 What's up guys? My name is Christopher. I am an alumni at ASU. I graduated this May and I have applied to 21 medical schools and I am awaiting interview invitations as of right now. I've actually wanted to make this video for a while. I've put in a lot of work so if you guys are interested in hearing about this and more medical school related stuff then go ahead and hit that subscribe button down below. I really appreciate that. Also make sure to leave a like and comment about what kind of subject you want me to talk about too going forward. So the topic of today's video is going to be about my journey from high school to medical school and what I went through, what I learned and how this could possibly help you. I know a lot of my viewers might be high school students who are interested in the field of medicine and a lot of my viewers might also be college students who are interested in medicine. You guys want to be here for an interview? So let me start way back when in high school about eight years ago which is crazy to say out loud. So I was impacted. I knew that the people who had helped me walk again were people who I looked up to and I wanted to do the same. I wanted to be able to help people with my own two hands. I wanted to learn to have the knowledge to be able to do good, you know. Now starting high school I was pretty like oblivious to any opportunities that there might have been in my high school. So unfortunately I wouldn't know if there were if my high school offered pre-medical programs or interning or anything like that because in high school I was very relaxed. I was the kind of guy who studied, never got my straight A's, played video games all the time, did some sports on the side and just you know called it a day. I got through high school, graduated top 5% of my class, got a full ride to my state college ASU. Starting at ASU however let's get into that now where it was very different. So now my freshman year I didn't really get into too many extracurricular activities. The only extracurricular activity I did my freshman year was I volunteered. Okay I also worked full-time my freshman year so I didn't have too much time on my hands and I really thought that I could pull off what I did in high school which was never study, play video games, relax and just coast through college the same way but I had a very rude awakening after my first test. I can remember my first biology test was something I'm proud to talk about but it had to happen. You know some people need that wake-up call some people don't. I needed that wake-up call. I looked at that paper and I was like well is this the kind of like the kind of story I want? Is this what I want to do for college? I was like no I don't I don't want to waste the opportunity that it was given to me. So I started focusing, I started studying, I started making time. I had a lot of late nights, a lot of early mornings especially juggling full-time work. I only went to school Tuesdays and Thursdays and then I worked the other five days of the week so I was always doing something. Now sophomore year things started to get better. During my first semester of sophomore year things were still a little like rough but by the end of first semester and throughout second semester in the rest of college everything got much much easier. So I was working part-time after that. I had more time to do. I was definitely like stretching myself and doing more than I was previously. Now I don't regret that. I think that my advice for any freshman going into college is that you should take your first year and completely focus on your grades. You should make sure that you can make your GPA as you know as high as possible as good as possible your first year because your first year is really when your GPA is the most malleable. You know you have zero credits so whatever GPA you get for that semester is what your overall GPA is going to be and then the next semester you got to make sure it's strong. So now you have two semesters that's roughly 32 to 36 credits depending on how many credit hours you're taking okay. So this is a strong base. This is a strong foundation. Once you have 36 credits and they're all 4.0s you can get a B and your GPA is only going to drop to like a 3.9 3.85 because you have a strong foundation. However if you you know get season B's your first year now your GPA sitting at a 3.0 and then you pull all these 4.0s your GPA is going to go from a 3 to a 3.1 3.15. You see how it works in both directions. So my advice freshman year focus on your grades. Get a good foundation get a good start. There was a rumor when I was a freshman that medical schools don't really care about your freshman year because they know it's a transition year. That's false guys it is absolutely false. Your GPA counts the minute you start so you have to make sure that you start on the right foot. Going back to my sophomore year talk so I started doing extracurricular sophomore junior senior. My sophomore and junior year I really did a lot of mentoring so I was a lead I did I took some leadership roles. So my school was called the school of life sciences within ASU and that was basically where all the science programs resided was in school of life sciences. So I was a mentor to freshmen who were new during my junior year. So I was you know showing them around campus I was showing them where the tutoring rooms were showing them you know I was giving them tips on the best way to study. I gave out my number to every freshman shout out any one of you guys are watching this video probably not because they all hated me. But it was a learning experience and it would definitely took me out of my comfort zone and forced me into a leadership position that I desperately needed. It taught me what it meant to be a teacher you know it's not as easy as teachers make it look. I was also in the honors club on my campus the name of that club was Sigma Alpha Lambda. With them I was able to do a lot of community service I was able to donate a lot of my time to helping the community at ASU which was just an invaluable experience plus the fact that we needed to have a higher GPA to be in that club anyways just kind of made it like so exclusive on its own. So I definitely like appreciated that experience and I would recommend that for anybody as well too. If you guys have honors clubs at your colleges then get involved in those. The next thing that I did was I interned so I was able so I started off interning through a class at ASU and in that class we were only allowed to go to the clinics of whatever we got assigned to. So I was assigned a urologist so I went to clinics with them every Friday and we saw like my urologist was personally a busy guy but we saw about 50 to 60 patients in one day okay which was like about an eight hour day. Eight hours we'd fit 60 patients and we would go through patient to patient to patient room to room and I and I would watch the second to me to watch any like in clinic operations that he could do but I was able to also build a good relationship with them and eventually after my class ended I was also able to start going to the local hospital to go watch him in the operating room and that was incredible. When I started to go to the operating room I kind of stopped going to clinics with him because I just wanted to be in the hospital. I wanted to be in scrubs surrounded by other doctors and nurses and watching these surgeries watching all the blood and the bore. I think it's not a little creepy but guys it's it's it's incredible it's like you're at the top of a roller coaster the first time you see it and the minute you see him like cut open into the person it's like you drop in you get that rush you know you're either passing out or you are like so pumped on adrenaline that you cannot stand still and that's that's where I was I was I was in love with it I was at the hospital for 12 hours and those 12 hours went by so fast I didn't even feel the time go by because I was so happy just watching and learning I really really recommend if you guys don't have any glasses at your college to observe that you go and find doctors to observe just send go out to local clinics through emails let them know you're interested you're pre-medical some will take you in so find whatever you can. Now let's talk about the MCAT so I took my MCAT twice first time I took it was in between junior and senior year so first time I took the MCAT I made a lot of rookie mistakes I didn't really set aside enough time to study I did more like content review than I did practice questions but I ended up scoring a 501 first time it sucked getting that score but it didn't kill me didn't discourage I was able to pick myself back up I was able to pick up the books again dedicate that time you know cut cut way back on work this time I was working about six hours a week or less sometimes nothing okay and I was just studying my blood off for this MCAT I did it right okay if you guys want to know what I scored the second time then just click somewhere up here I'll have a link to my video where I talked where I show my live reactions opening my MCAT score and my score with like a breakdown of how that went as if right now today I've applied to 21 medical schools I've applied to 20 MD schools that are in-state and out-of-state and I've applied to one deal school that's instant I as I am currently awaiting an interview invite from 21 school I haven't heard back yet if you guys are watching this please just just do it already because I am like checking my emails like a mad man all right we got that set up so yeah I just wanted to change location for the last part of my video so what I wanted to talk to you guys about now is just like some little you know tid bits of information so one thing that I want to talk to you talk to you guys about and tell you from my own personal experience is that pre-med is a very very difficult major okay and it's something that not everybody can handle and that's the truth of the fact a lot of people who are upperclassmen will know that you know when you're a freshman and sophomore your class sizes are much bigger but it slowly starts to thin out as you go through and then eventually you know your classes I used to be 500 kids who thought they could all be doctors is now full of like you know 30 40 kids so I do have a couple of like 10 bits to help you avoid some some burnout some of it is kind of obvious but I feel like all of it needs should be said first things first is that you need to learn how to love the journey because if you don't love the journey then you are not gonna love the reward at the end of that journey okay because being a doctor I promise you is is it is different but it's also not that much different than being in an undergrad towards becoming a doctor at the end of the day it's not it's gonna be long hours it's gonna be a lot of tests it's gonna be a lot of work it's gonna be a lot of time and that's not just people think like oh once I graduate medical school and finish residency then I'm done with tests and everything but guys if you want to keep your license you got to recertify every you know a couple years or so and guess what you're doing you're taking tests you're learning you're studying if you are a doctor you are gonna be a student forever and you need to love the process otherwise you're gonna hate it you're gonna hate your life okay the next bit of information is you need to surround yourself with positive people okay realistic but positive people what I mean by that is like nowadays people are way too quick to complain man I hate this homework man I hate this professor always gives me too much homework always picks on me to ask questions you guys are already dealing with something that is so difficult on its own that you don't need to be surrounding yourself with people who are gonna add more negativity to all the all the crap you're already dealing with and God knows that the challenges of being a pre-med are not the only thing that most of you are going through you know some of you are working full-time or part-time some of you are have have have relationships have other things going on in your life that you're involved in that you're invested in you don't want to surround yourself with people who are gonna demotivate you people who are gonna just keep complaining about stuff you want to surround yourself with people who are gonna lift you up you know ideally people who are smarter than you people who inspire you to push yourself to be smarter to work better okay don't you know sometimes you have to just go ahead and cut out whoever is toxic you know it might not be easy you know it might be very hard that person might be very close to you but at the end of the day you have to be selfish you have to choose you you have to choose your mental health and your own happiness for for other people okay that's the truth of the situation guys everybody wants to be able to you know keep older friends and not upset anybody and never have to be put in the situation where it's either me or them but sometimes you have to sometimes you have to be selfish you have to take a look at reality just realize that some certain people are just not meant to be in your life and that's totally okay there's nothing wrong with that you know people change people grow sometimes you outgrow people the way I see it is if you're in medicine then you are definitely outgrowing at least 75 percent of every other major out there because you are spending more time studying you're spending more time involved you're spending more time grinding and hustling and what are other majors doing like looking over at the business majors party drinking on the weekends go into concerts and live in their lives and I'm not saying that you can't do that but I'm also saying that you probably shouldn't be in a fraternity or a sorority and be doing all that shit because chances are you know eventually you're gonna get pulled in a direction you're gonna have a tough decision to make do I go to a party or do I stay and study most of the time end up making that wrong decision you know especially after you've made the right decision five six seven eight times you're like god damn it I need a break okay even if you make the right choices five six seven times you're gonna slip one time and realize how good of a time you're having and what you've been missing out on I think I'm good at predicting this shit but maybe there's people in my comments are gonna say that I'm full of shit so I'd love to I'd love to read all of it even the hate but yeah guys just want to let you know that I work really really hard on this video and if you guys liked it then please go ahead and subscribe to me leave a thumbs up and comment give me your opinions on my video tell me what you'd like to see me do next tell me how big my biceps are getting I've been working out more I honestly will take all the feedback and praise that I can get so thank you guys for tuning in to my latest medical school video I want to try to make more of these because I feel like these videos do better than my fitness videos I I guess I'm not much of an influencer in that field oh okay that's that's fine I'll uh I'll still keep making my videos on the low but I'll also be making more medical school videos thanks guys