Since I have been back at school, I felt like it was important to start volunteering at a local hospital. Let me tell you this is no easy task. Volunteer services and human resources are the most impossible places to get a hold of and they never call back.

Well, once I finally got through to people, I have decided to volunteer in the oncology department of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. I have my interview next week to find out where exactly I will be working and what I will be doing. It will be a very exciting thing for me because the last time I volunteered in a hospital was during high school. I was a patient visitor, in which I would talk with patients directly out of surgery to make them feel better and also long-term patients without any family. A very rewarding experience and I met some great people along the way.

I chose the oncology department because it is the field in medicine that I want to go into. It seems like a good idea, kind of like an internship, to see the environment I would be working in for my future.

I also considered working in an emergency room, which I may do during the summer because during the first few years after medical school, it will be working on call, in the ER and a high stress environment. It would be wise to learn to deal with it before it actually hits.

I cannot wait to start volunteering and trying to make a difference in people’s health.

I was talking to some friends the other day about the Presidential race. I voted in my first Iowa Caucus ever, actually it was my first voting experience ever. What a fun event it was. Very old school – people crowd in a corner for their candidate, then get counted, and then we got through viability counting and then go through the process again. I voted for Barack Obama and am glad to see he is doing so well.

As a young voter, it is hard for me to vote based on issues that may not affect me yet. So I have decided to vote based on how the candidates advocate for stem cell research. The Democratic party all seem to be in favor of stem cell research. I was wondering if anyone knew about the differences between the candidates such as Obama, Clinton, or Edwards? Hope to get some responses on this issue because it is so important to my future as a scientist and also the future of medicine.

Wow, so much has happened since my last post. I finished up my semester abroad, which was a fantastic time. Any undergraduate, be it science, engineering, or humanities, needs to study abroad. It was difficult for me, but force the issue with your adviser and get the experience you will always remember.

The holidays were just great. The finals and papers due at the end of the semester were very tiring. Once I got back home (to Des Moines, IA), I was able to just kick back and relax, do some reading I had been meaning to (Dostoevsky is just amazing) and catch up with old friends.

Also, it was an especially exciting time due to the Iowa Caucuses. I saw Barack Obama give a very inspirational speech and saw Tim Russert at a local restaurant hot spot.

For the New Year, my girlfriend came all the way from New York to visit my family and me. She got to see what the heartland is actually like. Surprise Surprise, she did not think it was all that different from the east coast – exactly what I have been telling her for the last year.

I then had a hell of a time getting back to Baltimore. I had to rent a uhaul pull-behind, load it up, load my car up, then drive 1000 miles and move into my new apartment.

Now I am back school and getting into the swing of things. Starting a new project on the AraC protein of the L-Arabinose Operon using Lanthanide-based Resonance Energy Transfer to study the 3D geometry of the protein.

Alright, good off-season, now back into the semester in about a week. This weekend is a trip to New York City for a relaxing break.

I am on the eve of my first test in my semester abroad at the University of Edinburgh. It has been nearly 7 months since my last exam during finals at JHU, so I am a little anxious although nothing too bad.

This reminds me of how different the educational systems are in the USA versus the UK. Although I have only been in the UK for one semester, I can get a strong sense of their academic atmosphere. Before I came over I had these amazingly high expectations that education systems in the UK were far more outstanding than those in the USA - at least it was made to seem that way. The UK schools have less exams and place more emphasis on independent learning. What this means is 1 small exam in the semester and 1 term paper, finishing the semester with 1 major exam. Or it means 1 term paper for a humanities course. This also means students hardly ever study during the semester and cram at the very last second.

In the USA, almost all of my science classes have at least 2 exams in the semester and a final exam. There is also included papers and works for the laboratory classes. Students in the USA cram as well, I am not denying that. However, imagine having 4 exams to cram for and you study 1 week for each exam. That is 4 weeks of learning you did. In the UK if you have 1 exam and cram 1 week, you learn 1 week of material and hardly absorb anything.

It has been said that the american system spoon-feeds its students the information. I have to disagree and say that it helps to point out the most important information in the field because the information in science in HUGE. How can a professor honestly expect an undergraduate to wade through the vast amounts of data and information and expect to come to terms with all of it. We do NOT know what is the most important information in the field – that is for you to tell us ( I am speaking mainly to UK professors).

However, the UK system does promote academic exploration and I have to say since I do not know what I am supposed to know for the course, I essentially read everything that I can get my hands on. So I will come out of this semester having learned quite a bit, but I am not so sure that I will do well in the class. It is hard to focus one’s thoughts when you have to learn everything in front of you.

On the whole, I would not entirely say one system is better than the other – they are just different. Any thoughts from anyone on this issue?

OK, so now that I know I want to enter an MD/PhD program, how do prepare myself to get accepted to a strong program?

That is the million dollar question and I am still deciding how to go about this. Any input from graduate students on things they wish they had done during their undergraduate years or long-time professors with advice on how to be a good candidate are welcome.

The major decision that I am struggling with right now is what to do in my year off. I have decided that taking a year off is the best thing to do because it allows me to explore some interests and live in the real world before entering into the rest of my life. It will also allow the activities during my senior year of college to count towards graduate school admissions.

There are a couple of possibilities for me. The one I am currently leaning towards is a BA/MS combined degree in Biophysics. At Johns Hopkins, they have these combined degrees and make it easier for their undergraduates to get them as opposed to applying to masters programs outside the school. Originally I was a biology major and planning on doing a BS/MS degree in 4 years, then take that year off to do whatever. Then I took a course in biophysical chemistry and was hooked. The main reason I switched was because it was challenging and it excited me so much. Also, the professor is a fantastic person and is now my advisor. So, Dr. Barrick, thank you very much.

So now if I want to continue with the BA/MS in Biophysics, I will need 4.5 years to do it, which cuts into my year off. The main driving force for me to keep going on this path is to really help my chances of getting into a great MD/PhD program. If doing the MS will not help me, then I would rather spend my year off researching in a research laboratory in Boston, or volunteer somewhere abroad. Then again, going through the MS program would allow me to take some really great graduate level courses and enhance my understanding of the biophysical world. I also get to write a thesis on research work done during the period. Ultimately, I need to set my priorities and decide what is best for me.

Any thoughts from anyone?

A medical degree takes about 4 years, followed by 5 years of internship, residency, fellowship, and sometimes even more specialization. A PhD seems to take around 5 years in the USA. A combined MD/PhD program takes 7 years to get the MD/PhD and then the extra 5 years to train. So 12 years total before I would start actually working on my own. I will graduate with a BA when I am 22 and take a year off to be 23 years old. I will then be 35 before I even start my life, or will my life have already started?

I have talked to many MD/PhD students and every one of them has said they do not regret it (I want to find one who does regret it so I can find out why). About the time commitment, they say that I need to remember you have a life during this program. It is not as if you are only in school. You have a job and you are making a living – so that is comforting.

There has to be something amazing about this degree otherwise no one would be doing it right? One of the major benefits of the NIH Medical Scientist Training Program is that you get everything paid for and actually get money to go to school. I would come out with my degrees debt free – that is truly amazing, considering how much it costs to go to medical school.

But money is not really the issue here – the underlying values are what I am questioning. What would I derive from a combined degree that I could not get from having and MD or a PhD?

Talking with numerous professionals on this, they each have their own opinion. You can do research and be an MD, but you cannot practice medicine and be a PhD. Are the MDs trained properly in research though? I talked with two specific medical researchers that really directed my choice and then I knew which one was right for me. I first spoke with Dr. Nick Vahanian of NewLink Genetics (I worked for their non-profit organization, the Iowa Cancer Research Foundation). I have the obvious worries of getting into an MD/PhD program because the best of the best apply to these things. At the Harvard/MIT MD/PhD program there are 500 applicants, then 70 get interviews and 10 get accepted. That is 2%, wow! Anyways, Dr. Vahanian works in biotechnology and he himself is an MD finishing up on his PhD (and MBA). He said that he wished he had just immediately gone for the combined degree because it allows him so much freedom. He can instantly cross boundaries when it comes to research. He can go into the clinic and work with patients, get samples and people to join clinical trials – all immediately related to his research. He can then go back to the research lab and do research that will apply to patients. The combined degree creates this interdisciplinary approach and connectedness that the individual degrees just do not have – for me at least. I can think of plenty amazing research MDs and amazing PhDs who do work directly applicable for medicine. But I need both degrees because they will help me be better at each one. They will both enhance my ability to do the other.

The other professional I met was Dr. David G Nathan, the ex-president of Dana-Farber at Harvard Medical School. I had told him the reasons mentioned above and we discussed some more things. However, the one thing that stands out in my mind is that he told me I would make a good MD/PhD. That was all I really needed to hear – he could tell that I was worried about doing the degree and he comforted me by telling me exactly what I needed to hear. I take comfort in hearing someone who has done so much good research related to medicine tell me something like that.

I still waiver occasionally when I think about the time commitment of the degree. I see amazing people who are early thirties doing cutting edge research and I want to be doing that, but you know what, I will still be able to do that type of research and cutting edge work, just not necessarily in my own lab right away. I have to give myself time and things will get to where they need to be.

I hear other undergraduates say that they want to go to medical school to “help people.” That is great, but you can be in business and help people.

My reason for going into medicine is because I want to save lives. It is a difficult thing to lose sight of oneself in order that others can have better lives. It takes strong individuals – the kind that are weeded out through the undergraduate pre-med years, in medical school, and also in internships/residencies. The people who finally get to be called MDs or PhDs have gone through something amazing and they all say it is worth it.

As an undergraduate, I try to remember that those in medicine and science are great at what they do. They are not just anyone. They have the ability to be a physician or a great research scientist. They have trained themselves over many years and sacrificed themselves many times so that they could do something good. They are not only motivated, they are capable. You cannot be only motivated to be in medicine or science, you must have certain skill sets that other do not have. I hope I have what it takes to be in medicine and science, but I do not know yet. What I do know is that the people in medicine are saving lives and the people in research are making advances and that is just awesome.

I will openly say that I am worried about the future, but I also know that with some hard work and some luck, things will turn out great in the end and hopefully I will make a difference along the way.

Overwhelmed is a good word to describe my day, probably my life. I constantly wonder if what I am doing and where I am going is the right path. However, I also feel fortunate because I will hopefully make a career doing something that I love – science. Below are a few (or more) thoughts on my mind about being an undergraduate.

A typical undergraduate applying to medical school is overloaded these days with hoops to jump through (in the USA, not necessarily in the rest of the world). A competitive applicant will have a strong MCAT score (35) and cumulative GPA (3.8). Although this forms the basis of an acceptance, that is not all. Pre-meds need to be involved outside of the classroom and go into their university community. This means volunteering to clean up a local neighborhood and getting experience in a hospital.

We have to demonstrate leadership skills and social skills. It is not enough to be smart and intelligent, we need to be able to interact with future patients. On top of this we have to write our best essay on “Why do you want to go to medical school?” How does one come up with an original answer that stands out when the admissions officers have probably heard it all before in one form or another.

We cannot only be good at science, we have to be well-rounded in the humanities, social sciences, music, athletics, etc. We need to demonstrate the ability to teach by being a teaching assistant or something where we help someone learn.

We have to show that we care, are intelligent, can handle the pressures of medicine, be mature, responsible, resolute, have integrity, be steadfast, but we also need to be human.

I think the last one is the most important. Everyone has different ways of being a person, but to me it means making mistakes and not being perfect. If you are perfect, it leaves no room for improvement. It is important to balance one’s time and experience life.

I work hard and I am proud of that, but I always make sure to take time to relax and enjoy myself. I spend time with my girlfriend or go out on weekend adventures. Taking a semester abroad for me is a great way to explore academically and also to enjoy myself. I work during the week and then on weekends I travel to other parts of the country or Europe.

This last summer I worked in Boston at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Amy Wagers (great scientist!). I had one of the best summers of my life. It was fun, exciting and I met so many interesting people and did so many interesting things. I rented a room from an older woman. We would talk a lot and she would always remind me that I am only 20 once. I may not realize this now, but it is so important to take advantage of being young. I will only get busier and life will only get harder.

I may say that there are a lot hoops to jump through to get into medical school, but I also think this is a good thing. I do want any person off the street being able to get an MD or a PhD. It should be arduous because it means you are trained well. All of this training will matter at that one instant in medicine when you save someone’s life or come up with that big idea to change the face of science.

Bottom line – its hard work and it gets me down sometimes, but overall I love what I am doing and could not get more excited when I wake up and get to do research or learn about something new.

Hello everyone! This is a science blog about my life as an undergraduate in the road leading up to graduate school. My goal from writing here is to tell my thoughts, worries, activities, and anything else that comes to mind, so that other undergraduates can have a resource to see specifically what another one of them is doing. My hope is that the people reading this blog will not be limited to solely undergraduates – I would love to hear from prospective undergraduates, and advice from PhDs, Postdocs, and researchers/professors out in the field.

Anyways, it would probably help you to have a little background on me. I am a third year student at Johns Hopkins University majoring in Biophysics. Right now I am studying abroad at the University of Edinburgh for a semester. I will be applying to MD/PhD programs with plans to pursue oncology/hematology and research into cancer and stem cells, although I am unsure of what specifically.

I will have plenty to say, so I hope that you enjoy.

-Neil