I believe that at some point in your life, Jesus will present you with the opportunity to shift your dependence from family or those who have always provided for you onto Him, allowing Him to become your source and supply for the things you need. (Jeremy Pearsons)
My first year of medical school at USC has been almost completely wonderful so far. I think because Harvard was so difficult and it made me grow up so fast, I had less growing up to do by the time I reached the big bad dragon known as med school. Because of this, especially for the first semester, med school has been substantially easier than college for me. I know that's not the normal thing to say about medical school, but it's what I have to say about it!
Whenever I tell people I'm from Chicago, I'm always asked what brought me here. The funny thing is that before med school, I had no interest in California. As a kid, I saw California as a faraway place where all of the actors and moviemakers lived and where the weather never changed. It seemed boring and (dare I say) overrated to me, and I had no relatives or friends there to compel me to visit. Everything I knew and aspired to was either in Chicago or east of there. My relatives were across the Atlantic, in Nigeria and in London, England; the colleges I aspired to go to were in the Ivy League. As a senior in high school, I started an application to Stanford, but then I got into an Ivy League school and my flagship state school (U of I) and immediately dropped my application afterwards. Nothing could make me go to California over the Ivy League or even over U of I.
In college, I found to my surprise that several of my new friends were from California. They occasionally whined about the lack of sun and sand, they usually freaked out over the winters, and they sang the praises of In-N-Out Burger to NO END. My interest in California went from 0% to about 10%, mostly because I wanted to try this In-N-Out place that they wouldn't shut up about. But I still really had no aspirations to go there.
A couple months after college, I started finalizing my applications to medical school. I remember one day in June when I presented my already very long list of schools to my parents. They were mostly satisfied, but they wanted me to try everything possible.
"Apply to a school in California!" my mother told me.
"California?" I scoffed. "I have no reason to ever end up in California. Why would I apply to a school there?"
"Just apply to one school! You never know what's going to happen."
"Ugh. Okay."
We looked up schools in California. As an out of state applicant, I didn't even consider the UC's. Loma Linda seemed too strict. Stanford had a requirement for a sociology class; I had one, but the grade wasn't so great. I decided to not waste their admission committee's time (or mine). That eliminated all but USC, so that was the one California school I applied to.
USC gave me an interview invite two days after I submitted my secondary. We were surprised and excited. In thirty years of being in the U.S., my mother and father had never been to California, and I had never traveled west of Oklahoma, so in late October 2016, my parents and I traveled to Los Angeles together. We saw Griffith Park, Beverly Hills, and Santa Monica Pier. We marveled at the architecture and the diversity of neighborhoods and people. And then we left, expecting not to see California again for a very long time, if ever again.
On December 13, 2016, I was admitted to the Keck School of Medicine of USC. It was 2000 miles away from home, but it was the best school I got into by a country mile, and my parents, themselves immigrants from Nigeria, weren't about to let me miss my great big opportunity.
Fast forward to early May 2018, and here I am. I write from USC's Doheny Library. Outside, Los Angeles is giving us its best impression of London; it's cloudy and grey and 58 degrees outside. Other than the occasional "London" day and the exactly 6 days where it has rained, the weather has been cloudlessly sunny all year. Winter in LA is equivalent to a really nice fall season in Chicago or Boston. It's pretty amazing.
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| Corona Del Mar State Beach in Newport Beach, Orange County. No, I do not go to school here in particular, though wouldn't it be amazing if I did!? |
They say California converts people. I was told several times by my fellow Midwesterners that once I move to California, I may never want to come back. I'm not so sure about that yet. California has its flaws, just as the Midwest and the Northeast have theirs. But I do know that I have been thrust into a new adventure, and while I'm here, I am eager to explore everything I can on this so-called "Best Coast".
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| My current Facebook profile picture. I took it in a skating rink called World on Wheels in Crenshaw (part of LA). Would highly recommend it for anyone visiting! It really does have a great '90s vibe. |
I leave you (at least in this part) with a song that my roommate Juliette (who I miss dearly) used to play in her room a lot. Little did I know that the Eagles were actually welcoming me to what would soon be my new home...
(P.S. I've had In-N-Out now. It's pretty good for its price, and I like their Animal Fries. But I've definitely had better burgers--don't tell my California friends...)
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