On Taking the Next Steps

It feels like it's been a while since I've written anything 'pre-med life' related, besides semester evaluations and answering questions :)

So now it's my spring semester of junior year at UC Berkeley and a few months ago, I suddenly realized that I should be prepping for my MCAT! Like more and more people are doing nowadays, I've decided to take a gap year after I graduate so I can take some time to relax and travel a bit, and do some of the things that I haven't had time to do during my years at berkeley (I'll write a post on that when the time comes haha). However, that means that I'll have to apply to med school at the end of my senior year.. which means this is the last summer I have to study and prep for the mcat (gives me a headache just thinking about it haha). I decided to stay in berkeley over the summer for a few reasons: 1) I need to continue doing research (I didn't think my postdoc would let me take 3-4 months off), 2) I need to enroll in a mcat prep course, 3) I didn't want to go through the hassle of finding a subletter for my apartment, and 4) my hometown (in central California) is unbearably hot during the summer with absolutely nothing to do :)

I had a tough time deciding which mcat prep course I wanted to take. There are 4 main prep courses at berkeley: The Berkeley Review (TBR), the Princeton Review, Kaplan Test Prep, and Examkrackers. From high school AP prep books, I knew that Kaplan didn't fit me very well, and I haven't heard much about Examkrackers (for the MCAT), so I was stuck debating between TBR and Princeton Review. I've heard people say that Princeton Review was really helpful for verbal, but TBR was more helpful in the other sections. Another friend told me not to take any prep course at all, but that's a different story haha. In the end, I went with TBR because they hold review sessions almost everyday (except Sundays), which I thought would help guide and structure my studying, and they were cheaper (by a few hundred dollars, but still expensive!). I also signed up to take the MCAT in August, which was more nerve-wrecking that I thought it would be. I realized right then that this would be the test that would make or break it for me (I know, overdramatic) and my anxiety nearly doubled haha.

I'll update again when I start and let you know how things are going and my opinions about the course. Also, during the summer, I plan to just focus on mcat and continue working in lab part-time :)

P.S. I really should do a separate post on this, but I'm not sure when I'll think about it again, so i'll mention it briefly here- For those of you who are considering studying abroad- Do it, and don't lose your window of opportunity!! Make sure to look at your schedule in advance and see if you can fit in a summer or even a semester abroad. One of the biggest regrets I have so far is taking physics 8B over the summer, when I could have studied abroad :(

Best,
K :)