For the class of 2015

Firstly, CONGRATULATIONS on getting accepted to the class of 2015. In this post I am going to write about the academic component of the pre-medical years with a little topping of social life.

Lets start with the international orientation:

For the students who don't live in Doha, you will be attending the International Students Orientation. Its a pretty decent social event, try not to miss it. You get to know all the students who will live in the dorms. This might be the only opportunity to know students who go to other universities, unless you have a roommate from a different school. My suggestion is to get to know as many people as you can, specially from other college's. And if you are a party animal, you might find it useful to make friends with people from CMU or GU coz they have a pretty chilled life (in our class tho, even Cornellians were cool!). For the people who cannot make friends so easily, don't worry, you will have a lot of time. Don't worry about first impressions etc coz it takes a really long time to find exactly your kind of people. It is a fact tho that as a Cornellian, you will mostly be hanging out with only Cornellians. So, try looking for Cornellians you think u would like to be friends with. Then you will have Cornell's orientation, which is also pretty much fun.

Now the academics.

Remember, that the ultimate goal of the pre-medical program is to get into medical school and believe it or not, you start getting evaluated from the first semester.

First Semester: The subjects to really focus on are science subjects like Biology (lab n lecture) and Chemistry and Calculus (i am not sure if it counts as science...check it..and if it does..its important).

Second Semester: Biology and Chemistry again, with Physics. This will presumably be the hardest semester (in terms of workload), so make it a point to be regular in ur preparation and plan well. SERIOUSLY (telling u from my experience). If you can improve ur GPA in this semester, you will be increasing ur chances of getting in.

First and Second Semester: College means a lot of hard work. Be regular with your assignments. You might at times feel like giving up one or two assignments in physics but DONT. In the end, you will be the one regretting it coz that small 0.1 might be the difference between an A- (A minus) and a B+ (B plus) and that WILL affect your GPA by a great deal. Dont be too lazy with ur chem lab reports either coz in the end, they count to be a lot. You will have quizzes which are equally important and i dont have to mention that the prelims and finals are verrry important. Prepare well for Biology lab finals, those exams ARE tough. I am sure youll start getting hold of whats important once u start but this is just a heads up. Most of the material you will be studying in the first year will be whtever u studied in high school. So you might get tempted to chill, but DONT. ull regret it! Keep up with the workload.

Third Semester: Organic Chemistry (this seems to give problems to too many people, so DONT forget to attend lectures in this subject, very important. You dont really need to look at the book if u attend lectures coz the notes that u get in lectures are amaazing. And building a good foundation is important, so the first few lectures are verry important) THIS subject is verry important. Physics continues, equally imp and easy to score well.

Fourth Semester: Orgo continues. (will be easy if u know ur basics). Another very important subject is Biochemistry. The study material is vague but if u read well in advance, its easy to handle. the questions asked will be more logic type so if u have read well, ull do fine. focus also on human genetics, but it shudnt be that difficult.

Third and Fourth Semester: its much lighter than the first two. you will have more free time.
I have only mentioned the science subjects (i might have missed out some, check to make sure), which is mostly what the admissions committee looks for med school. Have a strong science GPA. doesnt mean u ignore the other subjects. writing seminar is a pretty decent course and will help u mature! the best thing to do is to show an increasing trend in your GPA from the first to the last semester, if thats not possible, at least maintain a constant GPA and try never to go down. Most students start very well, and then go down hard. Not good. dont worry if u dont have a verrrry high GPA, just be stable and always perform to ur maximum potential. in the two years, they can very easily access ur potential and it doesnt look good if u r not performing near ur max potential. (it can hurt u actually, if u arent.)

MCAT: Medical College Admissions Test. Its a standard testing for medical school much like SAT. Its divided into three sections, verbal, biological and phyical. Biological includes biology and organic chemistry. Physical includes physics and inorganic chemistry. verbal is english reasoning. each section is out of 15 and the score is given based on percentile.
as most students here are not native english speakers, the admissions committee is leniant with verbal scores. the more important ones are biological and physical. it is important to be above at least 10 in these sections. a typically good score would be 30 out of 45. higher scores are amazing and sometimes a little lower will also work, based on ur GPA. you will have MCAT prep course during the summer after ur first year and most people take their MCAT (the first time) during the third semester or better still, before the summer break ends (so that u can pay full attention to ur grades once the semester starts). dont worry if ur scores arent good the first time. most people take it twice and some even thrice. its ur best score that counts. its important that ur MCAT scores and ur grades correlate. just a high mcat score doesnt guarantee admission, nor does a very high grade and bad MCAT.

Try n be involved in any no. of extra curricular activities as u can, but not at the cost of ur school performance. ull find that the second year is a bit lighter than the first so u could plan on being a little less involved in the first and more in the second. there are numerous opportunities for EC activities, as a group or individually. one of the classes (almost the whole class) went to some third world country to volunteer as a group (they managed everything on their own). if ur class agrees, u can do something like that. try other stuff like observerships in hospitals, maybe in ur home country. there will be opportunities here as well. be creative and come up with ideas! there will be numerous opportunities for research. try contacting people, seniors, faculty if u r interested in getting involved in research. but dont get bothered if u cant find one (especially in the first semester itself or the second...focus on ur studies in these semesters) coz the research labs here are young so not everyone can find positions. the admissions committee knows that so it wont hurt u not to have a research. but doing research is fun!

For now, relax as ur orientation is about to begin. be prepared with an open mind! these two years will be an experience (and theyll go by in a blink of any eye) and ull be glad u lived it. ull discover things about u that u never knew before..its a nice eye opening experience (sounds corny but is true!!). there will be times of high and low (mostly!). dont be depressed. ull make great friends...talk to them...or ur advisor (especially if it is about academics). and try to avoid cut throat competition among ur peers as it is unnecessary. remember, A CORNELL MD AWAITS U AT THE END OF ALL THIS!! ill leave the rest for u to discover!!

tht was really loong...well..i didnt have anything else to do!! jk!!

cheers
joshi