interview

Color-Coding Has Its Limits

/ Nate / 2 Comments

Interview season is crazy and exhausting and fun and exhausting and AWESOME.

For those of you who are nonmedical, interview season is the fourth year winter when all other medical school responsibilities evaporate like a bottle of wine at a Thanksgiving dinner political discussion. No clinical responsibilities, easily avoidable committee responsibilities, sometimes cancel-able friend responsibilities.

If anyone asks you for something that you don’t want to do, you just say, “oh, sorry, I have an interview.” Continue reading →

The Reservoir of Nice

/ Nate / 4 Comments

For as much general vitriol I spew forth on this blog, I like to think I’m a pretty nice guy. I like people. I am friendly to gate agents when my flight is delayed. I used to send a “daily dose” of internet humor around to co-workers every morning.

At an interview, you’re supposed to be yourself, and I generally am. But I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon: the night of and day after an interview, particularly one for which I’ve had to travel, I am not nice. For lack of a better word, I am an asshole. Continue reading →

The First Interview, and A Near-Disaster

/ Nate / 2 Comments

I was walking from the middle of campus to the medical education building (okay, I was wandering, because I was lost) to start my interview day when I spotted a gangly-looking Asian kid in a clearly new suit walking in the same direction. He was, like me, lugging around a suitcase. I lasered in on what had to be a fellow applicant.

I introduced myself, shook the kid’s hand, and made a little small talk.

“I’m from Charlotte,” he said. I put on my best wry smile, which looks kind of like a grimace; it throws people off. I knew what was coming. Where did he go to school? Carolina. Oh, really? Me, too! That’s so funny that we’re both here and yadda yadda… Continue reading →

The Illusion of Choice

/ Nate / 1 Comment

As a high school senior, I applied to six colleges. Had I chosen my own application path, I would have applied to two, maybe three schools, but my parents insisted.

Those two schools were similar in almost every way. Both were located in the South. Both were large state schools at the top of the academic totem pole. Both had strong sports programs and both had beautiful campuses.

(In case you haven’t figured it out, the two schools were the University of Virginia and the University of North Carolina.)

I made my final decision, two days before the deadline, on three factors:

  1. School color
  2. Girl hotness
  3. Prevailing fashion sense.

Continue reading →