Hi! I’m a junior in undergrad, hoping to attend medical school. I had a very disheartening conversation with my research professor right in front of my research partner and I haven’t been able to shake it. I’ve had hard discussions about my progress before, but this one really struck me down and it was clear that he was disappointed in me because of an O. Chem grade I got last quarter. I was just wondering, did you ever struggle in undergrad? Feeling quite a bit of imposter syndrome 😬
Hi there! I’ll start by saying I didn’t do undergrad as i’m in the UK, but I do totally sympathise with this feeling!
When I was applying to medicine I got 3 rejections (we can apply to 4 medical schools) before I’d even had the interview at the uni i got into. I went into that interview feeling like I shouldn’t be there and that i wasn’t going to get it. it was in the run up to my A level exams, and if I was offered a place, I would have to perform well in the exams to secure my place. I was very stressed, tearful and couldn’t focus well on my school work because it felt like it didn’t matter because I wasn’t going to get a place anyway. I was lucky in that i didn’t have much coursework and none of the tests we had in term time counted towards our final grades but I did struggle. I got the place thankfully and i think this gave me a sort of renewed determination and i settled into it.
Obviously I don’t know where you are in terms of applying to med school but I would stress that one grade isn’t going to affect your place. Everyone has topics they struggle with, times when stuff is going on and school isn’t your highest priority. One thing that I know UK med schools look for (as it is important for us to do as doctors in our revalidation) is reflection. Take something that has happened to you (for example a discussion like this) and think about the factors that have contributed to it. Don’t necessarily list all the things you did wrong, but think about how you reacted and how you could do better, what resources you might be able to use and how you would measure your improvement (it sounds very pretentious I guess, but it doesn’t have to be a formal thing, just make yourself a goal on the back of this discussion maybe?)
If you can show that you’ve changed your learning or practice if you needed to, or at least looked at what went wrong, then the grade itself doesn’t really matter. It wasn’t very good of the professor to have that conversation with you in front of your research partner, but perhaps you could get in touch if you still want to know how to improve, meet in a better environment and try and have a better two way discussion about the grade and whether there are other things you could be doing, or ways that professor could be supporting you.
During medical school, specifically second year I really struggled with my mental health and my grades dropped. I had a massive case of imposter syndrome (and still do if i’m honest but i’ve seen so many doctors the same that it’s not so bad now). I don’t know that I dealt with it particularly well in second year, i was very much “powering through” to get through exams, but at the end of the day, if a medical school has picked you, then you deserve to be there. They see so many applicants and they know what people are like in interviews, it is very hard to “trick” them into giving you a place.
I hope this all goes well for you!
