The Cold, Albany, Snow, and MMIs

12/21/2013 3:45am.

I turn off the alarm from my cellular phone and groan to myself. Laying in the still-darkness of the early morning, I yawn wearily as I had only slept for approximately three hours, if not less. I had spent the precious early sleeping hours tossing and turning in bed in dreaded anxiety – going over and over again possible responses that I could say. What could have been said better. Or more efficiently.

Nervousness was my caffeine, and I did not really feel as exhausted as I would have been had this not been the singularly most important event of my life. Just a couple of days ago, I had spent hours in a stubbornly inconsolable state of the consequences of my potential failure.

To me, at the age of my early twenties, the biggest and life-turning event of my life was this: my first and only medical school interview.

I had always been very certain of my dream of being a physician. Some of these reasons are not completely professional and correct, but the crux of my obsession has never wavered. Other than the obstacles imposed by reality and my own contradictory values.

This singular interview was my chance.

I had not received notice – whether rejection or invitation – from the majority of the schools I had applied to, and as tie dragged on, my chances looked more and more pessimistic. This worried me greatly as I had been assured by many of my friends and trusted advisors that I would receive more than one interview just from a “numbers” standpoint. That and the fact that just a few days ago, I received a rejection from the Yale PhD program for neuroscience. I was astounded as upon talking with him, I was under the impression that my acceptance into the program would be something as natural as fish processing water. It was particularly stunning and difficult for me because to me, I had perceived graduate schools as my backup.

Not that I mean any disrespect to graduate schools at all. I truly respect their work and acknowledge the difficulty in the obtaining a PhD, but I had applied to schools well within my range in terms of numbers, and I had been very confident in my letters of recommendation. In hindsight, my selection choices may have not been the best.

So there I was – disappointed and unhappy with my current situation as well as unworldly nervous for my interview – boarding the airplane to fly to Albany, New York.

This, was my last hope.

Arriving in Albany International Airport was an enlightening experience. I had always known that the East Coast was cold (it snows regularly, for Pete’s sake!), but I never really knew what that meant until I stepped outside in the cold, whistling outside that was the airport terminal.

I had lived in Taiwan for a large part of my life, then California. This was completely new to me. The excitement of seeing snow on the ground and flurrying snow speckles dancing in the wind quickly wore off to chattering discomfort of the cold that numbed my fingers and toes even though I was wearing gloves and boots, respectively (that is important to clarify. I would never wear boots on my fingers. That would just be silly).

I particularly disliked how it made my hair inexplicably fuzzy. It made me deeply question how women actresses (and males who possess long hair) maintain such perfection of their hair in the East Coast in movies. Every minute shivering in the cold made me miss Californian’s sun and how that spoilt me all my life. It also poked a rising doubt of sanity in my supervisors and friends who had claimed that they enjoyed the distinct seasons on the East Coast over the sunny regularity of California.

Sunny is not boring. It keeps us happy. Geez.

I stood in the cold for about twenty minutes waiting in line for a taxi, and when I finally arrived at my hotel, I felt like those ungroomed cats that was jolted with a spasm of electivity – fluffed in all the wrong ways and deeply uncomfortable. I took a quick shower and was exceedingly happy that it was warm. I slept somewhat early in preparation of my interview the next day, but I still felt that nervousness lurking somewhere.

1/23/2013 09:20am

Despite the fact that my interview started at 11:30am, I woke up early to take advantage of the free continental breakfast offered by my hotel, and I was sorely disappointed with the broken waffle machine. I tried making a waffle that did not stick to the machine and come out dried like baked lizard skin twice, but I did not completely succeed. In the end, I accepted that this was not due to human error but to machine malfunction and managed to eat half of this thing that was supposed to be a waffle.

I met an acquaintance prior to the meeting. He had shared the same laboratory that I had worked at during the summer was attending the medical college currently, and I was graced with his time to talk with him. I think the meeting was more relaxing-based rather than information-based as there was not much that he could help me with in terms of preparing for the multiple mini interview (MMI). Instead, we talked about some common ground in our experiences at the laboratory, and he gave me some tips about the academic and social lives at the college.

When the interview finally started, I was surprised by the friendliness and “laidback” nature of the staff. I had read about this on the forums, but I was still pleasantly surprised. I had figured the forum dwellers had simply meant a politeness that was as non-aggressive towards each other, but from all the staff and students that shared their experience with us, I was truly convinced that this was indeed a genuine thing.

I was scheduled for the first interview session batch, and we sped through it in an unexpectedly efficient pace. As I have signed a non-disclosure form, I will talk about my general experience at the Albany Medical College and about the MMI:

    1. I really enjoyed how most of the interviewers were very friendly and unapproachable. This left me a really good impression of the school. Having some experience interviewing for other positions during my undergraduate career, I understood and somewhat expected interviewers to have stone-cold expressions – questioning your points at every turn of the way. Other than a couple of the stations, the majority of these interviewers was all very nice and was not intimidating at all. I felt that they were genuinely interested in my responses rather than just having to listen to an answer to the same prompt that all the interviewers this batch had pushed out again and again.

    2. The pace was indeed very fast. When I had practiced on my own previously, I struggled to fill the timeframe requirements, but I found that with the approachfulness of the interviewers, I was able to fill up the time quite well. Before I knew it, I had already finished four stations and was about to be done. You really did power from one station to another. It worked out for me, though, because I felt that process really did not give you much time to self-doubt and panic as you were forced to really switch your focus from one prompt to another. All the self-doubt came later after the interview, but that is far better than freezing up during the interview itself.

     3. I found that I agree with many people that the MMI does have advantages catered to the students as even if I messed up on a couple of stations, I could still recover in the others. It helped tremendously that you always saw a new face at each station. Knowing that they have no impression of whether you screwed up or not for the previous prompt was a great relief. At least for me, I was not obsessing on correcting my image for misspoken words or less than ideal answers.

    4. The tour guide was very friendly, and he offered us a lot of helpful information. I was fully convinced of the “student-centric” nature of the college and most likely take full advantage of all the academic and extracurricular opportunities made available to us.

Overall, I really enjoyed my experience at the college (other than the cold, of course). Afterwards, I returned to the hotel and had a nice shower and relaxed. He drove over, and we hung out afterwards, bringing me a nice, warm supper. While relieved from completing the interview, I still felt some sort of unease. I was fortunate that he was around and helped keep my mind off these things. So then, the next morning, waking up at a decent time, I woke up and arrived at the airport early to return home.

And such, concludes my first ever medical school interview. Fingers crossed for getting in.