I am currently in my third year of medical school at Mercer University School of Medicine, and will be graduating in May of 2017. I am also working on a research project with Dr. Amanda Chase at MUSM determining what differences exist between T cell function of HIV elite controllers and HIV patients requiring anti-retroviral therapy. Upon completion of medical school I plan on pursuing a residency position in a surgical specialty.
Georgia Tech is known for its rigorous coursework and high standards, and the Biology department is no exception to this rule. While I was at Tech I was challenged on a daily basis and encouraged to expect more from myself. Both the official and unofficial curriculum prepared me well for medical school and have set me up for success in the future. The most valuable lessons that I was given while at Tech were how to learn independently and how to question information in a meaningful way. I worked exceptionally hard while at Tech and I have felt the benefits of my effort throughout my entire medical education. All of the courses that I took while at Tech like neuroscience, immunology, cancer biology, and genetics of human disease have been extremely useful throughout my entire time at MUSM because they gave me a solid foundation in the principles of medicine.
No matter what you plan on doing with your life, you should put in your best effort every time into everything that you do. There will be a lot of times where you are feeling exhausted and stretched too thin, but if you can push through and maintain your standards the benefits that you will receive later will make it all worth it. The study skills and work ethic that I developed at Tech have been extremely useful in medical school and I am so glad that I worked as hard as I did while at Tech. There were a couple of times throughout my time at Tech where I felt like I was learning something that I would never use again and it made it difficult to find the motivation to really learn the information. I really never saw biology statistics coming back, but I have needed it throughout my medical education. That being said I would suggest applying yourself even if you think a class is not going to help you in the future because you never know when that information will be needed.
If you decide to come to Georgia Tech then be prepared to work harder than you have ever had to before. Tech creates a forced maturation process where your reasoning and learning skills increase at an exponential rate if you put the work in. There will be times when your individual effort will not be enough and you will need to reach out for help. I personally struggled with physics the first time that I took it, but I reached out to the faculty and my fellow students and I did really well after that. Nobody is good at everything and learning to recognize and deal with your weaknesses is part of the process at Tech, so don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it and ask for it early.
