MappedCon presented by Blueprint Test Prep 2024 is this Friday, October 26, 925 Eastern. I'm starting the day in my track, the pre-med track, planting the seed of your personal statement. We have three tracks going all day long and a couple hours of amazing exhibitors where you can learn more about their programs. Again, MappedCon presented by Blueprint Test Prep, October 26, register for free. It's a virtual event and all the sessions will be up after. So even if you can't make it live, go register and get access to the sessions. Go to MappedCon.com right now, register. That's M-A-P-P-D-C-O-N.com. The medical school HQ podcast, session number 73. I'm quite honestly, I think it happened after O-Chem. It hit me like a sack of bricks. It was brutal. I didn't do terrible. I'm getting like a B and I think a B minus. So everyone out there, you can get a B in O-Chem and still get into med school. It can happen. But I did that like, wow, is this really what I'm going to be studying? Are these the things type of information that I'm going to be learning? It just caused me to second guess that's for sure. And so that was my junior year that I was like, you know what, maybe this hard science stuff isn't for me. So I started looking into physical therapy and whatnot for a while. Hey, this is Z-Dog MD, rapper, physician, legendary turntable health revolutionary and part-time gardener. And you're listening to the medical school HQ podcast hosted by the irredeemably awesome Ryan Gray. Welcome back. I am your host, Dr. Ryan Gray. And I believe that competition amongst your pre-med and medical student peers is detrimental to becoming a great physician. In this podcast, we show you how collaboration, hard work, and honesty are critical to becoming a superior physician in today's health care environment. I welcome you back. And just as I announced last week, I'm excited to say that the Princeton Review is continuing to support us here at the medical school headquarters by offering you an amazing exclusive discount. For the month of April, when you use the code MSHQ4 at checkout, you will save $225 off the Princeton Review's MCAT Ultimate Classroom or MCAT Ultimate Live Online Course. If you haven't yet, go back and listen to session 17 which you can find at medicalschoolhq.net/17 to hear one of their top instructors give his best tips for the MCAT and listen to some of the great things that the Princeton Review has to offer. Again, use the promo code MSHQ4 at checkout on their site, PrincetonReview.com, to save $225 off the Princeton Review's MCAT Ultimate Classroom or MCAT Ultimate Live Online Course. Thank you again to the Princeton Review for continuing to support us here at the medical school headquarters podcast. I also wanted to talk for a second, again about the Academy at the medical school headquarters, an online membership site to help you through the premed and medical school process. With live monthly office hours, think Google Hangouts, but with premed students and me, monthly live webinars covering everything from the MCAT to financial aid, you can't afford not to join. Start investing in your future now and join the Academy. One of our newest members, Melissa, offered this to say during our latest office hours. This is such a wonderful thing you guys have put together. I mean, I can see even just in the design and what you're adding, just how much effort has gone into it. I think it's beautiful. I mean, as we were doing this, I kind of could imagine myself a few years down the road being a part of it and helping people who are kind of going through what I'm going through now and vice versa. So I'm, this is awesome. Come and join Melissa Allison and myself in so many other great minds. Go to join the Academy.net today to sign up. In today's podcast, I actually have an Academy member joining us as the guest. Jordan Renneke is a non-traditional student who is starting medical school this fall. Congratulations, Jordan. He was a student athlete during, under his undergrad years as a baseball player. He started as a pre-med, but during that time, he looked into a few other career fields and he kept coming back to medicine. During this interview, Jordan will share his experiences and why he in the long run decided medicine was right for him. Listen to why he got sidetracked after Okem and why he wasn't very happy when he learned what classes pre-meds took. Learn the thought processes that he used that maybe you can apply in your own situation and learn what the AMCAS application was like for him. Jordan, thank you for becoming one of our first listeners turned guests on the podcast. Let's start with when you decided medicine was right for you. Well, I guess there's actually two points in my life where I thought medicine is right for me. The first was right out of high school. In junior year, I took an anatomy class and I loved it. We got to dissect a cat. Our cat ended up being pregnant, so that was pretty fun and exciting, but I just fell in love with anatomy. I'm like, this is awesome. I want to be a doctor. Went into college and right away, I did the pre-med thing and my advisor had all the classes for me and I didn't quite understand what it meant. I thought I'd be taking anatomy classes because that's what I love. I was like, wait, why am I taking all these biology and chemistry classes? I wasn't super psyched about that, but I started off pre-med and I kind of trailed off a little bit after Okem sophomore year in junior year and then post-graduation. About a year post-graduation, I finally decided again that it was indeed right for me and then I've been pursuing that and got accepted after that. Oh, you're jumping way ahead. You got accepted. Yeah, congratulations, first of all. We'll get to that. So, I'm sorry. No, that's okay. That's okay. I'll get you back on track. So let's go back to high school. Okay, I'm going to be a doctor. I dissected a cat. That's the same thing for me. I had some other experiences as well, but dissecting a cat was one of those big moments like, yes, I love cutting things. So from there, where did you go to undergrad? So, I went to two schools, actually undergrad. I went to a small private Catholic school in La Crosse, Wisconsin for a little bit and then I transferred after that to a smaller state school in Wisconsin as well. So, I went to two different places, but I graduated from the state university in Wisconsin. Did you research pre-med programs at those schools or did you go do those schools for other reasons? I was on baseball scholarship at the first school and then it was kind of crazy hectic. It was just too much with baseball and that school. They didn't emphasize school work enough for me, so I transferred out to another school. That had a really good baseball program and I didn't look at the pre-med programs once. I just kind of went where baseball wasn't figured school. I'll make it what it is. Okay, so student athlete, do you think that played into your decision not to pursue pre-med in the end at that time? You know, it wasn't really, I wouldn't say that it deterred me from doing it. I always kept my grades up and school was always the most important thing for me, but it definitely did get me busy and it gave me other options too. Being involved in sports, I was injured a couple of times. I was exposed to physical therapy and whatnot. For a while, I thought that's what I was going to do. I guess, yeah, it kind of helped steer me away for a little bit, but it didn't hinder me in the end. Okay, so grade wise, it didn't hinder you at all. No, I mean, sometimes second semester in the spring was tough because we were traveling. Baseball, we'd play Wednesday and then Saturday, Sunday in Wisconsin. We got snowed out a bunch, so we'd play Monday games and Wednesday and we'd miss so much school on regionals. Every year, regionals ended up during the finals week, so we'd find out what seed we were. I'd tell all my teachers Monday, "Hey, I have to leave Wednesday to go play in the NCAA regionals," and then I'd take all my exams pretty much like Tuesday and Wednesday morning and have to move all my exams up early. And those, yeah, sometimes the GPS suffered those semesters when you had to take, you had a day to study for like three exams, but... Okay, so at what point do you remember specifically when you said, "Okay, I'm not going to be pre-med anymore," or was it a decision that you just said, "I'm going to delay this?" Yeah, it wasn't necessarily, "I'm not going to be pre-med anymore." It was just like, "Ah, I should probably look at other options too," because, in quite honestly, I think it happened after OKEM. It hit me like a sack of bricks. It was brutal. I didn't do terrible. I'm getting like a B, and I think a B minus. And so everyone out there, you can get a B in OKEM and still get into med school. It can happen. But I did that like, "Wow, is this like really what I'm going to be studying?" Or, "These are the things type of, you know, type of information that I'm going to be learning." It just caused me to second guess, that's for sure. And so that was my junior year that I was like, "You know what, maybe this hard science stuff isn't for me." So I started looking into physical therapy and whatnot for a while. Okay. What do you remember about OKEM and maybe some of your other pre-med classes? What was it about those classes that kind of caught you off guard? I guess the first thing was just like the amount of time you need to commit to it. Most classes you studied for a little bit, and it was fine. You can ask my roommates. I was always in a Taurus. I studied so much. Friday night was my library time. Every Friday night I'd go to the library and then come back and Saturday afternoon between football games I'd go to the study. So I was always studying, so that was an issue in terms of time commitment, but just volume of information in OKEM and just the amount of repetition you needed to get it really didn't stick with me. And I'm not a very three-dimensional guy. OKEM to me was a nightmare just because once we got in a stereo chemistry it was just I was gone. I was lost. I didn't handle it very well, but it helped in looking in retrospect. If I'd go at it now with the attitude I had when I studied for the MCAT or just even working, it'd be I don't think it'd be an issue at all because it takes some time. That's really all it is. Okay. So you obviously you graduated. What did you do after graduation? Yeah. So I was the stereotypical college kid graduating and not really have an idea what they're doing, but I graduated and I was like, OK, that's good. I did the five-year plan. So that was fun. And when did you graduate? 2012. 2012. So that was good. I did the five-year with baseball and transferring. I just needed an extra year. So my fifth year was without baseball. So that was nice. I got to work in the exercise physiology lab and stuff. So any who graduated in 2012 and I came home and I didn't really know what to do. I mean, I know I need to start looking for a job, but at this point, I thought I was going to be physical therapy. I was like, OK, I need to start shadowing because for the program, there's a program in my hometown that I wanted to get into. I could live at home and save some money. So I started shadowing a physical therapist right away. And coincidentally, it just kind of worked out this way. I was coaching a youth baseball team because my little brother is a freshman in high school and I've been coaching him since he's been so little and we're coaching a travel ball team. And one of the dads on the team is a president of a company, a biomedical company in my hometown. He's like, hey, we're looking for someone in the quality assurance department. And he's like, hey, come check it out. And I started working part-time there while shadowing. And then eventually it turned into a full-time gig that I still work there right now. Wow. And when you say shadowing, you're shadowing a physical therapist at this point? Yeah. So I started shadowing a physical therapist. And I did that for a while because you needed 30 hours. And the best thing I've ever done was the program required it. You need 30 hours of shadowing. And I got it in and I'm just so glad they made me do it because after about our 15, I was like, dang, they do the same thing every day. And this is not a knock on PTs at all. I think it would be super interesting. A material would be awesome, but I just decided it wasn't for me. I just probably within the 30 hours, I for sure knew, okay, I need to look at other options. So then I started shadowing other careers as well. And that's a good point. And I wish medical schools would require a minimum number of shadowing hours because that's exactly what shadowing does is it gives you that insight and it gives you that kind of nitty gritty of day and day out what life is like as a physical therapist or as a physician. And let's you know if that's what's right for you. And I'm kind of upset that you said they do the same thing every day because in medicine, you kind of get that way too. And anything you're going to do in this world, there's a lot of repetition, which is why Allison loves to say, love your organ. You really have to love your organ because day in and day out, that's what you're going to be doing and seeing. It's not that I didn't realize that medicine, they do the same thing every day. It was just that was my first actual realization, like, oh my gosh, the same thing every day. And then as I shadowed PA and doctors as well, I realized, yeah, a lot of this stuff is the same every day, but I just thought that the autonomy and the material, and it was a little bit different, something that I thought I could stomach a lot better day in and day out. And as an athlete, I think typically athletes think, okay, physical therapist, I'm going to be out on the sports field hanging out with athletes, taking care of the football players and the baseball players, but in reality, you're in an office setting typically. There's a bunch of oxygenarians with hip surgeries. I definitely wasn't what I thought. Even in sports medicine clinic, it was not many young kids because let's face it, young kids are invincible, so. All right. So that was your gap year. At what point did you go, oh crap, maybe medicine is what I want. And when you made that realization, how did you figure out what exactly you needed to catch up on as far as shadowing or volunteering or coursework? Yeah, so it kind of spun off of the physical therapy shadowing. I said, okay, this, this is the one I want to do, but I knew that the school in my town was starting up a PA program. I was like, okay, I should look into that, you know, they make, you know, two years, they make good money. Let's go look into that. So then I actually had a couple contacts. I started shadowing a couple of PAs. And it was when I was shadowing a PA, I was like, okay, this is cool, but I think I want to do what the doctor does. And that kind of just drew me to that. And so I actually applied to the program for PA program, got accepted in the program, and then turned it down before I even took the MCAT. I was like, you know, this is, I need, this isn't what I want to do. I want to go into medicine. So after that, I was just shadowing a little bit more with physicians and different settings that ER, ortho, and family practice. And just through shadowing, I realized, okay, this is, this is what I want to do. And, and you know, I had, had, I had had a pre-med advisor back in the day at school. And I'd say in contact with her. But I mean, she's actually awesome. She's my mentor, but she wasn't the actual pre-medivize for the school. I just switched because I enjoyed her. But, so I didn't really know the pre-med advisors that well. But honestly, just listening through your podcast, it was a huge, so shout out to you, Ren. It was a huge help because I just, I knew what I needed to do a lot better just talking and listening to your podcast and looking up and researching online. So it was kind of a DIY how to get into med school. Nice. You, you mentioned while you're shadowing the physician assistants, kind of having that realization, I want to do what the doctors do. What, what was it that you were doing day in and day out with the physician assistants that, where you saw a difference and made you want to take that next level and be a physician? Yeah. So the first thing was when I was in the ER and I was shadowing a PA, just the level of cases that they saw. I mean, if you came in and something was, was going on, it was always the doctor who was in charge. And it's just something that I've always innately had, just the desire to, to be in leadership roles. It's something that, I mean, every team I've ever been out, I've been a captain and it's just, I really like being in leadership positions and calling the shots. So seeing, you know, just the, the case loads and what type of cases, Dr. C versus PAs was one thing immediately that. I just knew that was a difference that I needed to be a doctor instead of a PA. Okay. Awesome. So you got everything you needed by listening to this podcast that you're now a guest on. Congratulations. It's surreal. It's surreal. When, so you applied this year. Correct. What was the AMCAS application like? Yeah. So just so everyone can get the time on straight. This is currently my second gap year. So this didn't all happen just in one year. So it's, it's, it was a year to decide to apply to med school and then a full year of applying to med school, which it really is, it takes forever. But the AMCAS application, oh boy, start early. It's my biggest piece of advice for everyone. It's, it's a little intimidating. You go on there and there's 50 different tabs and you need a personal statement and all your information and make sure everything's spelled and formatted correctly. And it's, it's kind of an intimidating thing to start, but I found that if you do a little by little, it's really not that big of a deal. So the AMCAS for me was definitely a multi day slash probably week ordeal. I just do a little by little and I always edit it and check it. And I'd be sending it to my sister who's an amazing writer, my aunt who's an English teacher and making sure everything is solid and, you know, grammatically correct. So it really was a pretty long and drawn out process. But if you, if you tackle it a little bit of every day, it's not too bad. Were there any hiccups along the way with the application as far as getting your letter of letters of Breck done or your personal statement, getting that to fit? Oh, yeah. So personal statement, that's, we'll start with that. And I got, oh, I got stories for all this stuff. But I probably did about nine iterations of a personal statement. If that actually, I believe you looked at my personal statement once. So thank you for that. But my aunt also, she looked at it a bunch. She was a, she held with a lot of college admissions stuff and it was a more undergrad, but she'd done stuff with men's school as well. So she helped me a lot. And I did a bunch of personal statements and that took forever. So plan on, you know, taking a month and then plan on another month and you'll probably be safe doing that. But so the personal statement took a while. Letters of rec also, those are, that was nail biter. Absolutely. I use the service interfolio, which we've talked a lot about in the academy that seems to be floating around using interfolio. And for people who don't know, it's just a digital storing solution for letters of rec. So I could have a letter of rec and hosted for like two, three, however many years I want to pay for it. And that was the greatest way. I just emailed my professors, they logged it on digitally. They gave me my letters and it hid there. But of course, one letter writer, my baseball coach took quite some time and I had to email him probably about two days before MCAS officially opened a submit and I was like, Hey, I gave you no joke six months. I was like, I need it tomorrow. And he came through. So that was, that was clutch. But I almost didn't make the deadline, but I did. Yeah. And that's a good lesson to learn. I think as, as students, we go through the process and it's like, okay, time for my MCAS applications. And okay, I need to select letters to go to different schools. I'll let me go ask my teacher for a letter. That's not the time to be asking for a letter of recommendation. You need to be asking for letters, probably January, February timeframe, so that they're ready in June or July. Yeah, give and give, I found that if you give them time, you know, they'll probably forget the first time. That's just how it goes because they're busy people. And so that way, if you give them tons of time and remind them two, three times, yeah, I can get annoying. But most likely they're going to feel bad. They're like, Oh, shoot, I forgot again. And they'll get on it. So but getting it early is key because I submitted my, I know this goes against your advice, Ryan, I'm sorry, but I submitted it literally the minute you could do it when a MCAS opened. I submitted it. I must have been one of the first people in the nation because I had to process the next day. And whereas he just takes people a month to process, I had mine in and out in a day. So that's awesome. And I don't disagree with having your application done early and ready to go. But I typically recommend way to day or two, make sure there's no kinks in the system because it was so this year or last year where MCAS said, okay, we're closing for a week or two. There's there's a problem here. I think it was last year. It was delayed a week this year. It was this year? Yeah. So I was all mad because I was like, no, I'm all super ready. And I'm like, all these procrastinators aren't ready. I got a friend who a teammate who was applying and he's like, Oh, right, another week. I was like, this is not fair. I was so ready. But that's the Jordan method and getting ready super early. No, that's that's awesome. And as as we've said a thousand times, having your application in on time is not having it in on time is probably one of the number one reasons people don't get into medical school, qualified students not getting into medical school because they don't turn their applications in on time. Absolutely. I mean, I'm no world beater. I mean, look at my stats and I shouldn't have gotten probably multiple acceptances, but I didn't. You can't tell me that being an early wasn't. I mean, I was in before people had applications and probably in terms of accepted. So it helped me. I'm no rock star, but it helped me for sure. So let's let's talk about that. What's how did you choose what schools to apply to? Yeah. So first things first, I downloaded the MSR, you know, the that that AAMC program, it's like 20 bucks, I think something like that, just a database of all the schools and what their average stats are and all that. And so that's pretty much how I based it. I went to, obviously, I knew I was going to everything in Wisconsin because that's where I'm from. So we only have two schools, which stinks, but only one public. So that really, I mean, there's some schools that have five state schools and we only have one. So that was unfortunate. But so I knew I was going to be applying to a lot of private schools. I looked at the stats and knew that auto state public was pretty much a waste of money. So I might have applied to like one or two, just to, you know, me and see what happens. But other than that, I pretty much looked through all the private schools and was applying all the private schools where I thought, you know, my stats would fit. I mean, I didn't apply to Harvard or anything like that. But I applied to things where schools were statistically, I think I'd fit in and I had the best chance of getting in. Okay. And see, turning your application super early, how long did it take for you to start getting interview requests? Oh, man. So secondaries came rolling in really fast. And that was another thing I just tried to fill those out as fast as possible. I didn't have a secondary sit for more than probably a week. I was on top of that. You get to start reusing them after the first week. So that was great. Just make sure you edit out the school until you don't send the wrong school, the wrong school name. But after that, I probably waited a little bit and I started getting them in August, I'd say, yeah, I think early August, my first interview was late August. Yeah, my sister's birthday. So probably around mid about early mid August, I started getting an interview, you know, invites, which is pretty darn early. Yeah, that's awesome. And how many interviews did you go on? I went to... Oh, geez, let's see. How many schools did you apply to total? Yeah, I applied to 23 schools, which is a lot. In retrospect, I wish I could have this two grand back. Obviously, you know, because it's so expensive applying to school, I didn't know at the time, and you know, I'm in and I don't have any regrets because it got me where I want to go. But you know, it's kind of funny. I could have been fine with applying MCW uses and Madison. I would have been okay, but I applied to a bunch. Like 23 and I took four interviews and had five invites, I declined one. Okay. All right. What did you learn on the interview trail? Were there any surprises that you weren't expecting? Yeah, the one thing that... I'm not gonna say made me angry, but one thing I wasn't a huge fan of was student interviewers. Not that I had some awesome experiences. It had some great people who interviewed me. That was fantastic. But it was just... I was surprised that, you know, I'd go talk to a physician or a teacher or a lecturer there, and then I'd talk to a student. And it seemed like at most places, the student had the same weight in the decision that the lecturer or physician had. And that seemed kind of arbitrary to me. And, you know, one school had one single interview, and, you know, I fly halfway across the country for one half hour interview, I think that's kind of crazy. But yeah, just kind of the student... I mean, I had good times and I used it as a resource. I just pounded them with questions about the school, but it seemed crazy to me that they held the same weight as, you know, physicians. And not to say they can't, but most likely they don't have as much interview experience as the physicians. I know I wouldn't. Okay. It's interesting that you mentioned that because it's almost along the same lines as residency interviews. During your residency interviews, it's very different than medical school interviews, because it's more of a job interview. They're interviewing you to make sure that you fit in your interviewing them to make sure that you like it there and you can work with these people. And so I wonder if that's what they're trying to do with the student interviewees or interviewers. That's a good idea. Yeah, I mean, because I used it as such. I wanted to see what they're about and how the school ticks and what they thought about it. So yeah, that's cool. Did you do any MMI interviews? I did not. I had just straight regular interviews. I kind of wish I would have done that. I've been experienced. Yeah, I'd been good. All right. Interesting. So you had four interviews. How many acceptances did you get? I got two acceptances. Awesome. And that was that where? USIS, so uniform services for people don't know that. The military medical school. The military medical school and the medical college of Wisconsin. Why did you apply to the military medical school? It's just it's been always something that I've thought about doing. I actually have an old high school football teammate who's a third year now at USIS. And I saw he was going there and he's not prior military. His family wasn't. I was like, okay, that's like, whoa, I thought I first heard about what was going. What is this? And I looked into it and I was like, whoa, free school and you get paid and it's in the DC area. And I mean, I've always had the idea that maybe I'd serve someday. It just never worked out with college. I wanted to go to play sports in college and it just never worked going through ROTC or something. So I looked at that and applied and it just seemed I really I really did love the place. That's for sure. Yeah, that's awesome. And you obviously heard my interview with the Dean there. So on the podcast. Dr. Segal. Dr. Segal, Florida. He's a great guy. Oh, is he really? He is a Florida Gator. Yeah. He's great. Yeah, I actually talked about I talked to him about hearing him on your podcast and he's like, whoa, that's awesome. And maybe you can come to use this and start the use of this podcast. I was like, oh, maybe we might mentor. That'd be awesome. I'll start a conglomerate of medical education podcast. Nice. I like it. Awesome. So, have you made your decision on where you're going? You have two acceptances. Have you made that final decision? Yeah, I don't know if I said the second. It's the medical college of Wisconsin. Oh, yeah. But I'm still I don't want to say where I'm going yet, because it's still up in the air. May 15th is coming shortly. But I'm just waiting to hear back on a couple of things. But I'm pretty much I know one school I'm winning 95 percent, but I'm just I'm leaving the options open until until I'm 100% ready. Are you waiting for another acceptance? I am not actually now I've I've kissed that goodbye. I did get waitlisted at two other places, but I'm not waiting for another acceptance. It's just I'm thinking and going through some things and taking some time and considering different situations and scenarios. Okay, and that's something that's good to know for students that are applying is that it takes a long time for this whole weightless process to go through and you have the drop dead date on when a student can actually only hold one acceptance to a medical school where they have to say, okay, this is the one school that I'm picking right now. You can still change your mind later, but you can only pick that one. So if if Jordan you you uh let's let's say that you are going to medical college of Wisconsin, that's the one school that you've chosen. If you had the school that waitlisted you, if they said, okay, Jordan, we have a spot for you, you can then say, okay, I'm going to take that spot and drop medical college of Wisconsin after this drop dead date of only holding one acceptance. So there's a lot of shuffling that goes on up until orientation, up until the actual start of medical school. That's crazy. Yeah, and I feel terrible. So I'm trying to make a decision because I know there's some poor caters doesn't have any acceptance yet and he's just waiting on pins and needles to hear back. So I'm trying to be considered of that, but I also have to put my interest, you know, I worked hard to have to, you know, do do my due diligence too. Definitely. So you applied to the military medical school. Did you look into the HPSP scholarship at all? Yes, yes, I did. Uh, that was some I started filling out right away in the fall pretty much as soon as I was applying. So there's definitely, I wanted to look at both options. Okay. And how did you choose which branch of service that you applied to? Well, I was listening to this podcast with this Air Force flight surgeon. And, uh, no, but, um, I had a, uh, a buddy who's at USIS and he's in the Air Force. And I've talked to a couple people, I had a coworker whose father's in the Air Force talk to, talk to him. And just from the various people I've talked to, it's different branches. It just seemed like Air Force was probably gonna be the best fit for me. Uh, so honestly, I only talked to the Air Force recruiters, I did some research before. And then once I started talking with more people, it just, it came, it made more and more sense. So the Air Force is the only one I've applied to as of, um, right now, honestly. Okay. And have you been accepted for that scholarship? I have. I actually just found out, it was crazy story the other day. And I called my recruiter, like, Hey, am I gonna, am I gonna hear back? And he's like, Oh, there's been a problem with the system and it'll probably, you know, be mid April. And literally the next day he calls and he's like, Oh, by the way, uh, you just got the scholarship. So congrats. Thank you. It was, uh, it felt really good. That's for sure. That's awesome. Well, I look forward, hopefully one day serving with you. Uh, once you be an honor, you're down and out. That'd be great. What's with the application to HPSP? Did you have any, what was your thinking behind that? Did you, did you have any worries, concerns about doing that scholarship? Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, it's coming from a non military background. I didn't really know what to expect. So, and I still don't know what to expect. I guess to, to that extent, but it's, it's definitely there's some current concerns. That's, that's for sure. So the biggest things, I'll just go ahead and hash them out right away. The biggest things that it took me the longest to, to think about where, I mean, just giving up your quote unquote freedom, not in terms of, you know, I'm giving it literally my freedom, but just in terms of, you know, I'm not, I may not be able to go to the exact residency I want to go to. I may not be able to match right away into what specific specialty I want to go into. And I might be, you know, forcing a GMO tour or whatnot, things like that. But, uh, you know, at the end of the day, those are the biggest things is just, you know, not me, just kind of being not selfish, but just worrying really, really about me instead of, you know, other things, but just, oh, what if I, you wanted to do this specialty at this place and, you know, military doesn't offer anything like that. And so that was the biggest thing to get over is just, uh, you know, can I really trust the system and, and let go of it and just kind of, you know, hope for the best and we'll see what happens. No. And I tell everybody, including you when, when we talked about it, that you, you have to be flexible. You have to be willing to, to give up a little bit of that freedom and, and total control and be flexible with what happens because not everything is in your control, unfortunately, but there's a lot of upside. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. And that's, that's the thing too. You know, people talk about, you know, one of the, one of the adages you'll see online is don't go into it if, you know, you don't want to be in the military at all and like don't even consider finances, but I think that's a lie too. I mean, I'd be lying to you if I said I was going to go HPSP with or without, you know, if my parents were so rich that I could pay for school, I mean, I probably wouldn't do it. But that being said, it's, it allows me an awesome opportunity to, you know, go to school for free. And then we'll also doing something cool and serving and living someplace, you know, that I normally, I know myself, I'm a homebody, my whole family lives in, lives in the area and I would never, ever, ever leave if it wasn't for joining the military. So this is my, this is my way out for the time being. Yeah, maybe that's good for you. Yeah, I think so. I mean, yeah, it's, it should be an adventure. That's the way I look at it, really, is it's an adventure and, you know, you just got to be up for, I'm going to roll with the punches, so. So what are you most looking forward to next year, the first day of medical school? Oh man, I'm, I'm nervous about the first day of men's school. That's for sure. I mean, you just hear the horror stories of what, what it's like, but I'm really just looking forward to starting my path towards my eventual career and meeting a lot of cool people who are like-minded as well. You know, I've been working two years in the, in the business world and it's been good and the company's been amazing and they've been awesome and supportive of me, but I've definitely realized it's not my career. It's just kind of a job for the time being, but I'm just very excited to take that first step towards my actual career and my calling and, and just being able to study awesome stuff. I mean, it's just such a privilege to be able to study medicine and, you know, be able to help, you know, fellow humans. I think that's kind of crazy when I think about it at times and every once in a while, you know, my mom or my girlfriend will be like, oh, you're going to be a doctor. And that's pretty crazy to think about. And I'm just really excited to get started towards, you know, my actual career. That's awesome. What advice do you have for pre-meds now going through their, their journey, whether it's resources or mindset? What, what advice do you have for pre-meds out there? Yeah, my, I guess my biggest, the biggest thing that I learned through this whole process and that like other pre-meds to take is just be patient. You know, a lot of kids, we're all type A, if you're a pre-med, and especially if you're listening to this podcast, I mean, if you're spending your free time listening to pre-med podcasts, you're really typing. So my podcast is much cooler than that. No, your podcast is awesome. Don't get me wrong. It's, I mean, Brian, I listen to it, I listen to every single episode. Don't get me wrong. All right. But I'm saying, if you, if you listen, I mean, if you're actively pursuing this, you're, you're most likely really type A and really dedicated. And, and that's awesome. But also don't be afraid to take some time and kind of really explore what you want. I mean, I took two years off of school. I'm old. I'm an old geyser. I mean, 20, 25 start med school, almost 26. So it's, I'm a little older than most, but one of my best pieces of advice I could give someone is take, take your off. If you're, if you're a little unsure, and, you know, maybe want to check in, check in some things, take your off. I mean, for me, it completely shifted my entire focus. It went from only worrying about grades and worrying about this, that and the other. And then it got in the real world and realized that it's, I mean, it stinks to put it bluntly. Sometimes, you know, I'll work in an office. It's awesome. It's great, but it's just not what I want to do. So, and also you, you learn some valuable skills, like, you know, financial management. You know, you realize that debts, you do actually have to pay those back. It's not just free money. And that's been a huge lesson that I've learned while in the real world is, you know, money management and just seeing very different things. So my advice would be take your time, really make sure this is right. And you got to take your off, take your office. It's not the end of the world. Yeah, even if you don't have to, I, I, I would recommend taking your off just to get that real, real world experience in that perspective of what it's like to be a non-student for once. Yeah, I mean, you, and you won't be weird. You're not going to be an outlier. I mean, I went to interviews and I was, I was the norm. I might be a year older than most people, but I mean, it's honestly the kids who were 22 and coming straight out of school were more of the outliers than the people who had taken a year off, at least. Well, I hope you enjoyed that episode with Jordan. He's an awesome guy. I look forward to watching him grow as a medical student, as he is an academy member and will continue to interact with us through the academy. So that's, that's awesome. I look forward to that. If you have any questions for Jordan or any questions in general, you can ask them at our show notes page, which you can get at medicalschoolhq.net/73 as an episode 73. There you can leave a comment for Jordan or our question for us and we'll gladly get back to as soon as we can. As I always like to do at the end of the podcast, I want to take time to thank you for leaving us a five star rating and review. I'm going to list four more of them today. Last week, I mentioned that we had a bunch to catch up on and I have four more awesome ones today. If you haven't taken the time to do this, I would, and Allison, we would greatly appreciate you take a couple minutes of your time to leave us a rating interview. It certainly helps us with the exposure in iTunes. If you listen on Stitcher, you can leave us a review there as well. If you just go to medicalschoolhq.net/itunes to leave us a review in iTunes or slash Stitcher to leave us a review there. I want to thank home health physical therapist who says, wow, he or she just recently stumbled upon this podcast and haven't stopped listening since. Thank you. I have M. Now, Lynn, 11, who says grateful for your podcast. Thanks a million. You're welcome. A million. Aspiring ER doc says, every premed should listen. This is the best podcast I've found for premeds. Thank you, aspiring ER doc. I agree. I have Eric and Candice who say the best medical school reference on the web with two exclamation points, not just one. Thank you to those four people. I appreciate every one of you who takes the time to leave that review. I appreciate everyone who listens, whether or not you leave a rating or a review. I just like the ratings and reviews as well. Come say hi to me. I'm on Twitter, medical school HQ. Go say hi to Allison. She's Allison underscore MS HQ. I hope you learned a ton of great information today from Jordan and myself as we discussed his path into medicine. And I hope you join us next time here at the medical school headquarters. Hey, you're still listening. Go to free MCAT gift.com and download our brand new 30 plus page report on the most important pieces of MCAT information. Take your knowledge of the MCAT to the next level by going to free MCAT gift.com and downloading the free report today.
