Hello All, I was wondering if I could ask some advice. I just finished all my pre-reqs and MCAT, and am now facing the prospect of sitting on my hands during this god-awful ‘glide year’ that we old pre-meds get to enjoy. I know it sounds very sad, but after I finished classes this year (I dropped everything to go full time and get it done in a year), I’m at a loss for what to do! I’ve been so wound up making sure I got good grades, studying for MCAT, volunteering - it’s like I forgot how to interact with the rest of the world. 
I left a job in Germany last year to come back to school. It looks like the opportunity is there to return for a year of work doing my old job.
My question: assuming I have the money and time to fly back to the states for interviews (I’m thinking 5-7 interviews MAX), do you think this is feasible? Will med schools work with me to either hold inteviews for a few weeks while I arrange a flight, or change the date so I can double or triple up on interviews when I am in the states?
I don’t want to jeapordize my chances for getting in, but my prospects for jobs here are not that good, and the money (and location) in Europe would offset the travel costs back and forth. Other than the distance to interviews, can anyone think of any negatives for doing this?
thanks
matt
I’m also in Europe. My concern is being able to get the time off work when I need it (along with travel costs and babysitting), but if your employer is flexible too then I don’t know why it would be a problem. Hopefully your jet lag is not so bad that it would affect your interviewing ability. (I’m usually pretty zoned out after I fly back here and when I go on business trips to the states I am usually ok until about 2pm and then I start to zone out)
What kind of job do you do in Germany - if you don’t mind my asking.
Matt, it’s been my impression that med schools can generally be flexible with arranging interview dates as long as you reply to an invitation immediately and can show a little bit of flexibility yourself. No one can fault you for either working OR taking the opportunity to live abroad.
I worked for the DoD in Stuttgart for 3 years. I had been in the Navy, ending up in London for the last 3 of my 8 years of service. The Germany job just kind of fell into my lap when I was getting out of the Navy - one of those ‘show up to work on Monday with a coat and tie after leaving work on Friday with a Uniform’ kind of deals. It’s funny - I had thought about medicine pretty strongly before that, but thought it was too big a jump at my age (I didn’t know about OPM back then). Anyway, it was easy to take the job because of money and location. It was nice, but provided no long term fulfillment. It was only after I had been there for a while that I realized that that what I needed to be doing was following my dream of medicine. Unfortunately, because of a little incident on Sept 11, 2001 - it took me two more years to untangle myself and get back to the states for school.
Anyway, I’ve put into motion ‘the network’, and it looks like there are plenty of jobs available. I hate to say it, but when the country is in a time of crisis, the job market for this sort of thing opens up.
I don’t think I’ll have any problem with the jet lag. I always did well with East to West travel. If I can stay up for a whole day at the Pentagon listening to old windbag’s who think that their monotone voice should be enjoyed by everyone - after coming straight from the airport and a long flight, I’m hoping I can handle med school interviews. What always killed me whas the flight back to Europe. I would be fine the day of (Usually land early in the morning and head straight to work), and convinced myself that I had somehow beaten the jet lag. Then the day after, about noon, my body and mind would turn off and I would just go into a coma. Funny how that happened almost every time - I literally had to tell my boss that I was useless and needed to go home to sleep on that second day!
Thanks for the advice. I’m going to talk to my pre-med advisor and make sure there is nothing else I am missing, and then go for it! Anyone in Germany who wants to meet for Oktoberfest, let me know!!
Matt