Premed Takeover #3

Discover the life of a premed student and answers to some frequently asked questions. Natalie, a second-year bio-chem major shares her classes, extracurriculars, and more about the life of a premed student.

Takeover Transcript:

Good morning guys and happy Monday my name is Nat and I will be doing a pre-med takeover as a second-year bio chem major and so I’m just going to take you around my day, the classes I take, extracurriculars I do, and things outside of the class, so if you’re interested in asking any questions or knowing anything about me I’ll leave a little question box below so you guys can go ahead and do that. 

It’s currently 9 am and I just finished up my physics 2 lecture, unfortunately, everything is online so it’s a bit weird; we just have to look at a simulation and kind of figure it out from there but right now I’m waiting for my Orgo review session at eleven so I’m going to use these 2 hours to review some more till then. 

Question: What are some things you did in high school to get into the premed category? 

To everyone’s surprise I wasn’t too involved in extracurriculars in high school and overall I wasn’t really a good student. I didn’t focus too much on school and I didn’t really care, and it wasn’t until mid junior year where I completely changed that around. I had a good sense that I wanted to go into the pre-med field anyways and I think that it was once I got into college that I really started exploring everything. I think it was like a playground of different opportunities to explore and so I got involved in honors societies, I’ll leave my honors society linked here (@aedfiu). I created a podcast which I will also leave linked here (@pouralittlebrain). I work at a research lab where I just got published last week. So those were the things that have really kind of allowed me to solidify the fact that I do want to go into the premedical field and I encourage everyone if you have those resources available to you at your school to take advantage of clubs, honors societies, of student interest groups, research because that’s really going to be what ultimately tells you, ‘okay is this something I really wanna do or not’ I know these weird times; scribing and shadowing are not really possible in person, but there’s a ton of really great resources that let you do that online. 

Question: Study tips? 

I think my answer to this will be a very unpopular opinion but I am the type of student who really works best under pressure and can study for really extended periods of time and that just works best for me but you can always try techniques like the podomoro method, and just kind of implementing different things that work for you. A really simple easy tip that helps me study is to keep my phone away; I will either throw it in my bed back there or hide it in a cabinet in my desk to make sure its out of sight and out of mind. 

Alright, I’m back for a mid-day update. I have transitioned from my desk to my bed because it’s that time of the day. Pretty much I’m in an Orgo review session right now this is a really great opportunity that your school could offer so I definitely recommend that you look into that where you do a mock exam of what your typical exam content is gonna have and you get to see where you are so you can focus on any weaknesses that you’re having and work with the tutors one on one to help them; so that what I’m gonna do right now and I’ll talk a little bit about my extracurriculars and stuff that I do not necessarily today but that I technically and typically do throughout the week. 

Alright so I’m wrapping up my day but as promised, I wanted to give you guys an insight on what I do outside of what I showed you today because today was a relatively relaxed day, but I do like I mentioned earlier work at a research lab where I just got published and work on a type HIV one novel therapies so that’s what I’ve been doing for about 4 months. And previously I was working at a neuro research lab for over a year and like I mentioned I am a community service chair of AED which is a pre-health honors society at my school. I am also a tutor and a learning assistant for chemistry so aside from you know, showing my passion for equity and education through my podcast, I try to show it through actually devoting my time to teach and help students. And so those are pretty much my main extracurriculars but if you guys have any questions I do urge you to reach out to me via my podcast, Instagram or my personal I’ll have them both linked here.