Let me start off by saying Fuckin A.
Most of you will have college be the best experience of your life so far for skiing and exploring your identity. For those of us who decided on trying to get into med and grad schools college is a time of sucking up to professors you hate, working your ass off for a good GPA, getting clinical experience, researching, volunteering, working and commiserating with others in the same boat while gaining a debt the size of moby dick. Oh yeah and did I mention we don't get summer vacations and spring break is reserved for studying for midterms?
But for everyone, regardless of your program shit starts getting real your junior year of college. You're over the hump, you can't party like you used to and expect to get a job. Real life fears start to come over you, but you realize that college goes fast. You work so much and party so hard that you wake up one day and realize this ain't kansas anymore. For me Priorities had to shift. To be able to ski whistler and afford a beer in the bar there at some point in my life, not to mention do what I am passionate about with work, I had to shift priorities for now. It sucks.
It sucks because I lose my identity. Every day I have to dress up, I have saturday labs that run 8 hours, in labs friday nights until 930 PM, and the rest of the week is a shit show. I get maybe 3 hours a week where I can just mellow out and do what I want to do. After studying on sundays I have to get up on monday and put the mask back on, play nice with professors whose opinions on me decide my fate and take things in stride that I would normally punch somebody in the face for saying.
I have been skiing and boarding very little lately, I think I went 4 times this entire season. I don't have to do what I do, and i'm sure many of you have majors where you can ski and enjoy things, but my entire college career is one giant exam to get into the school for the profession I am passionate about. I am excited by very few of my courses. this was a tangent
So my point is that it goes fast. It may suck while you're doing it, but if something is worth doing the relative suffering you do to get there doesn't compare. After next year I'm free for exactly 1 year if all goes according to plan. I'm applying next summer to med schools; probably Colorado, Utah, Seattle, Vermont (oh god if i'm stuck here fml). I'll be working hospital shifts, emt shifts and maybe ski patrol shifts during the year off, but I get my Identity and ability to say to a professor "you're a prick and you have no respect for students, fuck off" back. I don't know where I'll be for the year once I'm done with my bachelors, but I'll be skiing god damnit. I'll be skiing.
