 Hey everybody, welcome to my channel. My name is Christopher Sliman. I am a fourth year pre-med student And I'm applying to 21 medical schools If you're new here, then welcome to my channel. If you're not, then welcome to my new video So today I wanted to talk to you guys about five things. I wish I knew my pre-med years, new in my pre-med years. So Before we start you guys would please leave a thumbs up comment subscribe and Actually leave a comment about what kind of stuff you'd like to see in future videos I would definitely appreciate any kind of feedback I can get as I am still trying to find my niche in all this All this content called YouTube Anyways, let's begin Hello. All right, let's begin. So number one the first thing that I wish I knew in my pre-med years Was that GPA counts right from the start a lot of you guys might be thinking well no duck or course GPA counts from the start But I was actually led to believe that medical schools would look at your first year as a transition year and that's you know Because of like how stuff was different in high school and now stuff is like way harder in college that it wouldn't really count as much and Of course, I was wrong and you know looking back in retrospect It's like well, yeah 10-second Google search would have told me I was wrong But I believed it I Slacked off my freshman year too, you know, I thought it kind of like a free pass and I didn't do as well I remember going to talk to my pre-health advisor and she was like dude What are you doing? You got to check yourself before you ruin your future so it was it was a Wasn't like so bad Some things about your GPA guys is that it is much easier to change You know earlier on when you don't have too many credit hours, then your GPA will change Pretty freaking easily, you know like two three four semesters, you know, it's still pretty malleable But after you have you know start racking up credit hours Your GPA becomes more rigid and it becomes more set and you're kind of gonna know what you're gonna graduate with Depending that you don't just Fail completely all your classes. Um and because of that It's important to do well early and here's my personal advice to Pre-meds who are in their freshman year is don't worry about extracurricular activities in your freshman year. Okay? Your freshman most professors aren't going to trust that you're gonna stick in your major For them to even want to you know do research with you That might not be the case for everybody but for you know, most of the time Professors are more hesitant and reluctant to start with Freshman just because it's very common for freshman to change their majors early on so focus just entirely on your academics Do well your freshman year worry about you know starting your extracurriculars Later on thing to I wish I knew was that extracurricular activities do matter. They matter. They matter They matter they matter now some of you guys might be thinking no It's okay It kind of is but what kind is the most important I'm gonna try to list off some things that I see as the most important and I've seen a lot in my medical school applications so One thing that medical school applications talk about a lot is clinical experiences Clinical experiences can range from shadowing, you know, doctor family care surgery OBGYN any kind of doctor whatever To working in the field as an EMT as a nurse as a nursing assistant certified nursing assistant There's a lot of way that you can get clinical experiences and there's probably more ways than what I've just listed off to Another big one that I see in a lot of applications is research You can research through university you can research through a third party Typically what I do is I Will talk to my professors and see if they do research, but I will get into that at a later point. Okay volunteering volunteering is really important and it's not just volunteering at the ER, you know like Clinical volunteering is what they or like medical volunteering is what they call it It's important to have that but it's also important to have non-medical volunteering medical schools want to see you as a person They want to see that you do a whole bunch of things So if you are passionate about sports and you spend your time volunteering teaching kids how to play hockey As an example, you know, then that shows a lot about who you are as a person rather than just seeing someone who did All the medical stuff and they don't have anything else, you know That doesn't really show medical schools who you are why they should accept you with the kind of personality you might have Another point another extracurricular activity is athletics I Don't think it's as important as people make it out to be it's definitely like an important point if you want like a full-ride scholarship in your undergraduate years, you know, but Medical school is a little different, you know as long as you have something that you're passionate about So whether that be health and fitness whether that be music whether that be science and research whether that be Food culinary cooking, you know, they just want to know that you are, you know, that you're a person You're not a robot. You don't just study all day and sleep all night. It's kind of lame And last extracurricular activity would be jobs jobs are very important, too And it doesn't just have to be medical jobs, you know, it could also be non-medical jobs Like take me for example, I started working at Dillard's full-time or worked 40 hours a week and I went to school full-time 40 hours a week, too And the reason I did that was because I needed to make money to help support my mother So, you know medical schools are not Made up of a bunch of You know, they will understand like hey this kid, you know, could have worked as a scribe making, you know $10 an hour, but he needed to make money to support his mother. So we're chill with it You know, it Actually just shows more about who I am as a person anyways The third thing I wish I knew was get to know your professors Why I say that because you guys are gonna need letters of recommendations and you need to make sure that those letters are good letters of recommendations not just like generic letters that anybody could write, you know Some things that I used to do was I would go to office hours I would make sure I wrote down, you know during syllabus day When they said what their office hours were and where their office hours were I would write that down and I would go I would ask questions. I would you know, try to try my best to get to know my professors I would try to make sure that they knew who I was on I said up front every day So they could see me too, you know If you're sitting in the back and dozing off with all the other kids then You're just gonna be a blur to your professor, too, you know, so you need to make an impression That's why you need to, you know, ask questions Participate do all of that stuff make a good letter and then Another good way to get to know your professors is to ask them if they are involved in any research on campus And if they have any openings, that's exactly how I found The research that I did in my undergrad was I asked my professors I found one who needed Somebody's help and I was lucky enough to be that somebody and that's how I got in The fourth thing I wish I knew was how to use rate to my professor So if you guys don't know rate my professor is a website that Students use to rate their professors on like difficulty how much homework they get what's expected professors teaching style and although I will admit that it's not the most accurate tool in the world I think it's the best one that is available to you know, anybody now to use so You know sometimes you can We've all had experiences where we've had tough professors, you know, sometimes professors can be extra They can be extra hard. They can be extra aggravating. They can be extra annoying. They can be extra time consuming There's so many, you know ways that a bad professor can really really really just bum you out, you know By using resources like rate my professor you can see how often students how other students rated them you can see how How what students have to say about the course load about everything my advice Go for easy a classes work smarter. Don't work harder It's enough that pre-med students are already working harder than most other majors out there We have so much stuff to deal with we have an MCAT. We have admissions. We have secondaries Interviews we have all the extracurricular activities going on. I butchered that word. That's okay That's how passionate I am about this. You don't get this kind of passion on other YouTube videos guys But uh It's my personal opinion why work harder when you can work smarter, you know what I mean, so for example Find a professor that's easier, you know, if you know that genetics is gonna be Really really tough then find a professor and write my professor who's rated the best take it with the best professor with the best Professor who will set you up to succeed in that class, you know what I mean You don't want to be taking it with a first-year professor who has no idea what they're doing no ratings and you know They write stupid hard questions because they've never given an exam before so I always you know That's just my personal opinion My last thing number five that I wish I knew as a pre-med was to make time for myself I've worked so hard between being a full-time student between being a part of a club between Working full-time and shadowing and doing volunteering. I was left with no time for myself and you know towards like Halfway through my junior year. I was like I'm gonna burn out if I burn out then there goes my future. So I needed to take time for myself I needed to be a little selfish at times and do things that I enjoyed things that I enjoyed were for example working out Some things that I enjoyed we're going to the movies with my friends spending time with my friends finding a girlfriend Living life being a normal human being you don't have to just be a robot who studies all day Test takes his tests and then comes home and studies all night, too. That's no way to live guys, you know, um Make friends on campus to everybody on campus guys everybody in your major is there For similar reasons everybody who is there wants to get into the field of health and science Okay, whether they want to be researchers or whether they want to be Physicians or nurses they're there because they chose to be there and that is something that you guys can Connect with make friends talk to people I would not have done as well as I did in my undergrad if I hadn't made some amazing friends along the way But that about wraps it up guys I have a video coming out next week with one of those friends actually and we're gonna be doing a leg day together for the other aspect of my channel and Thank you so much for all the support I've been getting if you guys liked this video then once again, please leave a thumbs up like Comment subscribe and again comment what you think I should be talking about in future medical videos You know, there's a lot that I there's a lot of experience I have you know for years and I'm applying right now if you guys have questions Please let me know I'd be more than happy to answer them And if a bunch of people ask similar questions, I'll make a new video on it, too. In the meantime, thank you so much Thank you for making it this far and just as a huge thank you to you guys I want to give you a last piece of free advice before I go to the gym. I'm currently chugging my pre-workout Yes, I just took a sip for the camera. That's okay. Um, so here's the advice I wanted to give you guys take advantage of your free resources guys most universities have free pre-health advisors that will help you along the way from the very beginning you meet up with your pre-health Advisor and you guys can start planning about how are you gonna volunteer who you're gonna shadow How you're gonna study for the MCAT when you're gonna apply how to apply they can do mock interviews for you guys Help you with what medical schools to apply to guys. It's a resource that I did know about in my undergrad But I knew about it like later I utilized it mostly my junior year and I wish I started sooner I wish I met with a pre-health advisor my freshman year so I could know that gpa counts right from the start Okay, learn from my mistakes Use your pre-health advisor guys. They are there for a reason. It's gonna be super super super helpful Um, another bit of advice I wanted to give you is if you feel like you are stressed from your Like course load on school then something that I really recommend is taking summer school Summer school might be expensive. It's not a free resource, but hear me out. Here's the thing about summer school Class sizes are going to be smaller Meaning you get more one-on-one time with your professor and you're in there longer each day So that means you're spending more time learning Practicing and hammering down that content if you guys feel stressed out with the amount of course loads you have And you want to meet scholarship requirements or anything then summer school is the way to go because it still counts for scholarships and You'll learn it. You'll have less classes during your actual school year and I just see it as an absolute win Anyways, thank you guys for sticking around so long. My arm is hurting and I really hope you enjoyed this video Catch you on the flip