Wilder School Internship Program Frequently Asked Questions: Fill & Download for Free

Dear Beleaguered Freshman Biology Major,I was like you once, a Pre-Med (not at UCSC; I transferred into the UCSC BSOE department on my arrival to this university), but I am an EE major so take this with a grain of salt.Step 1: Acknowledge the cold hard truth that your goal will lead to a field so competitive that leisure and freedom and rest, as you knew them in the days of yore preceding this moment in time, have ceased to exist. NO parties, minimal social drinking, NO drugs (some medical institutions mandate drug testing since opiate addiction and narcotic addiction are problems), minimal to no concerts, no wandering the depths of instagram, facebook, non-instructional youtube, tumblr, Pinterest, etc. All these things just sap your time and your energy.NOTE: FAMILY EVENTS PERMISSIBLE TO INTERFERE ARE WEDDINGS, FUNERALS/MEMORIAL SERVICES, and GRADUATIONS. ALL OTHER EVENTS ARE NOT WORTH ATTENDING; your GPA will die otherwise, GPA death for you is below 3.50 on average (and that is me being optimistic on your behalf); American medical schools have high expectations.In subsequent steps, I will mention the offline and online activities that DO act as an ROI (return on investment: an economics term you will need in the days ahead).Step 2: Track down your major advisers with the efficient and ruthless determination that characterize Liam Neeson’s protagonist role in the TAKEN franchise, and hold them accountable (with LOTS of emails as a documentation trail) to make SURE they help you. I am NOT kidding.The bureaucracy of the UCSC physical and biological sciences department is even more difficult to navigate than the BSOE (one of my native program departments; I’m a double major), and may the monotheistic deity have mercy on your soul if you approach them without your proper FILLED paperwork and academic schedule.Use this class search site UC Santa Cruz - Schedule of Classes and back date to previous academic years can help you fill in your initial academic planning form, (take a blank one for them to help you fill in for your graduation date; this HELPS).[Here are the links to this year’s academic paperwork since I don’t know your specific graduation date and professed biology specialization niche.]https://undergrad.pbsci.ucsc.edu/biology/biolbs/index.htmlhttps://undergrad.pbsci.ucsc.edu/biology/biolbs/biolbs-frosh-plans.htmlBiologyhttps://undergrad.pbsci.ucsc.edu/biology/biolbs/biolbs-requirements.htmlMolecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology BS RequirementsHuman Biology BShttps://mcd.ucsc.edu/academics/undergraduate/advising/academic-planning1/hbiobs17-18.pdf(Including the major planning schedule form for Human Biology since that seems to be the most likely, given your professed interests, read instructions on the form THREE times before filling in your planned preferences for electives; the font is always too small) This form shall be reviewed solely by your major adviser.https://advising.ucsc.edu/planning/your-major/declaration/docs/academic-planning-form.pdfNOTE 1: FOR THIS FORM print it out after typing, since typed information DOES NOT SAVE IN PDF!!!Note 2: This form must be signed by your major adviser and your residential college (they are the ones that deem you ready to graduate; for your major I recommend enrolling in Crown(they seem to understand the effort and stress of your chosen profession) if possible or Oakes (location is physically remote but not as bureaucratically inclined) )Additional Note: (International internships are probably recommended for your field, (if you prefer to stay in the United States this is an excellent way to gain immersion experience for the Medical Spanish requirement to practice in American medical providers (hospitals, etc.)),so I will also take the liberty of including the study abroad website Study Abroad and their respective planning form https://studyabroad.ucsc.edu/files/uceap/AcademicPlanningForm.pdf)Their scorn (for wasting their time; they are overworked and underpaid, and in some cases, undertrained for the responsibility of guiding your undergraduate journey) will follow your indecisive and unprepared self for the entirety of your undergraduate and post-undergraduate career. Who do you think helps you find professors to intern with to write recommendation letters for medical school?Step 2a: I briefly mentioned your residential college adviser, and they are almost as important as your college advisor, if only that if they don’t agree with your major college advisor for your graduation quarter/date, then you are stuck in bureaucratic limbo and if you are stuck there long enough, you lose the eligibility you need to graduate as a student of UCSC. A FATE TO BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS. Consult with your residential college adviser’s office once a quarter (3–4 times) per academic year to ensure that you are familiar enough with the office and your graduation plan to overcome the challenge of personnel turn-over (overworked and underpaid remember?).Step 3: OPTIONAL: If you have a medically documented learning disability, don’t fret! This is not a barrier to practicing medicine; just be aware that you need documentation from your medical practitioner / provider for every year you have been in your academic system with your diagnosed physical and or mental disability; for example: documentation from your elementary school and pediatrician, middle school, high school if you received an IEP / additional educational support. Take all documentation to the Disability Resource Center in Hahn student services building so that you get the tutoring support you may need or extra testing time.Step 4: FINANCIAL AID / GRANTS: When attending this university, always act under the assumption that the financial aid office will have lines around the building consisting of anxious students and parents concerning various eBill software malfunctions. Do everything over the phone/internet/phone. Read student myUCSC site instructions first, EMAIL SECOND, call third, show up in person fourth. Do everything in your power to avoid electronically accepting any financial package with the word LOAN in the title; accept financial aid from the PELL GRANT and other such financial grants. Also consult the following scholarship search engine service in the link below. Scholarship Search Tool and College Scholarship Finder App. This site isn’t free but it is worth it since it also helps find graduate/medical school grants. Repeat after me: LOANS ARE A LAST RESORT. Death does not abrogate the obligation to repay them, so your relatives will be held responsible for repaying loans.Step 5: COMPLETE all registration paperwork. Prove that you have all of your medical immunizations (Enter the dates of your last immunization cycles for the illnesses listed in the registration protocols you will be sent as part of your orientation package). UCSC is picky about this because we are built amongst virgin wilderness and standard sanitation is difficult to achieve at the oddest times due to the unique topography (this is why students commonly joke that dorming at Porter is to be avoided at all costs; living there wasn’t that bad though…).STEP 6: Start here when all registration paperwork is finished and you have sufficiently contacted your advisers, filled in the forms, and have a graduation date. Register for the freshman success course because it teaches you how to reason and write research papers (I recommend this text: Amazon.com: The Rowman & Littlefield Guide to Writing with Sources (9781442205697): James P. Davis: Books) at the university level for your senior thesis (MUY IMPORTANTE), STEM success course for learning better study habits (MUY MUY IMPORTANTE! you need that sweet, sweet GPA).STEP 7: RECOMMENDED: Try to register in COWL 52 Personal Finance; as a doctor your medical school fees will be sinfully high, and in all likelihood unless you are affiliated with a larger institution (academia or big pharma), you will have to manage your own books for your clinic; it is an excellent course that teaches you how to manage your budget with excel and how to build a retirement fund which you WILL NEED. Here is the amazon link to the text used for this class https://www.amazon.com/Get-Financial-Life-Personal-Twenties/dp/1476782385/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1523740643&sr=1-2&keywords=beth+kobliner+get+a+financial+life&dpID=51g8nm7YB2L&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srchStep 8: Now is where we get to the nitty-gritty: To be successful you must build a solid habit foundation; fill your schedule with things that only maintain and heighten your productivity. Make a habit of exercising at a constant time at least 2–3 times a week (I recommend weight-lifting with free-weights and swimming, but you do you here); (otherwise your brain will start to really falter; it is not fun); sleep at least 8 hours per night. You will need it with the complexity of the material that your professors will slap your brain with every lecture. Ingest healthy food items; here is the general link to the dining commons (cafeteria system) website so you can access the daily menus and the ingredient lists for the menu items; this is really helpful especially if you have food allergies. UCSC - This Week's Menus.If you have to pull all-nighters; which I don't recommend but will inevitably become a necessity of your career as a doctor; here is how doctors get through their long shifts with minimal sleep: Hoard an ungodly amount of snack bars with high amounts of protein, fiber, and nutrients. To save you time and much suffering, here is the comprehensive list of snack bar brands that are permissible for what you are aiming for here: CLIF BUILDERS (TM), CLIF (R), Golean (R), Luna, Attune, Organic Food Bars, Perfect Food Bars, LARABARs (my personal favorite), Atkins Advantage, South Beach Diet, and thinkThin. Ordering them on Amazon should be possible, and I tried to include enough of a variety for you to pick and choose between them based on your personal tastes.Also try and hoard many many reusable/recyclable water bottles (with water; HYDRATION IS KEY) and black coffee (Peets almondmilk is what I recommend) cold brews (adults become lactose intolerant as the aging process happens and lactose intolerance seriously cramps your productivity, and the sugar in other drinks is difficult to control and the sugar rush will be painful to endure and is also another method that kills productivity.) Sip the coffee and water as needed and ingest a snack bar once every 2–3 hours. This is vital because it keeps your waking metabolism going and enables your brain to receive the precise quantity of glucose it requires to function at optimum capability. Ingest kale (and quinoa if possible); it tastes like a punishment but it possesses the range of nutrients and fiber needed to cope with the exhaustion of all-nighters.Step 9: Here is where I mention the uses of online and offline resources needed to keep on top of your newfound state of existence. First, your UCSC email google drive account is incredibly useful because it has unlimited storage; store all documents and PDFS and all virtual effort you create into this account; you will need it. DOWNLOAD THE GOOGLE CALENDAR APP AND SCHEDULE EVERY WAKING MOMENT ON IT. When adding any event, each event gets a 10/20 min notification, a 1-hour notification, and a 1 day notification. Events that qualify are exercise periods, breakfast, snack 1, lunch, snack 2, dinner, lecture, office hour, homework due dates, professional events and potential academic extra curriculars. Remember here that you are building the fence for yourself to be happier in the backyard you have found for yourself, and this will become easier. Also note that it is documented that Bill Gates and Elon Musk are so busy that they schedule all their moments in 5 minute segments. You can cope with this level of organization, I believe in you. Bookmark the following websites and visit them frequently.Second, make a free KHAN academy account; the math and organic chemistry you need for medical school is hard to master without their free videos and math tests (math tests are great here since you have to drill yourself a lot).https://www.khanacademy.org/Next, for physics I recommend this site The Feynman Lectures on Physicsfor chemistry check out this site Chemistry tutorialsfor biology check out Biology Study Guides - SparkNotesFor the math you will in all likelihood need; check this additional resource out: Pauls Online Math Notesto learn the python your medical practice might need (or to fulfill other needs) check out this excellent free site: Premium Quality Text and Video Tutorials at Zero CostStudy up on WebMD and similar sites now WebMD - Better information. Better health.Definitely use google search great deal here if you are stuck. NEVER LET YOURSELF STAY STUCK ON A PROBLEM FOR MORE THAN AN HOUR.Subsequently, check out the following professor’s website for the additional productivity tips to reach the GPA sweet spot you need (I include this in case the UCSC system decides not to keep funding the STEM success course). Author of Deep Work, Study Hacks Blog he is a former professor of computer science, but his kindle books on academic productivity are a must read.Step 10: Haunt the UCSC Career center building that is close neighbors with the UCSC bookstore; they have incredibly helpful workshops for resume/CV (Spoiler: for medicine, CV is the one you really want; at least for medical school…), getting hired, GMATs, and all sorts of other resources for internships that you are paying tuition to receive. Get to know the employees there since they are skilled at the art of finding gainful employment (which you will need).Step 11: Lecture: take incredible notes with the Mac OSX / iPhone app Notability because you can take photos in the PDF the program helps you create and to draw on the images you insert into the PDF. This is only way I survived general chemistry and organic chemistry. It helps in math as well. Never miss lecture if possible. FIND SYLLABUS ASAP to get lecture schedule so that you can READ THE READINGS BEFORE THE PROFESSOR LECTURES ON THAT TOPIC!!!! This is precisely why you no longer have free time. CREATE CHEAT SHEETS OF THE CONCEPTS/FORMULAS of every chapter you’re due to be tested on ahead of time, so that your brain internalizes it regardless if the professor permits a note sheet for exams. Try to complete all practice midterms/finals given to you at least 2–3 times on your own before going into an exam. Create a free account on Quizlet (link here: Quizlet) so that you can create your own quizzes for the concepts and math you shall be tested on. Try to make upperclassman friends that have taken the courses before so that you can get their notes of the general prompts for questions and to grasp the format needed so that your effort and reasoning shine out your competence to your grader/instructor.STEP 12: UCSC has unique topography so I would download pokemon GO since it has superior pedestrian GPS capabilities when compared to Google maps, and apple maps. I recommend this since the buses are crowded during business hours and it is better for you to hike everywhere; to be ontime anywhere I try to leave between 40mins-1 hour before my anticipated event if I can because of the unpredictability of the bus systems here since the hills are steep. Also bookmark the campus bus system tracker site for the white campus loop and upper campus busses and use google maps app to track the Santa Cruz metro system (blue busses) to ensure you can shave precious minutes from your commuter time. Try to be in the physical space near the lecture space before lecture since again, UCSC campus transportation is difficult to depend on.Step 13: Perhaps the most important step of all: HAUNT OFFICE HOUR!!! Your tuition pays for this irreplacable opportunity to consult the finest minds in subjects you take. I like to do a little extra research and try to ask one unusual question that is related to the concept of the class within the duration of each office hour haunting, for the professor’s office hour (PREP FOR THIS LIKE IT IS A JOB INTERVIEW, because this is how many professors select internship candidates). I tried to ask questions like this during lecture, but all it does is slow down the course content schedule and the professor gets cross for being behind in the topics. Save all course curriculum concept questions for the TAs office hours if possible.Step 14: Ask for help (definitely keep a vigilant eye on your mental state, since the stress is very high in this career field; take a mercury free omega 3,6,9 fish supplement everyday to ensure your brain has the adequate nutrition every day to make the rational decisions you need to get through this major; this will become very important during medical school and your residency (Problems With Treating Physician Depression))and don’t be afraid to teach people via the white boards in group study areas. Teaching is the best way to learn a subject.I hope this helps, since you have chosen a complex world for your own. I wish you the best in your efforts and hope that you enjoy the journey.With my best regards,M.A.