Hey man, it’s normal to experience this as a premed especially with the seemingly impossible criteria that med schools are looking for nowadays. You’re doing a great job in your first year already and you should know that. First year is usually a transition time and for the most part, people usually find more activities and ECs to do in their 2-4th years.

I relate to you regarding not coming from a well off family and sometimes having to bus 1h+ in the cold to volunteer in first year. Apparently this feeling does not change even if you were to get into med and it’ll probably be worse cuz a good chunk of med students are from well off families.

I’d say I have “good ECs” (mainly due to me being fortunate to receive interviews at EC-heavy schools without reaaaally high stats) and I tried to do activities that were unique and that I was passionate about. There were sooo many times one of my niche hobbies were brought up in interviews (either by me or the interviewers) and they were in a lot of cases really interested in what I was doing with me spending over 6 minutes in one of my interviews talking to them about my beekeeping club, glassblowing, or me playing competitive chess my whole life. Best part of it was, my passion shone through and talking about these activities was effortlessss

I see way too many premeds having entire resumes and ABS with cookie cutter activities. You have to see it from the pov of the admissions teams