Taking Time to Seek Challanges

Following graduation I taught for two years through the New York City Teaching Fellows program before applying to medical school which I will be entering this coming academic year. Although I had been on the premed track all throughout my Cornell career, I started having serious doubts my senior year about whether or not I was ready to enter medical school. Without having been in the working world for a period of time, I thought I was was too immature and inexperienced to go straight into med school. I felt strongly that I needed to be challanged in a setting where I was not a student and in an environment that would test and grow my character. After talking to my family, friends, and mentors, I decided to delay applying to medical school and entered teaching instead.

Through the NYC Teaching Fellows program, I have been teaching secondary school math in a high-needs public high school for the past two years, while concurrently earning a graduate degree in education. To say that the experience has been challenging would be an understatement; it has certainly tested not only my drive to succeed, but also my will to advocate for others who are not in a position to do so for themselves. Teaching in the inner city has taught me how to see and deal with situations that are extremely difficult and frustrating, but more importantly it has taught me how to have tremendous hope and joy when there seems to be none. It is perhaps one of the best and most pivotal decisions I made as a senior. Without a doubt, I would make it again, for the experience has dramatically changed, humbled, and enhanced my perspective in a way that I believe will help me become an excellent physician.