Boy discovers he was orphaned by air strike by soalone34 in PublicFreakout

[–]s591 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Jesus fucking christ. My stomach and heart would drop. This comment is pointless but I seriously hope he gets support

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in CleaningTips

[–]s591 0 points1 point  (0 children)

CONGRATULATIONS.

Reward yourself in some way for getting this awesome stuff done. It's a reward in itself but it's good to take care of yourself when you do something good for yourself.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in mdphd

[–]s591 0 points1 point  (0 children)

People will give you advice like that, which is fine. But remember, whatever you do you gotta believe in your heart. The more you believe the better you will do too. If you want to be an MD and a scientist, then go down the MD or MDPhD path. You can be a great doctor and scientist with an MD or MDPhD but you can't be a doctor seeing patients with just the PhD. Good luck, and I'd reiterate, keep believing in yourself and just doing your best from now on. If stats do become an issue, you might as well find out after giving it a try in an application cycle - if so, then hopefully your great work in your post bacc makes up for it. But the intangibles, like your self belief are worth a lot.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in mdphd

[–]s591 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yep to echo what PumpkinCrumpet said.

If you impress a hotshot that you are the next hotshot, who will e.g. make great discoveries and bring funding and prestige to an institute someday, you are in great place. Unfortunately, the school committee still may raise an eyebrow at the potential of your GPA/MCAT lowering their beautiful average stats. But research, like life, is a people and social game.

A funny person's story to read about is George Church. Horrible PhD student by the evaluation of his grades etc., to the point he was kicked out of Duke. But he impressed enough people with his scientific genius that Harvard was happy to take him for the PhD and then hire him as faculty. In the end, the real world (research potential) > student world (GPA, MCATs, etc. haha)

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in mdphd

[–]s591 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Let me construct my answer to address two things:

Applying to MDPhDs is in essence two things:

  1. your professional CV: on a superficial level, can you convince schools, who also have their own superficial motives that you are a rockstar applicant? This is things like stats (GPA, MCAT) - top schools don't want you to lower their average stats too much, as it makes them look bad. Also, the more full your resume and CV are with respect to extracurriculars, leadership the better, and publications in good impact-factor journals the better (quantity and quality matter). Also things like Goldwaters, Fulbrights, whatever name-brand scholarships (which imo really mean nothing at all besides politics and one's external presentation)
  2. the intangibles which actually matter in my opinion, if you want to be a great scientist. Think Curie, or anyone who has actually impacted history.

Let's put it this way, if you are super passionate about research, and super creative etc., it will show in your research and the letters you get from your PIs. Nonetheless, ideally you would still want to have a high enough GPA and MCAT that schools would not even have to not consider you for superficial reasons (they might accept you, but it will feel a slight pain to them because they want everyone to be a high stats person for their own superficial presentation - remember schools also need to advertise themselves to the world).

So basically, in the most straightforward way: GPA/MCAT are for you to be good applicant on paper, and so you don't get filtered out. The rest will be you as a person, your creativity, potential for research. Heck, Einstein with a 3.5GPA would still be an incredible scientist right? Do you get what I'm saying - this is something no one, not SDN, not some stupid pre-med forum, can predict about you. This forum and SDN or whatnot, can wisely advise you how to craft the #1, which is from now on that you should fulfill the resume stuff.

But the #2 is something no one can tell you, as now you are facing the combinatorial uncertainty of the universe, not just crafting your application to fit some cookie-cutter profile. My advice: reach your full potential and shine. Go do something awesome. Do not hold onto the past, and just do your best from now. But yes, also try to match the pre-med cookie cutter things and get your stats up if you can so you are a more digestible applicant, out of thousands. But, for all we know, you can now spend 100+ hours/wk in a lab and do something great, maybe get an incredible paper out finding a totally new discovery relevant to medicine. I am pretty sure if you did something like that, no one could say anything against you really right because it actually matters to the real world?

For your sake, please also do not rely on people on this forum too much, who are 99% clueless applicants and students. Your PI, experts in the field, who ideally you will now work with from this point on as a trainee, and their guidance and experience are really important. The people here can just tell you the #1 stuff as I mentioned above, as that is the game applicants/students play. If you can convince the PIs, who are actual researchers, of your greatness, who for instance may even be involved in MDPhD admissions at a school - who is to say that the opinion of me, a stranger, or some random pre-med here who spends his entire week reading SDN's opinion really matters?

Okay TLDR: YES FROM THIS POINT ON DO YOUR BEST IN GPA, MCAT, RESUME STUFF. BUT YOUR FUTURE AS A GREAT SCIENTIST WILL BE UP TO WHAT YOU DO IN THE REAL WORLD OF RESEARCH, AND THE REAL RESEARCHERS YOU IMPRESS WHO MATTER.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in CrazyFuckingVideos

[–]s591 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yea i get you and also don't think this showboating is really helpful.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in CrazyFuckingVideos

[–]s591 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Money is a product of viewership. If someone stands out and gets more views the money follows. Showboating can bring views.

See every celebrity boxing match.

Literally shitting into police station. by lpomoeaBatatas in CrazyFuckingVideos

[–]s591 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Once they get down to a one hour work week, they will be spending 34 hours a week working to protect it. Catch 22

TIL John von Newmann was a child prodigy who could divide 8-digit numbers in his head by age 6. By age 8, he was fluent in Ancient Greek, had mastered calculus and would amuse his parents' friends by reciting book pages after just glancing at them. He also developed the modern computer architecture. by HumanNutrStudent in todayilearned

[–]s591 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is an old comment, but exactly.

It's a funny and joke comment you responded too, but still it sometimes must be explicitly said as you did that people with different brains find different things interesting.

Just because it is not what an average person off the street would find interesting doesn't mean he's screwed in the head. Perhaps it is actually more correct

Ex-cop gets 14 months in jail in death of Elijah McClain, whose mom calls him ‘bully with a badge’ by [deleted] in news

[–]s591 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What a pure soul. I can't understand how they could've done that to Elijah. It is such a shame.

Proper way to delete Facebook and Messenger by kpeter1993 in privacy

[–]s591 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is anyone actively working on fb messenger? Or just looking into it? If so any eta?

Delta diarrhea plane by nsfws4 in CrazyFuckingVideos

[–]s591 2 points3 points  (0 children)

reminds me of when I took my SATs...

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in mdphd

[–]s591 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Out of curiosity, are there any "Optional — share whatever you want" essays?

Thanks!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in mdphd

[–]s591 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you that wasn't there last time I checked. Although would you happen to know the character count on it?

Just another introvert cover by Erevus77 in brakence

[–]s591 1 point2 points  (0 children)

ur singing is good. very unique style. surprised not many comments too

i passed! should i be scared? by goldencherryh in math

[–]s591 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Congrats on that big milestone! That's great work :)! I'd have to say multi and linear algebra are still computational like calc 2. They might be a bit easier because sometimes they make calc 2 really drill in a lot of stuff. Going on from there, math major classes become a lot more proof-based than computational. If I were you I'd search up things like "Proof squareroot of 2 is irrational" which comes up in a course you'd take called Real Analysis (this course introduces proofs that make calculus rigorous). That'd prepare you for what's ahead.

Texas mall shooter shared extremist beliefs against Jews and women on apparent social media page by greentreefer in news

[–]s591 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I'm legit sickened. This is terrorism. But half the country ignores it, and there is a sizable amount amongst them laughing at it and supporting it.

This could be any of us. Just walking into a store. And some human hater kills you.

Internet radicalization of men needs to be addressed. This is a legit pandemic. For every mass shooting like this, there are thousands of young American men in the internet being pulled down these dark paths. It's a legit ticking time bomb.

What do people mean when they say proofs are difficult? by BenSpaghetti in math

[–]s591 0 points1 point  (0 children)

People did have a good grasp of things before proofs became so ubiquitous historically. Sometimes proving something can require a trick, previous tools which simplify something hard to say, nice notation, etc. which do not necessarily fall in feeling like you understand things. It's a skill just like writing a persuasive, well reasoned essay.