I need a bit of advice. This year I have a 7 week summer session, 7 week break, and then second year starts, to be followed by boards and starting rotations next June. For the 7 week break, I was uncertain what to do. Long story short, I have been offered a position with the state department of health working to work on an interesting project. It would be a lot of fun, I believe, and a neat project to boot. So… here is my question:
They would like me to work full time (40 hours) during the break portion and part time for the school portion (that part may be flexible). I would like be to doing something useful… but I know I’ll be needing some rest before starting second year, too. Has anyone else out there worked between second and third years? And would you recommend it? Do most people work? What sorts of experiences have people had? And are those experiences important for residency applications? How do residency program directors look at just taking the summer off? The idea of rest sounds REALLY appealing right now (the current nine-day break is going to fly by so fast it will make my head spin, I just know it, and then the 7 week session is reputedly pretty tough), but I don’t want to give up a good opportunity, either. I have until Monday to decide.
Sometimes when I post I get a bit silly, but this is a serious question. I am going to try to speak to some of our advisors, but input from other non-traditional students who have been there is the most valuable. And I only have until Monday to decide-- I’m afraid that having just finished a semester, and still being in that “I can’t believe I’m done, now I can relax, and not thinking about school” state is influencing my ability to make a good decision. So… any thoughts/ lessons learned are appreciated.
I’m confused. You’re concluding your first year - I gather that this job will take a portion of your 7-week break during the summer. Are you saying that the job will continue throughout your second year of med school?
You do NOT have a “break” between 2d and 3d year because that time is taken up with studying for, and taking, Step 1. Don’t do anything else during that time! And if this position requires that you put in regular work time while you are an MS-II, I would not recommend it, frankly. The one constant of med school is that every time you think you’ve started adapting to the pace, they take it up several notches. Second year is very intense, and your studying is not just to do well in your coursework but forms the foundation for the review you’ll need to do for Step 1.
Looking back on how I wrote that, I wasn't very clear. Let me try to clarify:
This position would NOT continue into my second year. Our first year technically doesn't end until the end of June, and then we are off until the end of August. I would work full-time during July and most of August. They would also like me to work part-time until the end of June. The position was designed as essentially a summer internship- they need someone to get a project started, and lay the groundwork for it to be continued by the department after the summer. They are trying to be flexible for me, but there are some limits to how flexible they can be.
So essentially the question is, should I give up the seven weeks of rest, for the benefits of some experience that might look very nice on a residency application (not to mention that I believe the position would be interesting). I know that next year will be hard (and in fact require learning a whole new method of studying since we switch from lecture to PBL for second year), and I wouldn't consider continuing beyond the end of the summer.
So that is the problem in a nutshell. I guess part of the reason I'm considering this job is that I can't imagine seven weeks of doing nothing. I haven't had seven weeks completely off since early high school days, and frankly have no idea what I would do with myself. On the other hand working full time and then going straight into second year sounds daunting, too. I'm very grateful for any advice from people with experience- maybe other people can see pros and cons I'm overlooking.