After a semester abroad teaching English in China and two years living in Chile, I felt ready, eager and more than qualified to tackle the scholastic hurdles of college life. As is often the case, the next three years of my life didn't go quite as planned. Thrown into course work that seemed to move at a pace well beyond my own, I felt overwhelmed and discouraged. Stretching myself between shifts at a local pharmacy and an increasing number of lectures, labs and other academic endeavors, I realized that what little free time I was left with would need to be carefully funneled into a long list of extracurricular activities no competitive CV can go without.
After completing my last semester in 2017, feeling a little burnt out and exhausted but nevertheless accomplished, I graduated from Brigham Young University with a bachelor's degree in microbiology, a minor in Spanish, a polished CV and a greater desire to move forward with my plans of becoming a physician.
After taking a month to myself and reflecting on my college experience I realized how much more efficient my approach to learning might have been had I taken the time to better understand learning style. This realization came as I worked as a teachers assistant, instructing freshmen students in an introductory Spanish course, after receiving advanced scores in both oral and written proficiency exams administered by The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. It was then that I determined to move forward with my professional aspirations by moving away from the conventional approaches to learning I had adopted. With my MCAT exam date fast approaching, I knew that in order to achieve a competitive score, I would need to develop my own method of learning. One that would not only emphasize my strengths, but also allow me to develop the critical thinking skills required to become an effective, independent and lifelong learner. Through all the ups and downs, and trial and error, I've come to understand that more often than not the academic struggles we face in pursuit of lifelong learning arise when we find ourselves lost on a path that is not well suited to our unique needs. If one approach to learning doesn't produce real and lasting results, another approach surely will. Moving forward, I am confident that the challenges we face and the problems we are asked to solve, academically as well as in life, can be approached in ways that are as numerous and unique as the students who set out to understand them.