Journey Through Undergrad

In the fall of 2016, I started my freshman year at The University of Alabama. I'd known I wanted to go to UA for most of my life, so genetics and genetic counseling were not much of an influence in my decision. I majored in biology, as it was the closest I could get to genetics, and I quickly learned that the majority of my fellow biology majors were actually pre-med majors. I discovered that there was a whole array of pre-health tracks you could choose from, covering anything from dentistry to optometry, to veterinary medicine. Of course, there was no pre-genetic counseling track, but I figured that it was okay to just be a biology major. The degree requirements between a biology major and pre-med major were 99% similar, so I didn't think there'd be any major differences between "just" a biology major versus being on a pre-health track.

It wasn't until halfway through my first semester that I realized there actually was a major difference between a biology major and a pre-med major. When it was time to see my advisor and register for classes, I had a general arts and sciences advisor who knew the best way to plan my schedule for the next 3 semesters, but she had no idea how to help me plan for graduate school and my future career. On the other hand, my pre-med friends were given pre-med advisors that knew how to plan their semester schedules and for their future schooling and career. Not only that, but pre-med majors were also put on an exclusive mailing list that sent out emails about relevant clubs to join, great internships to apply for, and a multitude of MCAT resources. Since a good majority of biology majors were also pre-med, there wasn't a similar mailing list that included all biology majors. I spent freshmen year not knowing about things until after my pre-med friends did. I didn't know that there was a biology club (Tri beta) on campus until after a pre-med friend's advisor suggested it. I didn't know that you could secure a summer research internship at other institutes until after my pre-med friends had shipped off to different cities for the summer.

Of course, I could have been more proactive in finding the resources I needed, but I didn't know that I needed those resources. I thought my experience was the norm and didn't think twice about it. So far in my life, I was the expert on genetic counseling, but even then, I didn't really know much.

Sophomore year was when I started to get more focused on seeking experiences that would be beneficial for a pre-GC student. UA's biology department was piloting a program to allow undergraduate teaching assistants to be in introductory lab courses. I had seen how badly an extra hand was needed in those labs the year before and knew I wanted to help. I interviewed with the biology lab coordinator and managed to land myself a uGTA position. I had also started attending tri-beta meetings that fall. I learned that undergrad students could work in professor's labs on campus and that it was highly suggested to seek a research position.

I looked into what research every biology professor was conducting and found a handful of projects that interested me, but most of the labs either required you to complete cell biology and genetics before applying or had a stout time commitment. In the fall, I was taking orgo 1 and cell bio, was navigating the new uGTA program, and spent half of my time in the marching band. This left me with one viable option. I was actually really interested in this professor's research at the time; it was biostatistics heavy and I felt I would enjoy my time there. I emailed the professor telling her I was interested in her research and why and included a little bit about myself. A couple of months passed, and I didn't hear from her. I debated on reaching out again, but after making my spring schedule (which included a 5 hour orgo lab), I decided I just didn't have time in my schedule to fit research in.

It turns out I didn't need to worry about fitting research in during the school year, anyway. In the spring semester, I applied for 3 research internships that my pre-med friends had been told about. They were all paid internships and within a few hours from UA. Two of the internships were just general research internships, but one was a genetic counseling internship at the biotechnology center in my hometown. I was accepted at one of the general research internship programs and rejected from the other two. I was devastated to not get the GC internship, but I was at least thankful to have a beneficial way to spend my summer, and get paid doing it too. I won't say much about my research internship (feel free to reach out to me if you want to hear about it, though). I did gain valuable experience, but I didn't enjoy my internship overall. Some of it was due to issues with my mentor, but most of it was because I quickly realized I would rather be interacting with people than working alone with rat organs.

Sometime during the spring semester of my sophomore year, one of my pre-med friends told me he was about to start studying for the MCAT and was starting to prep for his med school applications. I started worrying that maybe I was behind on my preparation for grad school, and I started spending some of my free time researching genetic counseling grad programs. This is when I finally came to realize that my journey to GC would be a lot more complicated than just applying to the closest GC program to me. The first resource I ran across was ACGC's program directory (https://www.gceducation.org/program-directory/). As I explored some of the program sites, I kept running across the term "match" and eventually stumbled across the NMS page (https://natmatch.com/gcadmissions/). These two resources were immediately added to the top of my bookmarks, and I've visited them probably every week since.

This kicked me into high-gear planning mode. In my breaks between classes, I would pull up the program directory, open up a few program sites, and scour them for details to add to running-list word document. For each program, I tried to note the required prerequisites and recommended courses, the personal statement description, # of letters of recommendation, GRE requirements, the minimum GPA requirement, the description for the resume/CV, and any experiences or activites that they required or recommended (advocacy, crisis counseling, etc). I also wrote down what I estimated the tuition to be and the acceptance rate/how many spots they had. When I finished this document sometime in the summer of 2018, I had 42 programs listed (I didn't include Canadian programs). Just to note how much the field of genetic counseling is growing, there are now 48 programs on the ACGC directory, and there are 4 more that are awaiting accreditation for this application cycle.

I don't think there was much to note about the start of my junior year, other than I started looking more seriously into programs and deciding where I was interested in applying. In the spring, I did take the University of South Carolina's course, Genetic Counseling: Career for the Future, which is where I'll pick up with my next blog post about my journey to GC! If you want to hear more about my journey, please feel free to subscribe to the blog at the bottom of the page, or you can follow me on instagram @journey2gc!