my future would lie. I have a couple of advanced degrees already, but the prospect of returning to school while working more-than-full time was very heady to me. I decided to do it anyway. I am attending City College, a chaotic public university in Harlem, and have finished the first semesters of biology and chemistry, am taking the second half of bio and chem now, and will take organic and physics in the fall. (I got a 5 on the AP Calculus BC exam many moons ago-- my only requirement that was already fulfilled!) My dream school is Karolinska Institutet (www.ki.se), Sweden’s premier medical school. As a translator, Swedish was not one of my languages, so I am studying Swedish as well, in my, uh, “spare time”. My boyfriend’s family lives in Sweden, and he would very much like to spend a few years closer to them. Since we both realize he is going to have to make more than a few sacrifices for MY dream, I really think that Sweden it is. Plus it’s free. Plus it doesn’t require an MCAT. (Trying to be pragmatic and get rid of at least a COUPLE of the “insurmountable” challenges I seem to have erected for myself.) Anyway, it is great to meet you all. Please write back!
Welcome!
Hi and welcome to OPM. It is a long journey you are starting and I wanted to wish you all the luck.
Welcome!
You seem like an incredibly energetic person. You can almost feel it in your writing. This is a great place and a wonderful source of inspiration and information and good will.
Good luck and keep posting your good energy. By the way, I am also very interested in infectous disease and have read quite a bit. Ebola!!! Horrific and fascinating.
Good luck,
Michelle