6: The Transition From a Community College to a 4-year School

Session 06

What happens when you leave a comfortable school that fits you and feels like home, and transition to a large school where the premed culture is toxic?

Meanwhile, check all our other podcasts on MedEd Media Network for more premed resources!

[01:20] Caller of the Week:

"I am premed, who studied at a community college. English is my second language and being in community college felt like home. There was not many premeds, no competition, cutthroat, or any of struggles that we go through for going to big university like where I am right now. At community college, I then struggled with comparing myself with others. I have a couple of premed friends. We always work together, help each other, and it felt like home. Right now, I transferred to a university and it's one of the biggest universities in the U.S. I started my first semester, this semester on campus. And it's been a great self-transition. As a Junior premed, there were many students compared to my community college. One of the biggest struggles is studying with other premeds and hearing them discussing their scores on exams, who got A and did not study as much, or those students who ask questions at lecturers and like, "I don't even know what you're talking about." It's been very tough. I know everyone struggles with different things but being surrounded by students who always get As, not really struggling, or at least, not showing that they're struggling. I spend hours on studying and trying to understand what's going on, especially as Englis is my second language. Sometimes, it's just hard to memorize a bunch of stuff in English. And sometimes, they need double the time that regular students who have been here and English is their first language, being easier on them but not me. I guess, I'm just trying to not compare myself to others. But being in this environment, it's much harder. Today, after my exams, I decided not to stick around and just go to my car. I didn't want to talk to anyone, neither before or after the exam. I didn't want to hear students saying I got an A's, I did not study. Oh this test was easy or that I wasn't ready.

I didn't want to compare myself to them because I have my own struggles. I'm trying to overcome them. So I guess it's the premed world. Many people just say yeah, it's easy. But it's not really easy, especially if you're jumping from community college to a university. And it's a totally different environment. Almost everyone in my class is a premed. I know some of my classmates are struggling like me, while others find it easy. I don't know what else to do other than just walk away from those people or try to focus on me, my self-care, and trying to do my best. Because I know, probably the hours I'm spending learning this information, I'm actually learning for the long-term, not only for the test. And learning, from each struggle, something. Whether it's like how to study for a test or I should not leave all this stuff for the night before the test, or just learning from those trials and improving myself, while other people are not really learning from their struggle. I guess that's what's going on today."

"Thank you so much for providing this collaborative environment. I listened to the first episode and it helped me a lot because I always feel stressed out and many of my family and friends are not really understanding what's going on, especially with the transition. It's not as easy as people might think. People shouldn't say that community college is much easier than a university. It's not. I study at a community college as well but I didn't really struggle with comparing myself to others. I struggled more on trying to understand and study the new material and new language and new environment."

[07:17] Community College vs. Universities

Switching from a community college to a university is...