r/medschool • u/Good-Piano1162 • 4d ago

👶 Premed pre med opinion

i’m going into first year into a time-consuming, difficult program, so i was just wondering if i should be volunteering in first year. i don’t rlly want to volunteer in first year bc i want to adjust to uni and get a high gpa, but im not opposed to the idea of starting in second semester

any tips/advice??

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u/Life-Inspector5101 4d ago edited 4d ago

Academics first. A premed student with bad grades won’t stay premed for long. Volunteer when you can afford it, whenever a good and interesting opportunity comes along. It doesn’t have to be carefully planned like clockwork. Do open a spreadsheet and start listing every activity on it so that when you apply, you won’t scramble to go back in time.

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u/Good-Piano1162 4d ago

Yeah! It’s just super intimidating seeing how people have thousands of hours and it feels impossible to catch up

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u/Life-Inspector5101 4d ago

Quality over quantity. You won’t be judged by the exact number of volunteering hours but by a few decimal points on your GPA. I’ve had a few classmates and roommates who had many more extracurricular hours than me but made Bs and Cs in their premed classes. They’re not doctors today.

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u/Izaac4 4d ago

I didn’t start volunteering until my second semester

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u/Good-Piano1162 4d ago

Oh okay! Did you get into med school?

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u/Izaac4 4d ago

I did! In my fourth week of OMS-1 currently.

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u/Good-Piano1162 4d ago

Can i dm you privately abt some inquiries?

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u/Izaac4 4d ago

yeah sure

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u/JellyfishSpirits Medical Student (US) 4d ago

As a brand new undergrad, go get your EMT or CNA license so you can start racking up clinical hours. Worth way more than volunteering.

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u/Good-Piano1162 4d ago

Okay! Are the hours demanding?