Taking Time for Enjoying Various Activities

I am in med school at Johns Hopkins now, but I took a year off to finish the research that I started a few years back. I also didn't want to have to deal with applying and interviewing during my senior year, of which I only spent spring on campus. During the fall I participated in the Urban Semester Program. I was also looking forward to living in Boston for a year.

I was a researcher at the Molecular Neurogenetics Unit of the Massachusetts General Hospital. My goals for the year were to wrap-up a few efficacy experiments on novel therapeutic approaches for gliomas that I began in an internship during the summer between my junior and senior year. Outside of work, I also had a lot of fun co-teaching a seminar on the developments/future of genetic therapy. 

In addition to full-time research work, I volunteered my services to Children's Hospital in Boston. I spent a majority of my time preparing and conducting various art and educational activities for the chronically and acutely ill children in the PICU. Besides that I traveled as much as I could and was thrilled to have a 9—5 job that ended at 5!

The internet is a great place to find information about anything, including summer or year-long internships. I never applied to formal programs or other such things, but I used e-mail and the telephone to contact people about possible projects/work. You will be surprised how eager some people are to have young people work with them, even in the top labs of top institutions. 

What works even better is to find a Cornell connection to someone who works in the same field or is doing something along the same lines. I found my internship by way of a simple e-mail: who I am, what I have done, what interests me and why, why was I sending the e-mail. Many others have tried what I did and it also worked for them. I found the opportunities at Children's Hospital after I explored the Boston scene a little.

The decision of whether to take a year off or not ultimately lies with you and it is something that you have to think about and decide on. If you feel that you will be kept busy with doing something that you truly care about, DO IT!

About half of my classmates took off a year or more before they made their way into the medical ranks, and all of them loved their experiences. Many of them did international work, some taught middle school, others worked in the private market, a good friend of mine was a bartender in Miami, and many did research. The key to this is to find something that you will be happy doing, and not what will "look good." If you do it only because it "looks good," it will come out during your interview. 

To those who may be afraid to take a year off: DON'T BE! The only thing that I can stress is to do something worthwhile to YOU and not someone else.