A couple of days ago I interviewed Japla Shah over the phone at the 18th Avenue Library. I found her to be an extremely kind person and also was able to obtain quite a bit of interesting information from her. Over the course of thirty minutes, she discussed the difficulties she had in her undergraduate years, changing her major, her volunteer experiences, research, and applying to medical school.
I found that there were many similarities between us. We were both from immigrant families and also the first in our families to attend school in America.
The most interesting portion for me were discussing applying to medical school and research.
Thus far, I have struggled in my classes and it was nice to talk to someone that had the same issues as me. I was able to share my worries about not having a strong enough GPA and what steps I should take to go about improving myself for the application. I discovered that she entered medical school after applying for a second time after she had completed a Master’s program. It was nice to hear from a person that had struggled as I have though their first years of undergraduate and it is reassuring to hear that there was still a way to get accepted into medical school. I had a belief that one was only allowed to apply to medical school once as it was frowned upon by the application committee to apply again. She made it very clear to me that I should get my letters of recommendations very early in advance.
Another issue we shared was having very little research experience and having difficultly finding opportunities. She was able to recommend taking research courses at Ohio State, where professors come to lecture and explain their studies they are conducting in their lab which allow one to apply to the labs at the end of the course. It is also convenient that the courses are only one credit, so it is easy to fit into one’s schedule. It may something I look into.