If the high school version of myself could see where I am now, she would most likely be in denial. In high school, I was the student who received the top grades in her classes. I was the girl who stuck it out through her senior year with stage III cancer. I had my heart set on becoming a physician.
Today, I still have my sights locked on the field of medicine but it doesn’t matter how I am involved; as long as I am educating my community, helping patients, and discovering innovative treatments, I am happy. The 16-year-old me would never believe that I am pursuing a career in public health and infectious diseases. She would never understand why I chose the Ph D route over MD, much like many of my close friends and family.
Over the past two years, I have job shadowed physicians, engaged in clinical rotation, and volunteered in various units. While those experiences were mind-blowing, none of these opportunities made me feel as happy as being a researcher and ambassador for science education. There is something unique about communicating your message to a larger audience rather than the one-on-one interactions. You are involved with people from different fields (e.g. economics, conservation, politics, public relations, etc.) rather than specialities (e.g. gastroenterology, cardiology, immunology, urology, etc). There’s a thrill in chasing an answer for a public health concern such as an outbreak. You attempt to find the key to the epidemic as a whole rather than tailoring treatments to each individual case, in the hope that it can be applicable for future generations and lead to more efficient regimens.
Don’t get me wrong; it was never easy getting to this position that I am in. I remember as a first year student, I was anxious and ashamed that I was not volunteering, job shadowing, researching, and doing all these wonderful things. It seemed like every single person I encountered was always eight steps ahead of me. A mentor once told me that for every person I saw succeeding are hundreds of struggles that came before. It was tough to keep this in mind with every action I executed in my first and second year, but sure enough, he was correct.
In my first year, I decided to change my major three times because I struggled to figure out what I was truly passionate about.
In my second year of undergraduate studies, my health had taken a different direction. Physically, I was hospitalized twice for acute liver transplant rejection and diagnosed with uncontrolled type II diabetes. Emotionally, I had to drop a course in my fall term because my mental health was at stake. I sacrificed my academia for therapy with a psychologist and intervention with a psychiatrist. I was under the impression that I would never be able to feel, focus, and find my purpose again. For the following ten months, I just had to keep telling myself that things do get better and one day, life will sort itself out.
They say that if you want to take care of people, you need to take care of yourself. Without the support of my friends and family, I would have never reached this new state of mind and seen the greatest achievements that I did not believe were possible.
When you fall, you must remember the reason you need to get back up. For me, I stand up because I want to help others and serve my community. Plans can change and people can change. I don’t think the high school version of myself could ever imagine the countless bumps in the road through my first two years of college. However, I do think she would be proud. After all, I am doing what I can to be happy and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
