HUGE SHOUT OUT TO SHIREEN @ UT!!! haha
So anyways, the reason why I’m posting this is because of a little chat I had with my great friend Shireen tonight.
Shireen and I have a lot in common.
One thing is that we both aspire to become health-care professionals.
While I hope to become a pharmacist (and maybe a doctor if circumstances are agreeable), Shireen is determined to become a pediatrician.
The second thing we have in common is that we are both sincere in our dreams.
Both of us want to become health-care professionals because we truly love helping people. We have volunteered at our own respective summer camps, sports clubs, and childrens’ hospices, and have discovered the great satisfaction in spending time with those that need you and making a difference in their day.
More importantly, we are both determined to achieve our dreams because we are genuinely passionate about them.
I am really interested in pharmacy because I have had the privilege of having work experience at a local pharmacy. That experience gave me valuable insight on the daily lives of pharmacists and I found myself really enjoying it. I really liked the balance between daily routine and unpredictable events that happen with different patients each day. It was then that I heard a *ding ding!* and I was set on aiming to enter that field.
Shireen is one of my most child-loving friends, and she has been set on becoming a pediatrician since she was quite young. If I remember correctly, there was a time in elementary school when the teacher asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, and she enthusiastically declared,”I want to be a kid doctor!” Of course, she was a kid back then herself. Her teacher must have had such a laugh, but Shireen still has that dream now and I know that she will reach it.
So in our discussion tonight, we hit on the topic of people who are heading in the same direction as we are, but with completely insincere motives.
For me, there seems to be an overwhelming number of first-year students who are also applying for pharmacy, but I doubt that many of them truly are going this way because they care for the profession. I know for a fact that many students apply for pharmacy because they know that if they get in, they are most likely guaranteed a job when they come out (as compared to maybe a bachelor’s of science.) But have they not thought of research? Or transferring to engineering?
For Shireen, she has many friends who are planning to take the MCAT and apply for med school simply for the money. All they care about is the prestige and $$$ that they get from the job and have no passion at all for what they plan to get into.
I find this truth extremely unsettling. People like Shireen and I, who truly want to get into our respective schools because of our genuine interest and passion in the fields, must compete with people who care nothing at all but to have some sort of guaranteed income in the future. I have found that many people have become highly proficient in bull-shitting, and therefore even the truly insincere people seem sincere to the application people. So it is unfair but the bare truth that we have the same if not worse chance of being accepted.
I know many people who are entering pharmacy simply for money and safe future’s sake, and I will seriously be pissed if they get in but I don’t. Ughh.
Which reminds me…I better get a start on my second essay for the Pharmacy Application…
But before I go, everyone please check out http://canuckplaceadventurechallenge.blogspot.com/
This is originally my fellow Canuck Place volunteer Malcolm’s blog about the awesome children’s hospice that we volunteer at, but it has now become a vision-in-progress. Malcolm has come up with the fantastic idea of turning it into a log thingie for different castes (lol) of people at Canuck Place to post on! For example, Malcolm would be the voice of a family volunteer, I would be the voice of a peer volunteer, and other voices would be those of a doctor, nurse, PCA, admin, or even a kid! This way, people can become informed not only about what the hospice is, but also the lively happenings of this wonderful space through different perspectives! How awesome is that.
Still this is, as I said, a vision-in-progress and so far only Malcolm and I are authors. Hopefully we’ll build up a bigger team soon!
joan's bowl of noodles 