 I feel like yeah I feel like the personal statement is one of the most important pieces of your application. This is the path that you want to take and you know you've like worked so hard to get to that point. You know if you have one space after a period that's going to be how you're going to do the entire application. You get bullet points for one of the sections you're doing the same bullet point for everything. Oh man congrats that's awesome. But no okay so you got in on your first try. Helping others is a calling. It's not a job. Hey guys I'm Boris. I'm a physician assistant. This is Hi I'm Mimi. I'm a first-year physician assistant student. And so this video has been a little while in the making. I'm actually very excited to bring this to you because you just hear me prattling on and on about my you know journey to PA school years and years ago. My advice X, Y, and Z. I thought it would be really cool to bring on a current first-year PA student who actually had a pretty long journey up to PA school and hear you know her perspective how she got in what she's doing now how it actually is in the program all of that stuff. So with that being said I just want to turn the floor over to Mimi and just ask her my first question which basically is Mimi can you describe your PA school journey how you got there why you decided to be a PA and if you're comfortable sharing some of your stats GPA, PCE, all of that good stuff. Yeah um so I graduated high school in 2019 and honestly high school was a period where I like had absolutely no idea like what I wanted to do with my life. I honestly didn't even like consider college at one point since I truly didn't care much about my grades um or my classes if I'm being honest I was like kind of lost and just didn't know like what I wanted to do at all but I knew I like had some sort of like interest in medicine and then I graduated high school and then enrolled in like a 19-day EMT course just to see if this is something that I want to continue doing. So after I finished that program I um started looking for jobs and immediately like started working as an EMT and I honestly like fell in love with the job and even like the schooling itself I feel like during high school you take like all these classes and it's like you know not something that you're interested in so it was like really hard for me to enjoy it but that's where I found that that's what I like want to continue like exploring and then I actually enrolled at a community college just to give myself another chance at you know being a good student because I honestly that really didn't occur to me much in high school. I did like sports in high school and then got a really bad like concussion from it and I kind of just you know like fell through since then and then like being like a first gen college student as well I feel like there's just like always this pressure um that came with that and so it just I don't know I just kind of was like all all over the place if I'm being honest I didn't know how to like navigate that so I was like you know I'm just kind of two very important questions I'm just very curious one what was your high school GPA um my high school GPA was um what was it it's like a 3.2 okay so not tragic you weren't like the kid sitting in the back of the class playing calculator games that was me um but you were like middle of the road definitely not getting into an Ivy League not like the kid that everyone thought would get into like med school or even grad school just kind of like middle of the road pretty average um and of course you had to fix that in order to get into PA school and then also what sport did you play I did like track and cross country and then where I got the concussion was when I decided to try rugby my junior year I was wondering like how do you get a concussion running cross country do you like fall off a bridge or something just head first oh man rugby yep you seem like someone who just like gets an idea into their head even something kind of crazy and you just go for it oh yep that's exactly me that's exactly like when I was like applying to PA school too it was like out of impulse just as the same thing as like the EMT program mm-hmm your parents are probably like all right you need a job you're an adult maybe try this maybe try that and you're like no I want to do something that like two percent of people get to do yeah they're like what are you doing this is not a great idea and sure enough here you are and I'm still gonna do it I'm just like I'm gonna try and see what happens literally man that's that's really cool and then the other thing is you said you're a first-generation college student that's right so your parents didn't go to college or did you guys immigrate recently like were you a lot of my family reside in the same area in North Carolina and they immigrated from Vietnam and so my parents did yeah immigrating they came to states when they were pretty young like when they were a teenager and so yeah they they've been here ever since I've been born raised in the same state as like a lot of my family who also immigrated here so you're a first-generation American um yes that's how that works yeah because like your parents come over there I don't know if they're first-generation but like someone born to them I think is a first-generation uh we can google I don't know how it works but yeah I know people ask me that all the time because we moved from Russia and I was five when we moved so am I first-generation am I zero that I don't know um but so you're a first-generation American first-generation college students so do you feel like you kind of had to like figure it all out yourself because your parents weren't college students in America they didn't know how to do everything how to navigate it yeah so I definitely felt like the pressure to like do well exceptionally well in high school that's why um it just because I felt like because of that it pushed me away from wanting to succeed in high school and also just like feeling like I put this a lot of myself too but just like comparing myself to like other people around me um really like played a huge role too because I'm like well I like honestly just don't know like where to even begin or where to start what I even like or how to like further um you know like see that I didn't do like much extracurriculars either so you grew up with your dad saying you need good grades but then when you asked him how he'd be like I don't know figure it out yeah literally likewise literally likewise it's funny that we have flicks that just similar story in that and I mean I feel like a lot of those people do end up kind of succeeding but a lot of them kind of don't because there's so much pressure and you don't know what to do right and so I find that people like us kind of like find success a little bit later you know we don't get into PA school at 21 and then get certified by 24 and then you know like those super success stories uh we kind of had to figure it out for a year or two and then we get there yeah yeah I think that when I like started at the community college that's where I'm like whoa like this this is what like studying is like or being in a classroom is like because I just never liked going to class in high school so it's just like a totally different world right like you're still sitting in class you still have to like study and do what not but like you never did that at all in high school you just kind of like coasted yeah just try to get my way through but then it was actually serious and I feel like that time of like the two years at the community college um I was able to like truly like grow so much and I don't know what like how my path would have looked like if I just decided to go to four-year college since also like the financial aspect of two you save so much money um and yeah like yeah I'm really blessed to have had that opportunity to do that first so you went to community college for two years got my transfer I transferred do you see that like balloons oh it's when you do the peace sign oh that's interesting you only get one per zoom call that was so weird okay apparently zoom does that thanks zoom uh but it's okay so you went to community college for two years and then you transferred into a four-year college I did yeah and it was actually my dream school like growing up I always like um thought of like UNC Chapel Hills like my dream school and I just like heard all about it and like it's like good for like medicine too so it's like this is where I wanted to go but like it just felt impossible during high school just because I wasn't at a point that you know what they were like looking for in like um applicants so I applied and then um transferred after two years are they super competitive they're pretty competitive I would say like right out of high school but then coming as a transfer student even from community college it's kind of easier to do maybe oh yeah I definitely so there's also like some schools have like programs where it's like um kind of like a granted admissions program and so that's that's what I was a part of I found out that I was going to go to that um university like my second semester because I applied to this the the granted admissions program that they had the joint program with the community college and like the university and it was like an agreement like if you get accepted into this program you're kind of like um out of spot where it's like if you maintain like your GPA and everything then you can successfully transfer there not have to go through like the whole other admissions application that's really cool I wonder if it's because it's local like they're trying to help out the local community and get people from community college into this like really prestigious school yeah I think that's something a lot of people don't think about so like saving an absolutely enormous amount of money because UNC Chapel Hill and like most you know four-year colleges are more expensive than community college so that's an option I wish more people would consider yeah yeah I feel like honestly like when I went into community college I thought like I was just so ashamed of it just because like yeah um that was just like the stigma I guess around community college is just you assume that that's like your only option or like you didn't get into like any other colleges but looking back I like I highly recommend that to anyone you know like not sure like what they want to do um or even just to save so much money yeah yeah I could see that being a stigma with some people like yeah like grow up in an environment where everybody goes to college and like how could you not and so it's like are you like you either can't afford it or your grades aren't good enough to like go to a four year so that's why you went to community and they'd be like super judgmental but then like here you are way less in debt still in the grad program that they probably didn't get into you know what I mean like it's a great great option oh yeah I really wish more people would consider and just be open-minded about these kind of alternative routes right even military being one oh yeah yeah I think there's just so many options out there that you know to consider even but with community college I feel like the benefit is that it's just much smaller like class sizes than like if you go to like um because of my when I transferred I was not used to like taking like a chemistry course with like 200 other people and I was used to like being in a classroom of like 20 students so you really had that like time to you know talk to like your classmates and like even the professor asking questions I really like the community of that oh that's a really good point because like let's compare and contrast your first year so like you go to community college maybe it's not some super distinguished PhD maybe it's like a guy with a master's in chemistry teaching it but he's teaching it to like 15 people so he knows your name he knows like what you're good at what you're not good at he'll personally help you uh or she um whereas if you go to a big school you got like two or 300 people in your intro to chemistry class you'll never talk to your professor you may talk to the TA uh who's like a you know another student and so you just don't get nearly as much personalized attention it's like you can learn this or you can't it's like a weed out course right and only in your upper levels do you really get like personalized attention from the professors yes you got that from day one yeah that's exactly like how I felt and then like the transition to I really notice like the the big difference in that oh that's such a good point too okay so this is like an advertisement for community college not sponsored by let's go give us some sponsorships um but no so that's really awesome I'm really glad you found success in community college and so just kind of rewinding you always had an inkling towards medicine for some reason you just didn't know why I yeah I I mean I like my personal statement I talked about like a time where um I was like a a hostess at a restaurant a Chinese restaurant and I happened to see someone like go into cardiac arrest and then there happened to be like some like healthcare workers who were just dining in that one night and they resuscitated the patient and then like the EMTs paramedics brought the patient out and they were like fine and conscious and I was like whoa like that's that's crazy so I was like wow like I was just so intrigued by like how that one action of like just being on someone's chest like this is when I was in um probably like freshman year of high school um and I saw that and I was just like trying to snoop and look at the booth where it happened I was just like so curious I was like wow I like want to know more about this yeah I mean it was probably kind of a traumatizing experience at first too you know yeah it was scary because I was like oh my gosh it's like negative emotional spike and then they come back and it's this like huge positive emotional spike and you're like how did this happen this is magic yeah it was insane awesome so that's how you got into medicine is like that one story yeah yeah yeah and then um that's where I was like um initially pre-med in like my first year probably of community college I was like I want to go to medical school and I'd like didn't know about like the PA profession initially until I like just looked it up like other options that I had just to work in healthcare but I felt like the PA profession like aligned with what I wanted like better since um you're still practicing like medicine but just like in a shorter time frame and I really liked how you can like switch specialties or like work in like all aspects of medicine so is that what you focused your essay on like that first event and then like why specifically PA it's like the shorter training and also the lateral mobility right yeah and then I also talked a little bit about of like um because I did some like medical mission trips to Guatemala and Costa Rica and I worked closely with like the physicians there um and then got a lot of time like talking to patients and I really enjoyed just getting to know them and like hearing their stories and like their upbringings and I felt like that would better align with like um like the physician assistant route possibly yeah the more essays I read the more I I don't really even know I don't know how to verbalize this but like lateral mobility is a big one but I don't know if you caught the last episode with me and Elijah never mind it's not out yet okay sorry spoiler alert we talk about lateral mobility and how like the more practice I get and the more PA's I meet the more I realize almost no one takes advantage of it like most people just kind of get into a specialty they get really comfortable and then they stay maybe they'll like have a change of heart or like have to change jobs and then like that's when they'll change but a lot of people tend to like stay for years and years just because it's so much more comfortable you know what you're doing already right you're not the new guy uh so like we kind of talked about how lateral mobility which is this big thing everyone writes their essays about how like a lot of people don't even do it and then I don't know like it's whatever currently excites you about the profession even if you may or may not necessarily do it it's just I guess just make it personal personal statement whatever makes it makes you like want to be a PA basically yeah yeah just write it while Mimi's was awesome and that's all all it really all thanks to you though yeah we're gonna plug that real quick I don't know how many drafts Mimi and I went back and forth on but I think I edited her essay well we edited together but like I gave her comments two times maybe yeah I think so yeah which were super helpful so I highly recommend if you need your essay reviewed Boris is absolutely or Elijah you can find them both on boristhepa.com nice anyway okay so so we talked about how you got into medicine in general then what you did your journey to undergrad and then you were just like way more motivated and way better at studying after your time in community college and so did you just like kick butt at Chapel Hill or or did you still kind of struggle yeah I initially I came into it and I my first semester was really rough like I I like enrolled in like two like STEM courses one being like Orgo or Orgo one and that was just a whole nightmare I ended up having to like withdraw from it yeah it was that bad yeah yeah so that happened and then like I underloaded also because I was like starting like a new job in the area there when I moved but it was just so much to just adjust to like the rigor of like the academic difference between you know community college and like the university so yeah I would say definitely like the academics and just fitting into like the school itself and like trying to get involved in like clubs and stuff but then I felt like it got much better I think I did like yeah I felt like I just I think it's honestly just Orgo and like how I just like it with that class I mean it's so bad but other than that it was like it was like okay yeah other than like still like the hard classes like genetics which I think you're not alone with the Orgo thing most people hate Orgo right yeah it's just it's tough but so numbers wise so high school 3.2 community college what was your GPA coming out of there it was a 3.9 okay so 3.9 almost 4.0 like you did very well in community college and then you go into Chapel Hill for your university how well do you do there and so I applied with a 3.9 as well what do you mean yeah also you just kept going at that like 3.9 level once you transferred yeah yeah so I guess the Casper GPA because I applied during my um I was a rising senior so this was like after I completed my junior year so it was that GPA I guess from both I think Casper like averages out all the courses from both places gosh so you applied to PA school with a 3.9 part of it from four-year university part of it from uh from community college and did you get in your first time I did oh holy crap I forgot about that yeah oh man congrats that's awesome yeah I believe that's not super loud I'll adjust the volume with my hand but no okay so you got in on your first try with so you applied as a junior I did right a rising senior so after only completing one year of university right two years of community college you got in on your first try I did some people probably wouldn't believe that you know what I mean they'd be like oh but I have to go four-year university and get a four like no you don't right right that's right like I stress so much like community college is amazing because it just gives you like just such a good like period of time where you can really like get your like your study habits in and just I guess like a foundation of like um how to like balance and like also like the coursework and stuff yeah so it's also really flexible as well if you're like having time to like get your patient care in as well I worked like multiple jobs like during those two years that I was um there morning and evening classes like their community colleges online online that's awesome so it's actually like a really good idea for prepa's isn't it I think so I recommend it yeah okay even if it's a whole separate part of the video right it's like a semester or two semester even or if you want to like get your pre-rex to that you couldn't get like when you were completing like your four-year degree sure how many PA schools did you apply to I applied to three three yeah it's oh so it was honestly like out of impulse like I said because I wasn't planning on applying till after I graduated since I haven't taken the GRE and I haven't taken a lot of like the pre-rex to like ORGO like biochem I didn't finish medical terminology either so a lot of the common ones that a lot of the programs require so one day I was just like let me see if this is even possible for me to apply and so I found those like three programs that I could so that's where I ended up applying to the ones that you already had most of the pre-rex for right right and that didn't didn't accept the GRE test right which a lot of programs don't even need it which is great did you get into all three I did it so I was rejected at one school and then got two interview invites but I only interviewed and accepted at one so one accepted you then the second one after the interview they didn't accept you so it was because like I was accepted already and I had to make my decision but my next interview wouldn't have been until like three months later and I had to like submit my deposit and everything so I think yeah it was like my also like probably like my top choice out of those three schools too so you may have got into two yeah potentially but the pre-PA community or the pre-PA community this is probably blowing their minds right two years at community college only one year of undergrad yeah tremendously good GPA 3.9 just killed it also got your hours at the same time also some extracurriculars and a medical mission trip and like a lot of good stuff in the application but two years community college one year undergrad got into one possibly two out of the three programs you applied to I will say I do have like three withdrawals on my transcript though it don't matter does it yeah right exactly yeah and I mean those were times where I was just I couldn't balance it or because Orgo I was like if I if I continue I'd probably fail the course so I was like I'm not gonna take that hey and I was like I'll just take it out later later time but then I knew I don't need Orgo for PA school and I got it without it I don't think you do I don't think it's on most schools pre-rex neither is biochem and medical terminology if you really needed to oh it's the one summer course in state for me like a lot of the schools do maybe they do I know not all of them do yeah definitely not med term like some schools just incorporate med term into their own thing um man that's actually blowing my mind right now that's crazy like if I if I was advising you like right out of high school or let's say after your first semester of um of community college I'd probably say you should probably get to a brick and mortar for your university and then prove yourself there but I would have been wrong completely wrong also was this during COVID time this was that's my second I was like it's my spring semester of freshman year that we went online spring freshman year of community college of community college and then when I started at UNC the third year my junior year it was back in person so I did like basically my entire like community college time online I think okay so that situation may not be repeatable outside of COVID because during the time a lot of PA schools were much more lenient on like getting classes online community college x y and z so it may have been a factor still excellent that you got really good I'm just saying I got lucky it's possible I mean there's no one right answer you know it's whatever works for your life but I'm just saying that is possibly a factor you know like this success may not be reproducible now that COVID's basically over yeah for sure yeah take that into account yeah a lot of it there are a lot more lenient with it during COVID yeah for obvious reasons yeah absolutely also we have 10 minutes left on this recording if we go over I'll just send you a brand new link to your email because Zoom only lets me do 40 minutes unless I pay them I don't want to pay them so that's what we're doing but anyway okay so right out of junior year got accepted finished your senior year knocked out some pre-rex captured GPA high I take it yeah yeah it dropped I mean I just graduated with a 3.8 so it's not much big of difference yeah and how did you do your first semester in PA school um I did okay mentally emotionally in every way physically not so much no what do you mean I it was a huge adjustment for sure like just I was not used to like I mean nobody's used to like the multiple exams that you take in one week right yeah yeah getting used to that was a lot yeah and I guess you know going into the spring semester um I kind of like have an idea of like how that already goes but I feel like because it was the first semester I was like I don't know how these exams goes for each professor and like just how am I gonna how is this possible like that was my initial thought so I felt like yeah yeah that was my thought I was like this feels impossible I don't know how I'm gonna do it so I'm just gonna go into it super hardcore and that ended up like I mean I had to give myself grace like over time I could have not done that the way I studied in the beginning what do you mean by super hardcore like sleeping no no sleeping at all just like studying every day yeah many methods weren't really mature yet right right so in the beginning I was like oh my gosh like I don't want to fail out like I just need to study as much as I can and do everything I can to like make it through so like I used to be able to like go home after like an eight to five day of classes and study from like six to like three like six p.m. to three a.m. yeah I yeah it was like that and then over time I could not do that like nine 10 p.m. I just my brain just shut off and I was like I can't I can't do this anymore so I think over time I learned to like just stop and go to sleep and then just wake up early and like kind of resume studying and that's helped or that works much better for me yeah yeah it's funny how you and Elijah say the same thing because he's killed it his first semester I think he had like a 3.9 3.8 and he's at a very hard program but he said that I knew going in I'm gonna go hard in the beginning yeah because hard as I can and then maybe Peter off if I need to but like just give it everything your very first semester yeah which is what he did and he he accidentally uh he got very good grades um he did end up finding new study methods and kind of like just adjusted things to make his life a little bit easier you know it works it doesn't work but at first you're just kind of going you know guns blazing you're going as hard as you can exactly you should try to figure it all out seeing what works what doesn't work and then just take it honestly like one week one day one exam at a time is that your advice to first year PA students I yeah I would say yeah I mean you just kind of have to like get through it you feel like in the beginning you're like oh my god like how am I gonna do it but yeah I would say like give yourself a lot of grace um because like by the end of the semester I was like like if it was like a chill week where I only had like one exam I would just there were days where I just would go home and do nothing for the rest of the night nice and just chill but like harder weeks with like three four exams I like you know didn't sleep but right you know just trying to find the balance and honestly like as time goes on you kind of pick up on how much time you need to study and for each class specifically two so that's nice to know you know just how to approach each exam for each class would you say every class is different I would say a little bit different yeah like yeah I feel like yeah I feel like as far as like the professors to like how they structure their exams but also like classes like physiology or anatomy and physiology well physiology specifically it's more conceptual so I know for me that's like something I struggle with like just understanding like and putting it together so I spent a lot of time I knew I needed more time on that whereas like classes that are like principles of medicine where we basically like like if it was like all like the respiratory diseases or conditions learning all the treatment and symptoms and all that like that's just like memorization just repetitiveness so I feel like that I can like get down quicker than like understanding like harder stuff like knowing yourself you're good at memorizing you're not as good as conceptualizing so you kind of spend more time on the stuff you need to exactly and like EKG too that was a whole oh my god I still don't know there was just always be a struggle man they're so hard you learn the big things they're really important things and you know leave the nitty gritty stuff to the cardiologist right yeah did you guys read dubens uh yeah I did have the book yep big shout out to dubens EKG if you want to learn EKGs from the ground up like very very systematically very like colorful pictures starts super simple goes super complicated like slowly dubens 100 we had to read it over christmas break really yeah it was fine that sucks well I was looking on the calendar and it was like okay we're going really hard but at least like here's like five weeks we get christmas break it's going to be great and they're like oh by the way you have to read the ckg book and there's going to be an exam the first day you come back we're like what come on oh my gosh come on lamoine what the heck but I mean that's what you get for a 24 month program right like everything is just condensed and condensed and condensed is your program 24 months it is 24 months yeah I'm sorry yeah it's okay yeah but you'll be a pa much quicker so that's cool yeah I feel like it was also like because I I have friends who go to programs that are like system based but our program isn't system based so we were like we're like in a million like directions of like material so like we started EKG on like the second day but then something in like anatomy was totally different from all the conditions that we were learning in different class but then we had psychiatry and we're learning like all the drugs and all like the diagnoses for um psychiatry specifically but then in pharmacology it would be something totally completely different so it's just yeah it's a lot yeah yeah what she means by system based is like programs that are very well organized and executed like in anatomy and physiology you'd be learning cardiac and then in like clinical medicine you'd be learning about cardiac diseases and in pharmacology you'd be learning about like blood pressure cholesterol cardiac drugs procedures that kind of thing and so you'd be like everything builds on top of each other so like all the base knowledge is kind of the same and it's easier to learn some programs try to do that and then they fail miserably and like you end up getting like partially that and then partially like new stuff and some programs just like don't even try because it's easier to organize to not do system based so you might be like learning cardiac anatomy but doing like Mimi said psychiatry drugs in pharmacology and in clinical medicine you'll be learning like nephrology exactly this is really a pain in the butt but sometimes that happens yeah i guess i mean sometimes it helps because like you're like oh wait i remember this yeah like when you're studying for like the multiple different million directions it's it's yeah it's hard it's not easy yeah but it's okay it's worth it so Mimi would you say you have any advice to other first year physician assistant students i do well yeah so one thing that i realized this semester is like how much like in general we like undervalue like exercise i feel like for me it helps me so much like just with like my productivity and like my attention span um because that's very limited especially when you're like sitting in a classroom the entire day like trying to pay attention and also just like your overall like mental health and i i'm the type of person where i've like been working out since like high school and so like that's important to me but then when i start pa school i was like you know i just brush it off like i need to be studying i need to do this it's more important and so mid semester i feel like mid to late semester it really like i felt miserable like i was miserable to go to class every day and i was just exhausted and i had like nothing in me i was just so anxious all the time and i was like i just need to like have some sort of like routine so i try this new thing i like challenge myself and i was like i'm gonna go to the gym during my like one hour lunch break every day and see how that goes and um i started doing that and it's honestly such a game changer and it's like such a like a small time frame but you know i just rush to the gym get at least like 10 15 minutes in you know i'll just do like like an incline treadmill or um do some weights upper body stuff really quick and then jump in the shower and then like rush back to class and then like eat something quick but i feel like it's just so nice because you come back to class and you're like refreshed because you just showered but then also like now your head space is a little more clear and like it helps me like in the afternoon because i know that's when i crash like afternoon classes like oh gosh like my head is like out the door so like it helps a little bit more to just kind of be present um in the moment and then yeah i just feel like um that just helps so much like for anyone um and even like what would you say it's so counterintuitive because like let's be real like at least in my experience during that lunch break everybody stays in the same classroom they eat some more they do more quizlets they might talk and just chat and do nothing you know all that's it's good it's productive but it sounds counterintuitive to like have to walk to another building exert yourself physically and then shower and hurry up and come back and that that action would actually make you better at studying and better at learning than the people who spend more time doing it yeah because i was that person i would just stay in the classroom um and just kind of like review my notes yeah in that day but i was like not nothing because i was like trying to eat my lunch and like try to study at the same time but that was just i was not gaining anything out of it and i know like when i go to the gym i i can just put my headphones on and last to my favorite music and also like you can even like because i was the type person where i was like i feel like i'm wasting my time going to the gym but i like even if it wasn't like during my lunch hour like if it was like on the weekend or something i'll bring like my ipad and i'll just do like onky or like look at my lecture slides to make me feel less bad that i'm not at home studying yeah because in pa school you're so guilty if you spend one minute doing anything else yep so it's like yeah i'm wasting my time i could have been studying i could have learned like five note cards by now right like it's it's not even just the mood and the energy there's like studies it's like neuroplasticity gets increased or something so your brain literally gets better at learning when you do some exercise not like while you're exercising you don't have to be like taping a freaking note card to your bench press and like st stagnant elevation you don't have to do that but it's just like the fact that you are exercising you're like moving your lymphatic fluid and your blood around and like certain factors get i don't know i'm not a neuroscientist but certain factors get expressed that you just like you're healthier your mood is better you have more energy you actually need less sleep not more unless you're exercising crazy um and like your brain is just more primed to learn so i can't agree with me anymore like it's such a big difference not even a lot just like 10 minutes 15 minutes a day yeah like i i mean even like i actually like during black friday i got like a walking like treadmill but it can it can go up like to speeds where you can run so like um i'll even try to get myself just to do like 10 minutes of like a run like on it and that just that just changes it so much because after i feel like we're motivated and i'm like okay i can do anything i don't know it just gives you like a boost serotonin or whatever yeah like some feel good chemical yeah it's just you feel better yeah you just do so yeah i mean i totally agree with that one big piece of advice incorporate exercise even a little tiny bit yeah little tiny bit you'd be shocked you'd be absolutely even i'm like i'm still i tell myself that some i mean i have weeks where i don't follow that but now like going to the spring semester i'm like this is something that i need to like continue like doing like consistently because i know i mean it's so hard because it's like um you just have so much like a million things to do and like to get yourself to actually move your body like i know like how hard that can be to get yourself to yeah but trust me just do it yeah just do it yeah i feel like the hardest part like even like going to the gym is just to get there but like once you're there yeah like it's it's just you literally it is you're unstoppable literally what else would you tell the first uh first year pa student that's struggling um i would say yeah i would just say like um like just continue to like be adaptive to like your learning style since not what you used to do in undergrad um that might not work or might work and just trying to find like um like a balance between that you know because every class might be different with how you study how you take notes in class even um so being open to trying that i think that's huge but also again like i was like saying like be graceful to yourself and um you know like you're gonna eventually like by like the end of the semester like you're like okay well i kind of like have an idea of like how much time i need to this or to this so it still sucks it still sucks but like i mean you have an idea of like um how things go you know so the first part of it first part of semester is rough i mean it doesn't get easier but at least you you know you have like a sense of how things go yeah i found that like second semester was actually a lot harder but it was also easier at the same time because you know what you're doing already yeah and gpas tended to go up second semester not down even though the content was harder there was more of it and we had less time per question on exams so everything got harder but like we're just so used to it now it's just like easier you know so second semester is harder but easier yeah i've heard that from like a lot of people too from everyone that i've talked to about second semester it made no sense when people told me that it's just like what do you mean it's harder but easier it's like it's harder but it's like easier i don't know because uh one of my next topics is gonna be like uh attrition rates and how like you see someone gets their acceptance letter and they're like i'm gonna be a pa and everyone's like yeah you are and i'm like maybe you are uh because a lot of people do fail out you know and it seems to be getting worse post-covid because a lot of programs haven't really adjusted and found their uh their footing again um so it's really really good you guys didn't lose anyone your program is probably really legit yeah i feel like also just like our program like cohort like we're willing just to like help each other out with like making study guys and like working together uh just like if someone's like like i can just like go to anyone in my class and if i'm confused about something like they'll like they'll take time to like explain it to me and i like think that yeah that has a lot to do with just um like how well everyone is doing and also just like how helpful like the faculty is to yeah so you guys have a really good like program culture right that's awesome no that that's really awesome for you i'm really happy that you're in a good program yeah and i mean that varies year to year like right that's program in the world can just accept a bunch of people who seem good on paper and then they're just not team players and it just doesn't work that year and it just doesn't work that year yeah i also think it like every program has a different like um like grading policies to like how many like during the grade that you need on every exam or if you like get a certain grade in the class then um like for ours like if you get um a C in any class then that's like automatic automatic failure so like you have to like i don't know it's like a whole other process like you'll have to like retake it but it will be like the next year like the following cohort you can't remediate anything i mean like you know you definitely can remediate like like exams but i'm talking about like if you like the grade that you get in the class if it's like anything um below that then you would yeah yeah absolutely ours was the same way it was like 80 was the bottom 79 is failing but i was talking to elijah and i guess at ruckers that could be wrong but he said that C is okay so like so like 70 is fine yeah ours is 73 so like 73 for exams is passing or no ours was 80 but i think one class the hardest class was like 78 or something 77 so it's like dependent on the class yeah because one class was just insanely hard but it was very substantive but anyway okay we're getting in the weeds so that's your advice to current first-year PA students who might be struggling what is your advice to PA school applicants people who want to be just like you and next year get into a PA program yeah i feel like this is um like i've just this is like something that i'm really like kind of passionate about because i feel like i have so many friends that are in this spot and it's the same things that i'm hearing but also when i was going through it i also really related to how they were feeling but um my biggest piece of advice is like just to be intentional with like your mindset and how you approach the application process because it's like so easy to like compare yourself and um just think about how competitive the processes and like just focus on like the negative part about how you're not going to get in um and i mean it's so like it's terrifying it's probably like the one of the most terrifying things i've done it's just like applying like waiting and i like it's it's a hard process but because i was like the type person where um i do be myself up a lot about it and i feel like a lot of people in my position can agree to that i kind of had to like really switch my mindset to thinking um differently so i feel like instead um i was kind of like thinking about it like this is like my only not my only but like my one opportunity where i could like show to like the admissions committee like this is what i want to do this is my passion and like this is what i like bring to the table and so you can show you show cast that through like your personal statement and your um like your the way you like describe like your activities and stuff i feel like that's how you like someone can really get to know you on paper like my like i mean i feel like all like the stats and everything like that's all general there's just numbers but like it's just your story like everyone's story is different and i like to think about it as like you're on like american idol and the judges the judges are like the people reviewing your applications and in the background in the crowd that's like your family your friends like your co-workers supervisors professors those are all people rooting for you and like want you want you to um pursue this they all support you so like this is your shot to show them like who you are as a person um and just give it your all and i feel like if you think about it that way um and just kind of like appreciate like all the hard work that you've dedicated to this profession like this you know this is like what you want to do um if you can think about it that way then that would be that would help you be successful because i know for me if i'm all like i am a negative person i i'm working out like i feel like i in the past i was so much more negative but like this process specifically i was like me me like i talk to myself i'm like you cannot think like this because if you do you're not going to get in anywhere you know because it's like that's just how it is like if you're negative it just won't work but if you kind of go into it like this is what i want to do i'm going to show in on paper everything that um makes me unique compared to like other applicants that will work in your favor for sure absolutely and also have really good grades yeah yeah yeah the unspoken obvious truth but everything else yeah spot on 100% all you could do is give it your all but by give it your all i don't mean like hurry up and get done get the process done and fill it out as fast as you can and be like that was hard uh because if you do that you're going to miss things yeah you're going to miss spacing you're going to it's going to be sloppy things are going to be not aligned you'd be surprised so for someone who's looked at hundreds if not probably over a thousand at this point applications the pdf version of the cast but people send me that when i review their application hundreds if not thousands at this point and you would be shocked for someone who looks at this many of them how easy it is to tell who cares and who doesn't it's so easy and sometimes i'll be i'll admit it i'll jump to conclusions but if i do somebody else might too review your application at a program so don't give them anything to look at that just is not like attention to detail you know if you have one space after a period that's going to be how you're going to do the entire application bullet points for one of the sections you're doing the same bullet point for everything if you're going to capitalize you know pa if you're going to capitalize this and that that's how it is going to be uniform throughout your entire application like no mistakes no typos no grammar weirdness just like make it very very neat and clean and go through it hundreds of times just every single time see if you can like with fresh eyes try to find something wrong i know mimis like that because we went through it together um i did do you know did you know that i did mine in like two weeks what do you mean in two weeks like i wrote that essay in like two weeks that's fine yeah and like i mean i see me in operation and like the next week after that yeah what about the rest of your application though did you like really quickly get that done or did you like take some time with it i mean i used those that two weeks like literally i was like on it all day like just how i was like always editing it and like especially with the activity descriptions too i feel like yeah like you can go about it like kind of like describing it into like a resume kind of like i did this i did this but i try to like think about like what was the most like impactful thing that i like took from the job experience yeah i think you could do both you can make it bullet points and i actually tell people to make it uniform like this many hours these are my responsibilities this is what i learned this was what i learned or this is what i learned and like this is what i took from the opportunity and just have the same exact categories for everything that way makes it easier right you know yeah obviously whatever you did worked i haven't seen mimis application for like probably a year and a half now because we worked together on it i saw it i like helped her with her essay i think we did an interview i can't remember we did a bunch of different stuff but we got her in but yeah it takes a lot of work it really does and if you want to thank you too a lot of like self reflection because i was like why do i want to be a pa i don't know you know what if you can't answer that for yourself how are you supposed to answer it for a stranger yeah right and if you want help with that yes yes in fact i'll unblur my background never mind we're fine this book here the link will be in the description it's also on my website literally step by step if you don't know if you just like know that you want to be a pa but you have no idea why and you're like how am i supposed to write this personal statement literally step by step simple question by simple question this is your answer okay so that's enough free advertising and plugging my book there but yeah um if you still have no idea just sit down with a journal and be like okay why like what do i possibly want out of this career why is this my career think about it don't just like write the story of your life that's easy or like try to copy somebody else's you know just like actually think about why you want to do this yeah i feel like yeah i feel like the personal statement is one of the most important pieces of your application i mean it's the biggest part but it's like what they read and they can either like they're more if they're like more interested in reading more about you uh i feel like that's the like the one thing that can help you like stand out the most too yeah it's the only like interesting thing like you can get into the experience is what people have done that's really cool but it's the only like personal literally personal part of the application everything else is just numbers and titles and stats like this is actually like human yes human yeah it's like the only human part of the application you know people in medicine were kind of like you know we care about humans that's what we do we work with humans we like humans we want to help humans um most of the time anyway uh so it's like that's the only human part of your application so take it seriously and buy the book buy the book buy the book buy the book and use all of your services because oh yeah no literally so that's another thing is so i feel like this is getting way more popular the last few years since i started because when i started there was maybe like 10 pa youtubers at least that i knew of now there's hundreds oh yeah like hundreds and hundreds and everyone's got their services and everyone's like oh i can help you blah blah blah mock interview everyone's like trying to get into this so yes definitely get someone to help you screen that person out make sure it's someone that like your friend has worked with or see if they have reviews how long have they been doing this like don't get help from someone who's just gonna make things worse you know um so yeah just be careful who you choose yeah yeah for sure yeah i feel like um yeah definitely do that but i think i highly recommend anyone to consider any sort of like service even for like both i mean personal statement and um interviews i agree because like it just it's really good i feel like it helped me a lot i don't know how i would have gone in without you if i'm being honest like it just gives you like a different like you like give a different perspective because you've been through the process and you're like you know like you've been working with like hundreds of students on this so like i mean you can i could like let anyone read it but it's like if you've been through the process you know how it works you know you've read so many different essays and like interviewed so many people like they like that just gives you so much like specific feedback um and can help tailor your um your personal statement into like what they are looking for but also like the interview is like um just what your strengths are what your weaknesses are and like what you should shouldn't do that really really helpful yeah and i'll be brutally honest i've seen some absolute train wreck interviews i've seen some phenomenal interviews and i'm happy to tell everybody every which way what it is um speaking of the interview this isn't really what we're going to focus on today we're just about done here but uh i just wanted to kind of bring attention to how many talks specifically on camera like one how confident she is and positive she's like always smiling and she's like looking at the camera she's like not super shy but like she communicates just clearly she speaks really clearly she doesn't talk too fast she doesn't talk too slow like she's just easy to listen to i don't know if you get that watching this video but she's just easy to listen to so if you're gonna copy anything from me to try to get into school copy her mannerisms in your interview just like be like that be just easy to listen to be smiley but not like exaggerated you know what i mean just just chill confidence easy to listen to that's what i would that's the feedback i would give you if this was an interview and so like everybody watching if you're preparing for an interview just like be like me me it's fantastic just be like that yeah inside i'm like yeah we all are yeah well just the way you're presenting yourself you can say you make it that's my motto yeah absolutely laugh like just smile a lot and look at the camera yeah also talk practice practice everywhere you go thank you yeah practice practice practice because yeah they're gonna get to their interview and they'll be like so why do you want to be a pa like but Mimi told me to just smile and look at the camera like well yeah do buddy yeah yeah anyway yeah be like me me if you want to get into school anyway any parting words of wisdom no like well yeah by the book yes by the book by the book by the merge yeah yeah and and the mug and the mug okay i'm done anyway sorry yeah no um definitely do those because it's well worth it and the merch get mug is that the only thing you have what else do you sell um there's a bunch of stuff it's all like in the little banner below the video um yeah there's mugs like btpa there's the one that says like um there's a superman logo and it's like i'm a pa what's your superpower nice there's a bunch of stuff good stuff nice yeah but anyway parting words of wisdom what do you think Mimi yeah so i was just saying like just the number one thing is just believe in yourself this sounds so cheesy but like that's like all you can do i mean like that is like the one superpower that you can have because that will like take you so far like you know like all applicants like you know you want it so bad deep in you you just have to like portray that to the world and show that this is literally like deep in your soul like this is the path that you want to take and you know you've like worked so hard to get to that point um so in using like all your resources um reaching out to literally everyone like for my interviews i went through my contact list everyone that has ever interviewed me i asked them for my opinion i mean the internet has so much out there so there's so much help out but the one thing just continue believing yourself like you know you want it bad it's your passion so always continue to do that even though it feels like you're never gonna get there because you will yeah yeah like something seems impossible until it's already done and then you forget about it and then you might be reflecting weeks you know months years later you're like wait i did that right yeah possible anymore it's just like yeah that was just the thing x y and z this is how you do it the end but like when you're still kind of struggling up that hill you're like this is impossible exactly yeah in the moment but then it's worth it like that's how i felt about pa school i was like my light at the end of the tunnel is finishing my semester and i look back and i'm like whoa like that just happened but yeah i feel like in those moments it's when you really have to like just um continue just to like manifest it i yeah that's another thing just manifest for everything i wrote it on a wall i was like i'm gonna get into pa school where i am gonna get into pa school and like just put it into existence put it into existence and just keep like walking towards that exactly while also like doing everything you can in your power to get there too for sure couldn't have said it better myself Mimi thank you for sharing your wisdom good luck in the rest of school thank you thank you for absolutely maybe we'll get you back on after the next semester if you ever have any advice you know shoot it my way i'll see if i could share it with the people um yeah that's essentially it guys thanks for watching if you have questions for Mimi if you want to contact her for whatever reason we'll drop her social media in the description for the video and yeah thanks for watching we'll see you in the next one all right stop recording