Posted by alexandra_k on December 15, 2014, at 15:48:53
In reply to Re: wrecked the bar » Twinleaf, posted by ClearSkies on December 12, 2014, at 13:38:30
thanks, guys.
i'm feeling pretty dejected about my prospects for doing medicine. i think part of what people have been trying to say to me... is that it is a lot of a lottery. and the odds really are stacked so very highly for the private school kids.
and as an attempt to solve the problem of them all taking off overseas for higher pay and better working conditions... around 1/3 of the places are set aside for Maaori and Pacific Island applicants (i'm not eligable for those)... which only makes the other part of that lottery even more competitive.
once they've given those places to the doctors kids... and the politicians kids... and the lawyers kids and the engineers kids... and the managers kids... well, i mean, c'mon, how many places were there, again?
it is stacked by years and years and years of training, to be sure. and you tell the kids that the UMAT or the GRE or whatever... that those tests are tests of innate ability / genetic superiority rather than learning. and you especially make sure that the private school kids have access to those kinds of problems and teachers that make doing them fun (or at least not a bully-able offense) while the public school kids... do not.
i have more of a chance of law... which i'm sure is a similar scenario... because of my years of tertiary learning... that means i can talk about tragedy of commons and ideal rationality and the idea of progress in law / rationality / science / mathematics... about trade-offs between the rights of different populations... about balance of power... and none of that seems strictly fair... that i have had exposure and a fair bit of holding your hand walking you through the content of that kind of stuff... but i have. and that... gives me the edge.
anyway... i'm feeling pretty demoralised with the UMAT... the little pattern recognition puzzles. next in sequence. or fill in the missing pattern. or arrange them in order and identify the middle. fairly standard maths puzzles that the maths teacher gives out as fun extension homework - right? mmm hmm. fairly natural extension of numerical sequence patters - right? only put shapes / colors / moving bits in... then you can call it 'not maths' and 'not learned'. but of course they are governed by maths rules. +1 ,+2, +3 or whatever... the same maths rules that governed the numerical sequences that some kids have had many years exposure to. i mean... i was doing numerical sequence patterns from that website... since about year 4...
anyway... i don't know that i can do well enough on the lottery. on any aspect of it. i don't know that i can get the grades i need. i don't know that i can get the UMAT score i need. i expect i can do okay on the interview... but i got a definate 'no' out of my last one so... and the UMAT... people are saying that the test is crazy hard. in the sense that to get in the very top-most percentile is not at all getting 100% of the test. that you get a hell of a lot less than that... it... is designed to overload you.
i'm not entirely sure what it is about... they were looking at introducing a lottery at some point but people objected. nobody wants to think that there is a lottery component. i... don't think i can do well in the stacked lottery. and perhaps more importantly... i find it easier to do and remain motivated doing something that i feel relatively confident in my ability. i don't feel confident in my ability to do physics... or chemistry problems, really... or maths for epidemiology. or any of the UMAT. i've realised what is odd about the person skills part of the UMAT... people in my life don't act like that. people on TV surely don't act like that. medical doctors i know don't act like that. academics don't act like that. homeless people don't act like that. psychotherapists don't act like that. who the f*ck acts like that? that is what they consider ideal rationality / emotionality / empathy to be? According to ACER? WTF?
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anyway... i'm sure it is years of innate ability...
i have these faint memories of these reading comprehension test cards... there were various boxes of them... a reading extract and multiple choice questions. they went up by colors... and you were supposed to stick to the section where you got around 95% of them right, or something. and practice. and hopefully learn to move up. those... i remember those... i remember i got to sit in the room and do those... that i worked my way through them... that i found them fun. i made it to the end. ta da. reading age of 16 (as high as they go, apparently). when i was 7. then what? public school... couldn't have started preparing me for UMAT, huh. that wouldn't have been fair. where the f*ck were the maths puzzles?????
anyway... law it might have to be. i suppose there can be variety there, too. meeting with clients. days in court. not just reading and writing reading and writing. and if all goes well and i get to be really very good i could maybe be a judges lawyer rather than a juries lawyer... or something... i don't quite know.
it is very common for people from law school here to move into politics. i guess that is common everywhere... i suppose the division of power is a lot less divided than we suppose. that lines are blurry... i don't know. i don't know what to say.
i feel... grieving already. i haven't given up. but i don't see a way. i feel very angry that people from the uni whose job it was to help people who were disadvantaged keep on about how i need to stick to my strengths that i'm lucky i have strengths whatever whatever whatever.
i guess... the only reason you do philosophy is because you love it / feel passionately about it. that is the only reason to do it. other things.. people do science and law and engineering and whatever whatever whatever... medicine... not because they feel passionately about the subject matter... but because people encouraged them to try for that particular lottery. it's a job ffs. just do what you can do with minimum fuss / effort. free up your free time. that is the point to life - right? i mean... what the f*ck is wrong with me that i don't get that / just simply do that. i mean... what is my problem?
anyway... on the one hand... no good, if the stress of this is getting to me already. on the other hand... it is that crazy time of year, again. i don't quite know what to do about summer school... i think i should do physics. grade only matters to my ego. but my ego... my performance is crucially dependent on that. my motivation, too. whether you work hard and learn more or whether you collapse into a little crumpled heap and can't bear to face it. wehter you enjoy it. wehther you don't. all depend... on whether i feel good / competent in what i'm doing. like playing cards... you aren't responsible for the hand you are dealt. you aren't responsible for winning or losing. but you are responsible for having done the best you could / following appropriate procedure or whatever for the hand you got... you have to have confidence in your best... your ability to follow the procedure, or whatever. whatever. rambling... sorry... maybe i should do summer school... i'm not finding the motivation to stick with my own work over the summer...
work. that is what is so demoralising about it all. i wanted to learn anatomy / physiology. and i am able to see that learning about things like rates of reaction and pistons and so on are somewhat relevant. are worth learning. but that stuff is hard for me. and i don't entirely know how to learn it. if that makes sense. at least teh physics people are good abotu extra help... maybe i should do it. i'm not as motivated as i thought i would be to learn chemistry etc over teh summer... maybe i really should do physics...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1058481
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20141123/msgs/1074228.html