 Are you preparing for your second career or most of your undergrad you studied English or philosophy or classics and you're thinking of shifting gears now? More and more non-traditional students are getting into medical school. Stick around to learn what you should be thinking about. Hi, thank you for joining me on my channel for the best personal statement coaching and expert guidance. Definitely hit subscribe and hit that bell so you don't miss a video. To maximize your chances of getting into medical school as a non-traditional student, you want to make sure that you're all caught up on learning the system of getting into medical school. If you'd like to schedule a free 15 minute call to talk about your personal statement and how I work with students, definitely book your call in the description below. Hi, I'm Dr. Josie with Write Your Acceptance. I teach writing at a university and I work with students on their personal statements. So I'm really keen on knowing how to perfect and develop your story. And now it's your turn. Let's get started. Step one, you want to start building up your clinical experience. So if your first career was in healthcare in some sort of fashion, then you probably already have a nice kind of advantage and a leg up. But if you were an engineer, an architect, a painter, a teacher, you may not have the clinical kind of hours and shadowing hours that you should have. So you definitely want to build those up. One thing that you want to kind of think about though is to stay consistent. So you want to kind of stay with the same kind of same number of hours or kind of somewhat the same number of hours, weekly or monthly, so that you really kind of stay consistent with the experience that you're logging. For more information on what you need for your primary application, let's say, because you definitely want to be kind of building this out and it's raw material for your activities and your personal statement. So for more on actual due dates, you want to click on this video up top here. Step two, and this is an obvious one, make sure to finish all your prereqs. I added, even though it feels obvious, because something to think about is to kind of think a step ahead and also map out when you're going to take your MCATs. The closer you take them to your kind of latter pre-reqs, the better in the sense that they may kind of help you fill in some knowledge gaps and you perform better in your MCATs versus if you take a long time before taking the MCATs from kind of finishing up your pre-reqs. Step three, which is my wheelhouse, what to write in your personal statement. I want my non-traditional students to kind of think about a couple of extra dimensions that they want to cover in their personal statement. So why do you think this is the perfect time for such a big kind of foundational change in your life, right? So why is it this time is the best moment in your life to make this change and that you have already kind of set in motion the sacrifices, change, lifestyle change, anything and everything you need to do to make this kind of a success for you, right? So that's important. And it's not necessarily kind of writing your red flags, but why now versus at another time. I would also consider to think about how you want to treat your first career. So rather than kind of poo-poo-ing engineering sucks or, you know, as a teacher I was bored, instead of that I would kind of shift it to consider how it has helped you kind of prepare for this stage where you are right now, which is ready to undertake a medical career or start that process by attending medical school. Also how have you prepared psychologically for this change, right? Can you kind of show experiences or reflection on resilience and mental fortitude that you really have kind of done the legwork and the thinking behind such a big change? If you want more information on how to brainstorm your very, very important personal statement, you want to kind of link this video up top. Do you have any questions or concerns on how to start your personal statement? If so, comment below. I'd love to help you out. Step four, I would consider talking to students from the institutions that you are planning to apply to. So once you have that school list, I would definitely reach out and now, nowadays you can reach out, you know, on Instagram, LinkedIn, kind of you can search certain school names and pre-med or, you know, medical student or whatever and really kind of reach out and talk to as many students from these corresponding institutions as possible so that you can get a feel. Is this an institution that values diversity within the student body? Is this an institution that will support your non-traditional kind of experiences as an asset and will you have kind of the cultural vibe and the academic rigor that you're looking for? So it's not only, I mean, I know that the stress is, I mean, insurmountable. So applying to medical school, like applying to any other professional program, it's very kind of overwhelming and stress inducing. But you are kind of selecting them as much as they're selecting you. So you definitely want to do that vetting and see that as a non-traditional student, you're going to be in a place that you thrive in. If you want more expert feedback on how to write that personal statement, definitely click on the link in the description below so that you can book a call with me. If you found this video helpful, give us a like, share with your pre-med friends. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. I'll see you soon.