hey-its-blake asked: Did you work during undergrad? If so, how did you balance, work, school and a social life?
Hi blaris-hilton!
Yep, I worked a little during junior and senior year of undergrad. Balance varies for everyone, and it doesn’t mean you get equal amount of time to pursue each one, that’s the tricky part about balance! I was fortunate enough to do a teaching job for school, and they encouraged us to schedule our work time around course time.
But the busier I am, the more efficient I become. Knowing that work, school, and life all need their due diligence, I devised ways to maximize efficiency. The best thing I did was learn to review on the go. For example, after class, I would grab lunch and immediately review my notes as I ate. Then, when I when home, I would look over the notes again, right when I got home and during a workout. These short bursts of repetitive studying really worked for me, especially because I only had short periods of time between work and school. Other things that worked for me were NO eating or daydreaming during class, blocking Friday night and Saturday night for friends and family, and learning to say ‘no’ to things or people that weren’t worth my time.
It sounds simple in retrospect, but it was a LOT of work and I’m pretty surprised/proud that I did it! If you’re in a similar spot as I was, I wish you best of luck! You can do it!
Love,
md-admissions
Ken Jeong was definitely one of my inspirations when I started this blog. medicalstate, you rock! :D And of course, Ken Jeong does, too.
Ken Jeong, MD.
As a few friends and I discussed movies, the topic turned to the Hangover, parts one and two. As we laughed and talked about the more memorable scenes we remembered, one line stopped us in our tracks.
“Did you know that the actor who plays Leslie Chow is a doctor?”
No, I did not know that. In fact, most of us did not. We all sat there looking at each other, flabbergasted. An actor? A doctor? A real doctor played a doctor in Knocked Up? I immediately whipped out my phone and checked.
Sure enough, there it was, right on his IMDb profile. A doctor of internal medicine.
I was surprised. Not just because this little bit of movie trivia had escaped me all of these years but that a doctor walked the red carpet. It seemed such a dichotomy of ideas. After all, were we not taught to shy away from shedding light about your life beyond your profession? And yet, here was a doctor showing a different side of himself to the world, not burdened by the weight of a title or a white coat.
Then again, it would not be the first time I have seen a doctor shed his skin. With all of the talk from college and faculty alike about finding life balance and pursuing our own interests, had I not seen a doctor who moonlighted as both a yoga instructor and a stand-up comedian? So perhaps, I should not be so surprised. After all, we all have a life beyond medicine, and we all need room to grow. Perhaps, Dr. Jeong is merely a more visible manifestation of our pursuit for balance. Perhaps it was time we all started thinking outside the box, and broaden our gaze to the whole horizon.
Dr. Ken Jeong, we salute you. Stay awesome.
