The Alchemist

"Making a decision was only the beginning of things. When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision."

-The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho-

The Alchemist is a fable about dreams. Not the ones that you have while you're sleeping- the ones you have while you're awake. The ones that drive your decisions and feed both your fear of failure and your desire to have everything that you ever wanted. I read this book awhile ago, before I knew that I wasn't going to medical school this year. At that point, I still wanted to go to medical school. At this point, I don't.

The decision that I made more than four years ago was only the beginning of things. I decided to do the pre-med thing. And I don't regret that decision even for a moment. That path led me to countless mentors. It led me to the three best girlfriends a person could ask for. I know that I made pivotal life relationships in undergrad because of the fact that I was pre-med.

I was pre-med. I hadn't thought about this until about 10 seconds ago. I was pre-med. I wasn't a pre-med major, I was pre-med. The most common response to the question, "What are you studying?" goes something like, "I'm a ______ major." But when you ask a pre-med person this, they usually do not say, "I'm a premed major" or even "I'm a biology major," but they say, "I'm pre-med." More than many other majors, pre-med defines who you are. You are driven. You have what it takes. You live in the library. Most of your friends are pre-med. You love words like phosphorylation and any word that ends in -ase.

But I'm probably biased.

For me, being pre-med definitely infiltrated my personality. Almost everything I did was somehow tied to the fact that I was going to be a doctor. This is why, when I didn't get into medical school this past year, I felt like my world was going to fall apart. Truly. I didn't know who I was anymore. And this wasn't just because I didn't get into medical school. It was because I started thinking that maybe it was a good thing that I didn't get into medical school. I started thinking it even more when I did horribly on my MCAT exam, and even more when I began graduate school. Graduate school that I was doing to improve my chances of getting into medical school which I was no longer sure I wanted to get into. That's where I am right now- graduate school that I don't like and don't have much motivation to do well in anymore.

So what I'm trying to decide right now is who I am. The two things that I think about most often are being an English teacher and being a Physician's Assistant. I could be an English teacher next year through a program that places willing bodies in needy schools. I would have to take another year off before applying to PA school in order to fulfill their prerequisites. There's also the more immediate question of whether or not I will finish the second semester of the grad program that I'm in.

I still have a lot of decisions to make. And I realize that I'll be making important decisions for the rest of my life. I do know one thing though, I am no longer pre-med. I no longer have the desire to spend 8 more years in school.

And it feels good to finally be free of that.