And so the Real Preparation Begins
This week has been pretty crazy. I stayed up till 5:15 am to write an essay for my philosophy course on Wednesday. I actually could have handed it in as late as Sunday, but I knew if I didn’t hand it in on Wednesday (during my last philosophy lecture), I would procrastinate it till Sunday, and waste a lot of the time I could have spent preparing for my upcoming Queen’s interview (which is a week from tomorrow).
I just had my last class of first semester yesterday, and our exam period started today and runs until March 3 (because of the strike). Fortunately, I only have one exam on the 28th, and because I aced my tests during the semester, an 80+ on the exam secures me an A+ in the course – which is really good for me considering that my interview is on the 27th, and so I won’t have to care too much about being ridiculously ready for the exam.
So while I will spend maybe an hour or two a day leading up to the exam, most of my time will be spent getting into interview mode for Queen’s.
Pretty much I have a bunch of interview questions/areas that I am reflecting on, and jotting down notes on my ideas. I’m not trying to memorize answers to interview questions, as much as I am trying to get my ideas hammered down and my approach to the questions becoming second nature – so that no matter what I’m asked, I will be able to produce a solid answer.
I also need to spend some time going over medical ethics/professionalism, as well as reviewing Canada’s health care system and issues related to that. I might also spend some time catching up on current events because I am pretty awful when it comes to stuff like that =)
One of the concepts I wanted to touch a bit on today is prioritizing. I think it’s something that I do particularly well, and something that I think a lot of perfectionists tend to struggle with.
For example, I would rather spend 100% of my time preparing for an interview and 0% studying for an upcoming exam if I knew I needed to all of my time on the interview preparation to even have a shot at getting in (that’s an exaggeration, but you get the point). I know a lot of perfectionists who struggle with the possibility at not succeeding at everything they do, so they would end up spending 50% of their time preparing for the interview, and 50% studying, essentially keeping the dream of acing both alive. However, in some cases, you might then end up falling short at both.
Sure it’s possible to do both well – I’m sure some people have the work ethic and drive to do it. Personally, I don’t. I know where my limits are in terms of work ethic. If I need to fail at something to maximize my chances at succeeding at something I think is way more important, I will definitely do it.
It’s all about prioritizing, and recognizing what’s really important to you. Sometimes you just can’t do everything well.
Related Posts:
- And So the Dates Are Set…
- One Interview Down, Two to Go!
- And so Medical School Begins… Day 1
- Roller Coaster of a Day
- So I’m leaving for Kingston today…
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Prioritizing is soo true.
It’s like “You have SAT this Saturday and you have 3 tests this week. What are you going to do?” Most people would be like “study for the tests and do mediocre on SAT” but I would actually do the opposite. I think this is because people most people are sooo used to prioritizing school tests first instead of any other “optional” tests/exams. After all, most high schoolers have only faced school-related tests before and they study for what they’re comfortable with.
I also think this is people of the competitive nature in schools. Naturally, you’d want to do better than your friends. You all write the same tests, but not everyone writes SAT. So obviously, a high academic mark would mean more than a high SAT score because that’s the only common reference point.
But if you’re desparate to get into a US school, you know that you need an x score to get in. And at this point, marks don’t matter if your SAT score is lower than an x score. And I think a lot of people don’t realize this.