Previously on Doc Outside the Box.

We got a question from Jay.

Hi, I'm currently in my second gap year studying for my MCAT while working a full-time job.

So this is an overnight gig.

On the ambulance as an EMT, that's busy.

I am planning to apply this upcoming cycle.

It has definitely been a struggle balancing studying and working for a department with such a high call volume.

The longer hours can take a toll on my studying, but cutting back hours is not possible due to my

financial responsibilities. Do you have any suggestions on how to balance working while studying?

My story was I applied to medical school while I was in college the first time.

We can talk about specifics about how bad my strategy was, but I didn't get in.

And I didn't make a plan for what I was going to do when I graduated.

I was just that devastated.

And the other reason, too, is I was on a wait list up until like June or July of finishing college and when I

possibly could have gone into medical school. So I was just kind of had all my eggs in that

basket. And when it didn't come through, I was like, all right, well, I got to find a job. And I'll

tell you right now, y'all, like I was looking for a job everywhere. Like Like, I worked at Comp USA doesn't exist anymore, but I was selling computers and computer warranties. If you want to know what my job was like, go watch the 40-0 Virgin. Hit it, Alfred. If you don't take this Michael McDonald DVD that you've been playing for two years straight off, I'm going to kill everyone in the store and put a bullet in my brain. Get back on the floor. Seriously, that was my job, right? Like, in the morning, you know, you're setting up and it's the same soundtrack from the morning until the evening. There's all this inter-departmental politics and people dating each other and who's going to sell the most extended warranties and all this stuff. I'll give you a free printer if you buy this warranty. It's just, it's crazy. People hanging out after. It was crazy. But I realized I was like, I don't belong here. Then I worked at Sports Authority selling sneakers and dunking on a basketball before people, you know, people are coming in. It was, it was nuts. Oh, yeah. No, you weren't.

Listen, we lowered the basketball hoop. Oh, okay. I was going to say, yeah, okay, tell the truth. We lowered the basketball hoop, right? And we dunk in and, you know, next you know, a customer comes in. you're like, what, man, what? I'm playing basketball right now. But then that was like that for like a good

six or seven months. And then at the same time my sister was working, I think she was working at AT&T. I forgot what she was doing with them. But she tried to get me a job with AT&T and you have to take this test. I failed this test. I remember there was time where I was trying to take a test with Sears. And like these, I failed to get a job at Sears. I was struggling. And this is someone with a bio degree from Lehigh University, right? I was struggling. Let me ask you a question. Do you think that you fail these tests because you actually knew that this is not the job that you wanted. And you just didn't put the effort forward to

do well on the test. No, I didn't know how to take the test. These are, these are tests that are

asking you questions about basically they want to know if you're going to steal from the job.

So the answer was yes, you were going to steal. Right. But they would ask like different types of questions in different types of ways.

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