SWAISHA: …And So I Moved In

Can I just tell you that Emory is awesome!?! Okay, now that that’s done, I want to introduce myself.

Hello, I’m Swaisha D. Fields, first-year medical student. Although I may seem a little more enthusiastic (on paper) than the average first-year, 3 months in, it is genuine enthusiasm and boy do I have my reasons for it. Before I go into those reasons, let’s get to know me a little, shall we? I was born and raised in Youngstown, OH. If you’ve ever been there before you’ve probably already formed an opinion of me (just kidding), but for those of you who’ve never heard of it, you’re not alone and you’re not missing ANYTHING. I studied at The Ohio State University for two years, before I transferred to Georgia State University where I received my B.S. in Biological Sciences back in 2003 (please, don’t do the math). Since then, I’ve been majoring in minors, and minoring in majors, pretty much up until last year when I decided to take a serious crack at applying to medical school. This wasn’t something I just came up with out of nowhere, but my confidence had taken a hit or two in my educational career up to that point so I was too unsure of myself to apply before. This brings me squarely to reason #1…

When I decided to apply to medical school (this time), my strategy was to try schools that I thought I might have a solid chance of getting accepted to, and to apply at Emory because it was here in Atlanta, where I was already living. I wasn’t sure I’d get accepted anywhere, to be honest, but it was time to find out. Although I was slowly piecing my confidence back together, I didn’t believe I had a serious chance to get into Emory SOM at all. I’d heard some pretty stellar things about the university as a whole, and never considered myself competitive enough for their MD program. So, imagine my surprise when I got a phone call on February 26th with an invitation to interview on the very last interview day, February 29th…a day that only exists once every four years, if you really think about it. With such short notice and so late in the interview season, I felt like a second round draft pick (NBA not NFL). To me it felt like, maybe someone had cancelled and they wanted to fill the spot with someone who lived close enough to get here on short notice. I felt like I had been given a great chance, and I had nothing to lose. I didn’t feel like my interviews went that well, but it was the “funnest” interview day that I’d had. I may have fallen in love that day. It was still like a pleasant dream and not something I thought was going to happen for me. I remember telling my mother all about the school, and the campus, and of course the wonderful new building and new curriculum. After that day, I didn’t give it much thought. I had two more interviews crammed into the next week, the last week of interview season for two other schools, so I put it out of my mind and kept on interviewing. Six days later, I got the good news! It was unreal! Just when I was preparing myself for that horrible waiting period between when all the interviews were done and the final decisions were made, my wait was over. I went from worrying that I wouldn’t get in anywhere to being accepted at the best school on my list. So yes, I am super excited to be here!

I am also super excited about how my time here has gone so far. So I don’t really need to go into detail about how long I was out of school, or what I was doing, but let’s just say I was very nervous to dive back into the life of a full-time student. Up until now, there hasn’t been a time where I’ve been unemployed for more than a couple of months since 11th grade. I really couldn’t wrap my brain around how hard med school would be, or how I would handle it. Fortunately, these people know what they are doing. The faculty and staff do a really good job at putting together a class, and they put together an awesome curriculum. I’ve been able to ease into student life without any hiccups. I’m hanging in there right now, and it is hard, but I lean on my classmates, and they let me. I now live in an alternate universe where I often forget how old I am (no math here either ladies & gentleman), I work harder and play harder than I ever have, and I spend more time in the med school building than I do at home…and so I moved in! =)