Late autumn updates

Do I even live in New England if I don't post pictures of the foliage? Autumn came and is on its way out. We got a tiny moment of snow last night. It is starting to get cold. We're making another turn around the sun.

Clothing, cosmetics, personal finance, and minimalism

Clothing

I bought another flannel from L.L. Bean, and plan on revisiting my review of it from last year, now that I have a brand new one to compare to a year-old one. I have plans to buy another pair of professional-looking trousers, but am waiting for sales. I also have some socks and underwear to replace. This means Black Friday/Cyber Monday shopping, which I have deliberately avoided for years. I am possibly also deferring my black leather shoe (or boot) purchase for another year. I just haven't found one that I really like.

How do I build my professional wardrobe while keeping consumerism in check? As much as I try to limit myself in how much money I spend or how many items I buy, it's also important to limit how much time I spend thinking about or planning what I'm going to buy. On the other hand, isn't having a plan better than not having one? Either way, I am not satisfied with the amount of mental space I routinely use thinking about purchasing stuff. There's got to be some kind of a balance (obviously I haven't found it yet).

I also finally (finally) washed my jeans that I bought in January. It sounds disgusting, but I wore them only in <50F weather, freeze them on the weekends, and they held up well. Raw denim cult, my friends. I'll write something about them soon.

So here's something a little disappointing: my friend group talks about shopping a lot. They really love Uniqlo, and as someone who owns a lot of Uniqlo clothing, this normally doesn't bother me. And it really is a minor annoyance, but they incessantly talk about sales at Uniqlo, make multiple orders a month on Uniqlo, and joke about lacking self-control from buying at Uniqlo. I only noticed this recently because they went crazy over a specific scarf that one of them had. Two others bought the scarf immediately. Something about that makes me uncomfortable, despite how many Uniqlo garments I personally own.

Cosmetics

I'm getting back into makeup again. My goal is to have a bare bones makeup kit of items that I love and use regularly. Currently, I have holes in some parts of my kit (skincare, base), and excess in others (eyeshadow). It makes me feel more professional and put together. I will be patient in editing what I have, adding and subtracting, until it is perfect. It is 100% consistent with my personality that I am hyper-focused on what I look like. What I mean: I love my face without makeup, but if I do wear makeup, I am extremely critical about how it looks when I put it on, and how it wears throughout the day. I must still look like myself. I use very little makeup, but what I use must matter.

Personal finance and minimalism

I fell down the rabbit hole of personal finance and financial independence blogs, especially those written by residents and attending physicians. This is something I must learn.

Regarding minimalism: I'm trying. More now than ever, I realize I need to get my perspective in check before I go about trying to 'minimize' any other part of my life. I recently went to talk to one of the deans about how hassled I was by people gossiping about me (mostly my research) and he repeatedly asked me why I cared. Why did it bother me so much? I don't think I had an answer. He told me to read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (because I told him my sibling told me to read it years ago), talk to my friends and family, and keep doing what I'm doing. If there are people gossiping about my work, then I must be doing something right.

In other fronts, I'm working on reducing waste in my life. Still trying to go low waste, it's hard. But this is important to me so I'll work harder at it.

Step 1

This is the first part of the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) that will determine whether or not orthopedic surgery is magical thinking or a real option for my future. So I am studying. I am doing better in school than last year, studying better, but there is still so much room for me to improve.

I've been thinking of potential vacations to go on after I take the exam in May. The dream vacation is to do a rim-to-rim hike of the Grand Canyon, but that is a far reach of a vacation. More realistically is Katahdin in Maine.

Research and scholarly pursuits

We're finally writing the manuscript. Our project won a prize at a hospital poster session. I'm glad that something I worked hard on since this time last year is finally coming to fruition. And now, I'm looking for more research projects. I want to continue working with my same mentor, and I feel more and more strongly about orthopedic surgery.

At the same time, I am more and more curious about general surgery as well.

..speaking of my mentor and orthopedic surgery, I shadowed him in clinic this week and it was awesome. It was a lot more fast paced than the surgical oncology clinic I normally go to, but I really like his style. Straightforward, to the point, but super comprehensive about all the options a patient could have, non-operative and operative alike. Orthopedic trauma has truly a crazy spread of patients, from little old ladies to a guy my age shot several times over a basketball game, joggers hit by cars, custodians falling from ladders, etc, etc. Vastly different patients with vastly different injuries, needs, goals, and lives. More than learning about how to care for fracture patients, I have another role model for how to talk to patients, how to listen to patients, and how to identify when they have questions, reservations, or things they don't understand.

Recreational reading

I took Thanksgiving break to read as many books as I could. Sabriel (Garth Nix); The Two Towers, The Children of Hurin, and part of The Return of the King (J.R.R. Tolkien); and The Hot Zone (Richard Preston) are all great. I'm not a book reviewer, but I can recommend all of the above.

Thanksgiving

I have a lot to be thankful for

• my family loves me and supports me in every way: emotionally, financially, in small ways, in big ways
• I am exactly where I want to be doing exactly what I want to do
• I have great friends, old and new
• I am healthy and happy
• I have great mentors that push me to do strong work and let me see and do cool things
• I am finding time for creative pursuits and personal enrichment

Mt. Monadnock | New Hampshire

I realized that since coming to Boston, I have blogged very little about the city of Boston, ye, the state of Massachusetts. Instead, a good portion of my content has been excursions to Vermont and New Hampshire. Here is another one of those adventures from earlier this month.

Mt. Monadnock is one of the only geological points of interest in New England that I knew about prior to moving to New England. It has featured in the poetry of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and (quite curiously) H.P. Lovecraft. While internet sources disagree about precisely how many people climb Mt. Monadnock each year, it is generally agreed that it is one of the most summited mountains in the world, trailing Mt. Fuji.

We took the White Dot Trail up to the summit. It's a 3.8 mile loop with an elevation gain of 1771 ft, to the summit at 3165 ft. Mt. Monadnock is not a particularly tall mountain, but it is the most distinguished feature of the landscape by far.

I very wisely wore many layers and my fancy hiking boots. The hike begins with very modest uphills, and then very abruptly transitions to some steep scrambling over boulders. We kept a brisk pace because the clouds looked ominous and we definitely did not want to be caught in the rain during the ascent. I personally really enjoy scrambling and thrive on steep, steep uphills...but rain would have made the ascent very precarious. I'd say that this hike is one where good traction and ankle support are especially important.

We hiked up in short, fast bursts on major uphill sections, taking in the rolling New Hampshire valleys under threat of rainfall with each break. Because I use my iPhone for all my pictures and generally go nuts editing on VSCO, I am prone to sort of amateurish landscape photography. I'm also not used to taking pictures under such ominous clouds and mercurial sunshine (or lack thereof), so please forgive the visuals.

The second major snack break

There are two major stretches of steep scrambles, and at the end of the first was where we had a major snack break. This stretch of flat was perfect for boulder hopping, looking at all the trees growing between rocks, and stretching out. We rested a bit and then made our last push to the summit, which was a bit farther than we had initially thought.

Looking for stunted trees at the second major snack break

Lunch at the summit, which was ridiculously crowded but still very enjoyable. I can see why Mt. Monadnock is one of the most-climbed mountains in the world: it's very close to Boston, it's fairly accessible to novice hikers, and they pay-off is wonderful, both in the summit itself and the feeling of digging in to get there. I don't know if any of my photos can express how steep it was in some sections, but it took real effort, perhaps more than any of the hikes I've documented here so far.

Getting ready for the final push to the summit, which was farther than we thought

We didn't spend quite as much time at the summit as I had wanted, but it began to drizzle and we wanted to get some of the steep, scrambly descent behind us before it poured. It never did quite pour but the rocks were at some points completely covered with rain, and some of our party did slip. The descent is more anxiety-inducing, and my joints did take a beating...but luckily, I didn't fall.

Some trees on the way up. I tend to write before I edit photos, and am still not great at spacing things out. Here, the text describes the descent and I haven't even gotten to the summit pictures yet!

All in all, we left Boston at around 9 AM, stopped at McDonald's, got to the mountain and hiked up and down, went to Taco Bell, and returned to Boston at around 5 PM. I chipped in $7 for the rental car, bought hash browns for $1, bought a honeydew for $3 near Taco Bell, and mooched off some of the junk food that someone was too full to finish.

The summit

• Location: Mt. Monadnock, in Mt. Monadnock State Park in New Hampshire
• Distance/duration: 3.8 miles loop, about 2 hours to the summit
• Elevation gain: 1771 ft
• Difficulty: moderately strenuous thanks to the really steep, really fun scrambles; could be harder in rain or winter or hotter weather
• Points of interest: that sweet, sweet view
• Overall: this was a really fun, satisfying hike. The scrambling was tough, but entirely worth the pain. I can see why this place is so popular, but at the same time, the trail and summit are very crowded.

By the time I got around to editing the photos and finishing the honeydew (I froze some of it), I realized that my first year of medical school was just about over. How do I describe this first year? I can't articulate it well in this addendum to a blog post about hiking up a mountain, but here are a few thoughts about this year and the summer to come.

My first year of medical school was a lot of things. It was an affirmation in that I know more than I began that I am where I want to be doing exactly what I want to do. It was a challenge, academically and professionally, but I learn best in challenges and in failure. I made some good friends, and had more fun than I am used to having. I also found mentors: a resident who wants me to succeed, an assistant dean who let me cry in her office twice and then helped me find my courage again, a preceptor and role model who taught me not just about surgery and how to care for patients, but how to be more confident and capable.

I think I always had an impression of Boston being some kind of intellectual ivory tower of medicine, and it kind of is. However, our hospital is decidedly blue collar, safety net, and deeply concerned with the intersection of medicine and social good. I was lucky to have found and stayed on the same research project since the autumn, and will work harder at it this summer. It's about both medicine and social justice; orthopedic surgery and opioids. The opioid epidemic in New England (and the Rust Belt and Appalachia and small town America) runs deep. It's systemic and demands policy at all levels of government. It's a fight I have been waiting to enter.

As far as Lord of Three Realms goes, I have a few posts waiting in the wings. I also realized that I have half of my Germany posts from last summer yet to be written. I hadn't expected my blog to turn into New England day hike report central when I first started medical school, but I do have some hiking planned this summer, and I will take pictures and write about them. More recreational reading, and more excursions out of my culinary comfort zone (I have recipes to try).

Last thing: I'm thinking about working on the blog itself...like actually adding headings and categorizing things reasonably.

And that's it.

Snow in April in New Hampshire

It's not spring in Boston until the Red Sox home opener. Yesterday, Tom Brady threw the first pitch, and it's time for the good people of Boston to retire their Pats beanies until the autumn. Of course it was Tom Brady.

Our class had planned a trip to a cabin in New Hampshire for this past weekend. Forecasts originally declared mild springtime weather, which then changed to snow to the tune of 12-18" in the north. Well, snow did fall on Boston, but never stuck around. New Hampshire, however, was not spared. Out were the plans for a nice spring hike, and in were plans for skiing, snowshoeing, and sledding.

As usual, I have a lot of photos I wanted to share, but not a substantial amount of content to go with it. Instead, I'll do as I have done before and include an assortment of thoughts that I've had lately.

School

I'm having more difficulty with medical school this semester than last semester. I'm not entirely sure why, but I'm working harder and trying to figure out how to improve. On the clinical front, I'm more comfortable interviewing patients and just being in the hospital or in clinic.

I also recently shadowed OB/Gyn on their Labor & Delivery service and saw two births. I think I may enjoy OB/Gyn, but I wonder if that's only because I saw a C-section.

Research

I applied for a grant and I hope I get it. For the application, I had to update my CV, which had been untouched since I applied to medical school. Well, I went trawling through conference program books for all my college contributions and found that my lab in college had "posthumously" presented my project. I was given second authorship, which is the highest I've been yet, but...

...it isn't fair. I had sent my lab emails two months ago asking if anyone had taken up my personal project, and got a resounding NO, that they had abandoned it and that I need not follow up. Now I see they've published it, used my code without my permission for very similar project, and expected me not to notice.

I talked to one of the medical school faculty about it. I should be happy to be able to add things to my CV, but that project was my personal project, and that lab was my home away from home.

Winter

I still get excited for snow. I feel like I got a bit cheated out of my first true winter, but seeing all the snow in New Hampshire that Boston was spared of was very gratifying.

Raw denim, a 3 month update

Remember awhile ago I mentioned I bought my first pair of raw denim jeans? I'm still wearing them, and I'm still...not washing them. The fades are slow to come, the fabric is still stiff, and the men's fit is not very flattering, but I still like them quite a lot. I hang them up and freeze them from time to time. I wear them almost daily, and found that they are warm enough for almost any time and place I am. I should take progress pictures, but I'm simply too lazy.

Blogging

I've recently become disenchanted with some blogs that I used to enjoy, and have found it hard to either stop reading them, or find new ones to read. I doubt any of them read my blog here. Sometimes it's camping on the moral high ground. Sometimes it's sneering at the other girls, the other bloggers. Sometimes the writing is a sermon filled with errors in spelling and grammar and word choice about the vapidity of other bloggers. Sometimes the comment section is an echo chamber. Sometimes they are just mediocre when before, they were a revelation.

Snowshoeing

I would gladly snowshoe again. Next time, I'll look for a longer hike and maybe go off-trail. As snowy as my photos look, there was no wind: a very peaceful snowfall at least until the trees dumped what they collected on their boughs right onto my head.

Snowshoe ownership, even if they are cheap ones, is now a goal of mine.

Friends

I'm still friends with the same people since early in medical school and we're getting closer. What surprised me on this trip was that I'm getting better at taking opportunities to socialize and bond, and that I'm getting better at finding common ground and having fun. In the beginning, I felt like my classmates were unapproachable and unfriendly, but that doesn't seem to be the case at all.

New Hampshire

I've been on a few road trips since medical school began and the little magic of the New England countryside has still not gone. Lots of picture-perfect little towns, ponds, covered bridges, reeds, woods come straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. The vastness of the American West of my childhood road trips seem completely alien. I sometimes imagine that I could live in rural New England...

...we find a supermarket and do our shopping. I am suddenly aware of the fact that we are likely the only Asians for at least...I'm not sure, but there are definitely no other people of color in the supermarket. The people are friendly and kind, and the cashier asks me where we've come from.

"Boston," I say. That's far, she says.

She welcomes us to New Hampshire. Every time I visit, I wonder a little more if I could call New England home.

Scenes from a blizzard in Boston

Weather report: we've had a mild winter. Most days from December until now have hovered in the high 20s-low 40s F range, with several days of rain, sleet, and snow. Last week, we had a blizzard that really showed me what New England is capable of -- the snow from that Thursday is still hanging around.

I guess the point of this post is to share some pictures I took from a foolhardy trek from school to the Charles River during this very blizzard, but also to share a few thoughts that have stuck with me recently. Read on for thoughts on winter gear and medicine so far.

Winter

All season, I've been waiting for the perfect time to photograph our charming campus under snowfall, but this was not what I expected. This particular day was not terribly cold, but windy, which can be worse. The only way to navigate this kind of weather successfully is with ski goggles, wool socks, base layers, and snow boots.

We walked about two miles in total to the river and back, buffeted by wind and taking pictures along the way. The pain of revascularizing frost-nipped fingers is no joke! We helped push a car that got stuck, which was pretty fun.

Oh, yes. The Sunday before was Super Bowl Sunday, and later that week (and before the blizzard), Tom Brady took to social media to proclaim a day of rest in Boston. Well, Mayor Marty Walsh declared a snow emergency when it became clear that this nor'easter was going to be a rough one, all the public schools closed, and finally on the morning of, our classes were cancelled as well.

I shadowed orthopedics call on the Saturday after the blizzard and got some startling facts: on the very icy blizzard-eve (Wednesday), there were 70 ortho consults from the emergency department for ice-related injuries. While I was there, we saw five patients with fractures (four related to ice, one related to ice hockey).

School and research

After a disastrous exam in January, things are looking up. I did very well on my last set of exams, but my academic counselor warned me not to be complacent, but also not to take on too many other things. Those other things are research things, and after a stumble regarding authorship order on an abstract I wrote, I think things are looking up. I will be continuing my project through this summer, working on a manuscript and another conference abstract, and starting two other projects with the same attending surgeon. Research and research acquisition are still mysteries to me, and I fully recognize that I got what I have by emailing the right person at the right time, and by leveling up in "networking" and playing a game whose rules I'm just learning. And, of course, the importance of a paper trail.

I'm pretty lucky to have a mentor who has my back and introduces me favorably to faculty. My next steps are to get funding for the summer, work on the manuscript, and crunch more numbers.

A good surgeon

We have begun our second semester of our clinical medicine class, which now places us under individual mentorship of a doctor affiliated with the school. My preceptor is exactly the kind of surgeon I hope to become, and though I have been practicing my physical exam skills at his clinic, the true value of my time there is in watching him and learning how he interacts with patients.

His patients trust and like him, for one. For those who have been his patients for a long time, he remembers their kids' names and asks how the spouses are doing. When a patient is self-deprecating or despairing, he knows what to say to make them smile. He was able to recognize far before I could that a new patient with many tics and anxieties and worries was not a "difficult" patient, but one with a long history of physical abuse that he needed to (and successfully) gained the trust of. He knew what to say to a family whose patriarch was going to die. He only speaks English, but knows just enough phrases in Spanish or French to make patients laugh. He sketches out surgeries and knows what questions patients have but won't outright ask.

To be fair, I think a lot of his demeanor has to do with the fact that he is older, white, tall, wears a sharp suit to clinic, and looks like a politician. But I've learned a lot so far and know that he is exactly the kind of doctor I want to be.

And, of course, he makes me want to be a surgeon.

Strong women

Earlier this week, we had a dinner panel talk with several female doctors, mostly surgeons. It's too much to describe, but the energy was great, the speakers were all engaging and hilarious, and I felt very empowered. The night eventually became a call to arms for women supporting women in surgery, fighting the patriarchy, and becoming good doctors.

Anyhow, this is something one of the speakers, our favorite trauma surgeon said:

Keep fighting the fight. Fight it in yourself. Fight it in others. Fight it any place you can. Fight it in every place you can.

 Will do.

Dr. Samuel Shem

Consider me starstruck -- Samuel Shem came to speak at surgical grand rounds! The lecture was open to medical students as well and I got there early to make sure I got a seat.

Samuel Shem is the pen name of Dr. Stephen Bergman, the author of The House of God, which has provoked discussion and reflection within medicine for almost thirty years. Though considered satire, The House of God revealed the mistreatment and hardship that medical residents saw in training, and is practically required reading for medical students and interns.

It's rare that I get to hear the author's opinions on their own work. But really, this talk was about a great many things, with an overarching theme of retaining humanity in medicine. A few pearls from the talk:

• The House of God is about:
• the fight against injustice
• the danger of isolation
• the healing power of good connections
• medicine is a hierarchy and the group in power is not doctors, but insurance executives and corporations
• medical students are at the bottom of this hierarchy, but have strength in numbers
• the only threat to the group in power in a hierarchy is the quality of connections of the subordinate group
• the only sustainable model of health care delivery in a large, industrialized country is a national health care plan; a private market can only work if it is highly, highly regulated
• relate to patients as people
• the best thing about the Trump presidency is the incredible grassroots resistance against it

This was an exceedingly long post, but I had a lot on my mind

My friends demonstrating the depth of snow. It looks like they're holding hands, but I assure you they aren't

Letters of recommendation | Applying MD

Old-fashioned paper envelopes because a stock image of a PDF would not be that exciting.

There is a veritable bounty of resources, threads, and guides about getting good LORs, but I ran into a few issues early this cycle that have caused me a bit more stress than needed. Many of these written (and anecdotal) resources are ambiguous and/or not helpful in answering my specific questions.

This post will not tell you how to build strong relationships with letter-writers, and it (obviously) draws heavily from my personal experiences. However, my questions may well be ones that you are wondering about as well.

Letters that I used:

1 PI letter: professor, mechanical engineering, did not take a class with
2 engineering faculty letters: mechanical engineering professor (course classified as Physics on AMCAS), bioengineering lecturer (course classified as Biology on AMCAS)
1 biology faculty letter: general biology (huge class) lab TA, cosigned by the professor, whom I have never spoken to in person
1 humanities professor letter: upper division class
1 clinic volunteering letter

With the exception of the biology letter, I regularly went to office hours and built up good relationships with these faculty members. They knew me well and were pretty eager to write a letter on my behalf (except for the mechanical engineering professor, who erroneously thought that only the only faculty that should write LORs for med school were PI's, and thought I was choosing him over his colleague whose lab I did work in...but explanation brought him around).

Why did I ask for that biology letter, then?

Engineering majors will probably know the answer, and I'll address it with the biggest LOR question I've had this cycle:

1. Most medical schools require letters from faculty in the SCIENCES. Do letters written by faculty in engineering with whom you've taken engineering classes count towards this requirement?

Put simply: does engineering count as science?

The short answer: YES. However, the internet is frustratingly vague on this front, and anecdotal evidence was not particularly helpful, especially since most of my premed friends were not engineering majors. While it seems absurd that engineering would not be considered 'science,' this presumption is furthered by the AMCAS course classification table that outlines engineering disciplines as falling outside of BCPM.

As an aside, I successfully assigned the vast majority of my bioengineering and mechanical engineering classes as BCPM (B and P), and a materials science course as C. However, I did assign my independent research class and a MATLAB class as 'Engineering.'

The caveat to this letters of recommendation thing is that this post is still anecdotal evidence at best, and I strongly encourage anyone who is concerned about their letters not fulfilling requirements to verify their validity on their own. After you are verified by AMCAS (hopefully you will submit early) or even earlier, call each school you are applying to and get the answer from the admissions office.

I'm not joking. As it turned out, almost every single school accepted my preferred four letters (PI, engineering faculty, and clinic), and I only used the weak biology letter and humanities one two or three times.

Working backwards in time, here is another question I grappled with:

2. When should my letters of recommendation be in?

A side questions: is asking for a letter from a spring semester junior year professor (if applying in the summer after junior year) cutting it close?

Letters of recommendation are needed to be 'complete' at a medical school. Though they are mentioned on AMCAS and will be sent to schools through AMCAS, they are not 'due' when you submit your primary. Since you don’t want your application to be unnecessarily delayed, you want your LORs uploaded onto AMCAS well before you plan on submitting any secondaries, just to be safe.

Because I was unclear on this (a very popular internet premed resource for the UC system spread information that LORs should be ready at the primary stage) I had my writers submit their letters to the Career Center letter service by the first week of June. Biology letter blew this 'deadline,' but I didn't use that letter much anyways. If you want to submit secondaries right as they come out (maybe you submitted AMCAS early, and prewrote like I did not), mid-June is a good ball-park deadline. Virtues of being early in this process aside, 4-6 weeks is a good amount of time to give someone to write a letter. Because UC Berkeley ends the semester in early May, I was able to get a letter from someone I took a class with in the spring semester after regularly attending his office hours over the prior few months.

And going farther back in time:

3. Who should I ask for letters of recommendation and when?

Who: a faculty member (professor or lecturer) who knows you well and can vouch for your intelligence and diligence in their class. Hopefully, you've gone to their office hours and asked insightful questions, and are able to have conversations with them about relevant topics not explicitly covered in the lecture material

When: regardless of if you take their class, ask for a letter after you've developed good rapport with them. Ask them around finals week or shortly before so you'll be fresh in their mind, even if it will be another year when you apply. The spring before your application summer, ask them formally for a letter of recommendation, and get on them to stick to deadlines.

Professors do this sort of thing all the time, and part of their job is to help students of the university achieve their post-graduate goals. However, this certainly does not mean you are entitled to a letter, and learn how to receive rejection or reluctance with grace.

As for how to get the letters to AMCAS, Interfolio is a good idea. I personally used the Career Center letter service, and avoided some (anecdotal) problems of delays and lost letters by doing everything electronically and early. I don't regret setting an early June deadline, and fortunately, I did not have any trouble with my letters this cycle. I've left quite a bit out, but these were just the points that I particularly wanted clarification on when I was at this point in the application cycle.

However, I strongly recommend an external service like Interfolio simply because I would like to have certain access to those documents in case I had to reapply.

4. Closing thoughts

I may have made a mistake in some of my faculty letters, but that comes from the fact that I was a wimp and seldom pushed myself out of my comfort zone to really get to know professors. I'm sure that one of my engineering letters, and most certainly the biolog letters were weak. I also wish that I had gotten a letter from my Spanish teacher as my humanities letter since foreign languages are high-effort classes that significantly show your participation and the way you handle unfamiliar material.

I wish I'd used Interfolio, but no harm, no foul.

Go to office hours.

Spring semester forecasting

Gloomy woods in Tilden Park

Now this is the final hurrah at UC Berkeley. The objective of this semester is this: I must become a well-rounded adult. I must prepare myself to be an educated, self-sufficient, autonomous, capable, thinking member of society, and future physician. MY GPA DOES NOT MATTER AT THIS POINT but holy Hell do I want to graduate cum laude or magna cum laude. I can take the classes that I think will most fortify my knowledge, but also be fun and interesting. I do not plan on attending any more medical school interviews, and have turned down/withdrew from a few schools. I will throw all of my free time into (1) making the most out of the last semester with my close friends, (2) finishing my research projects and publishing, and (3) making the most and best positive change at the Berkeley Free Clinic. I'll probably find a hill to figuratively die on.

Without further ado:

"A placeholder title for a class for semi-privacy reasons" (4 units, letter graded): this is an upper division class cross-listed between bioengineering, including about an even split of undergrads and grad students, having to do with the design and performance of medical implants, with particular focus on mechanics and materials science. With that description, a clever snoop can probably find exactly which class this is. The reason for the vague title is that this class is taught by my PI, in whose lab I have worked since the summer after freshman year. Needless to say, I am thrilled to be in this class, which is taught by a mentor and professor whom I have always admired, about a subject that I have always been interested in. I entered college and my bioengineering major dreaming about medical implants, I have worked in a research lab studying implant failure, and will continue pursuing this interest into medical school, and hopefully the rest of my career. Furthermore, my favorite classes at UC Berkeley have been those upper division bioengineering courses that have this huge mix of students: bioengineering, mechanical engineering, materials science and engineering...group projects + the scholastic melting pot have made the most rewarding learning experiences I have ever been privileged to have. My classmates are incredibly diverse and I have much to learn from them.

Intermediate Spanish (5 units, letter graded): finally. One of my ultimate goals of college was to improve my Spanish from the level I took the AP Spanish test at in 2011. It turns out that my skills have atrophied: I am not as proficient in speaking nor understanding, and my grammar is more haphazard. There's no remedying it except for taking a class and working hard to learn it, practicing every day, and willing myself to learn a language and learn it well. I will have Spanish-speaking patients in the future, and I hope that by improving in this area, I can better serve them.

The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (4 units, P/NP): the introductory computer science course, taught in Python. After hanging out with my majority EECS and CS friends for the past 3.5 years, I will finally see what the fuss is about. I don't anticipate programming much in my future, but CS 61A is one of those quintessentially UC Berkeley courses, with a staggering >1000 enrollment a notoriously difficult professor (the infamous Prof. Hilfinger), and an almost mythic status as a general interest course of the 21st Century. I'm the only senior in my discussion/lab section, and one of the very few non-freshmen. An old dog can learn new tricks!

Wealth and Poverty (4 units, P/NP): this is another mythic UC Berkeley class, taught by former United States Secretary of Labor, and prolific Facebook soapboxer Prof. Robert Reich. I'm hesitantly excited for this class because I want to become more knowledgeable about the intersection of politics, economics, and society in this country...but Robert Reich's reputation precedes himself, as a loud, outspoken Left-wing radical, a decrier of GOP shenanigans, etc. These are not bad things, but I'm on the quest to build a political opinion of my own, which includes the decision of who to vote for in the Democratic primaries. First lecture down and he's emphasized that his political ideology is unimportant for the course, and that we should develop our own based on critical thought and research. So far, so good. An interesting feature of this course is that Prof. Reich hosts a small(er) group discussion after lecture; in the first "salon" of the semester, I asked my question and he answered, all in the presence of the film crew that had been recording all lecture.

Also: my total textbook cost of the semester thus far is a whopping $0, which is down from last semester's $15.