Glide Year Spotlight
I recently got the chance to catch up with Hannah, Bennington Postbac ‘17, to chat about her experience in the program and what she’s up to in her glide year. Check out her thoughts below.
Liam - Postbac Admissions Counselor
What led to your decision to go to medical school, and why did you choose Bennington's Postbac program?
I don't really have a succinct "elevator pitch" for why I want to be a doctor, unfortunately. I became interested in health when I was working for housing nonprofits in New Orleans and spending a lot of time inside low income, elderly and disabled peoples' homes. After doing a lot of direct service work, I became really passionate about how people providing a service communicate with clients (especially when the clients are from traditionally marginalized groups) and healthcare seemed like a field where communication is especially important and frequently overlooked, if that makes sense? Working as a doctor is also a good fit for me for many practical reasons--I like jobs with a mix of hands-on work, talking to people and academic challenge, I like that there's a clear career path, etc,. I also wound up really liking science/the human body, but I didn't know that until I started taking science coursework! As far as Bennington goes--I looked mostly at programs with small class sizes and a liberal arts focus with high acceptance rates into medical school. I wound up picking Bennington over similar schools technically because of scholarship money/tuition difference. But I also liked that Bennington treated itself as more of a science program than a pre-med program--I figure I have the rest of my life to immerse myself in healthcare but just one year to take science classes! Some of the other programs were a little bit more structured and had a ton of required volunteer opportunities and MCAT prep and med school visits and it all sounded very overwhelming--I would rather do one thing well than a bunch of things half-ass. Bennington had many of the same opportunities in terms of advising/volunteering/etc., but it was individualized and a little less hand-holdey. It wound up being a good fit for me because I'm pretty independent and self-motivated and sought out volunteer opportunities and healthcare exposure once I was feeling confident in my ability to keep on top of work in addition to extracurriculars.
What was the best part of your year at Bennington?
I really loved living in a small town. It took a while to feel like I was a part of the community, but by the time I left I felt like I knew the town really well. It took some initiative to get involved in the community--I played in the (surprisingly great) community orchestra, shadowed at the hospital, volunteered at the hospice program, went to trivia at the tap house every week, took an EMT course at the rescue squad, spent a lot of time at South Street, and actively tried to make friends with people outside of the post-bacc program. Bennington is a really great, friendly place once you get to know it, and there are so many charming towns in the area to explore and great hikes just a short drive away. I also really loved the professors at Bennington, who seemed to have chosen Bennington because they were particularly passionate about teaching (as opposed to just their own academic pursuits).
Where are you in the medical school application process, and how are you spending your glide year?
I'm done with applying to 15 schools and I just had my first interview at my state school (LSU). I've scheduled interviews at three other schools and I'm waiting to hear back from the rest. Glide year wise--I moved back to New Orleans, where I had been living before the post-bacc program, and I'm working as a barista and enjoying having a low-stakes fun job that pays well for a year before jumping back into serious schooling. I'm also about to start doing HIV testing and counseling again as a volunteer and I'm very excited about that.
How did you prepare for the MCAT, and how did you feel about the experience of taking it?
I took a few practice tests during my final semester of the post-bacc program and read a few sections of the biology review guide concurrent with studying topics in our Animal Physiology course, but for the most part I focused on school work during the year hoping that learning for my courses would pay off on the exam. After school ended, I stuck around in Bennington and studied full time for a month using a variety of materials, and kept my sanity by volunteering with the hospice program, spending time with friends and hiking. Overall, I was glad the Bennington program shied away from treating pre-med coursework as MCAT prep. I found that the emphasis in all of our courses on reading and analyzing scientific journal articles was really valuable for the MCAT, which is a test mostly structured around reading and responding to passages. As for the experience of taking it--ugh, totally awful, of course. It's a 7 hour exam in a miserable little windowless room, and you get fingerprinted and patted down SO many times. I assumed I hadn't done too well afterwards, which I think is very typical, but I actually did even better than my "goal score" so I was eventually so happy that I didn't have to re-take!
Is there any advice you would give to students beginning the Postbac research and application process?
Being in the post-bacc program is a massive investment in time, money and effort, and you have to be really committed to becoming a doctor for the risk to be worth it. At some point you just have to take the plunge, ready or not, and enroll, but it's best to be prepared so I'd highly recommend getting a feel for what working in healthcare is like before starting a post-bacc program. After deciding I probably wanted to do a post-bacc program, I deferred applying for a year and volunteered as a HIV tester and counselor in order to get some hands-on experience in healthcare and see how I liked it. I didn't begin shadowing until two months before beginning the program (I had a few months at home and needed something to do) but it was SUCH a valuable experience and I think everyone should do it before starting a post-bacc. (A lot of hospitals have formal shadowing programs and you'll always have to talk to some kind of admin about HIPPA clearance and vaccinations before starting, but if you don't know any doctors, I'd honestly just recommend cold-emailing physicians in a field you're interested in and seeing if they wouldn't mind hosting you--I was surprised by how welcoming people were). One unusual thing my dad insisted that I do--which was great advice--was that I shadowed PAs, NPs and a social worker in addition to MDs and DOs (if I had had more time, I would have loved to have shadowed some allied health people too--eg. PT, OT, dietitians.) A ton of physicians I talked to really emphasized that working as a mid-level (PA or NP) is a much better career choice for most people than working as a physician (similar responsibility, more flexibility, better work/life balance, less schooling/debt, more patient contact, etc.) I wound up deciding that a MD was the best option for me personally (more schooling, more opportunity to really delve into things that interest you, more leadership opportunities and more authority) but I'm very glad I seriously considered other options rather than defaulting to the prestigious one.
