my failures as a college student

[@nickinouri659]

Ok honestly I thought this video would be kind of annoying because of how great you are on paper and that these shortcomings wouldn’t be very relatable, but this was soooo refreshing and relieving to watch!! Thank you for sharing this!! It sucks when you feel like your doing the “right” things and yet it feels like it’s not enough compared to others, or so disheartening when you don’t receive grants or scholarships. And the part about getting lab members (ie PI, post-docs, etc) pissed bc of balancing everything becomes too much and you make mistakes....!!!! THAT hit.

[@justinlee1742]

This is so real. Your success is the tip of the iceberg of hundreds of failures. Love that you also talked about ballroom dancing haha Also.. flex of a vest..

[@insectworld12]

I recently stumbled across this channel, and honestly, I truly appreciate how you cover both your successes (I loved watching your MD/PhD vids!) and your failures. Not everybody has this sort of transparency, and as a rising university freshman on the pre-med track, I am super grateful for this! I love your channel, your personality, and editing, and I hope you crush it @UPenn! ;D

[@dotMDlive]

Thanks for your support! :)

[@anniechen178]

Hi Michael, you seem like such a humble, kind, and hardworking guy! I appreciate your vulnerability and honesty in this video and for sharing the full range of your experiences. Your video is refreshing and inspiring. Can't wait to keep following you on your journey!

[@regretsyndrome]

absolute king for keeping it real thank you for this

[@Lee.Axel00]

As a medical student, I can't thank you enough for sharing your experiences. It's reassuring to know that even those who seem 'perfect on paper' face challenges. Your honesty is truly inspiring!

[@bobm556]

Thank you for sharing this. I was really able to connect with a lot you were saying. Also a video request: since med school cycle is starting soon, could you possibly make a video describing how you approached writing essays, specifically secondaries. Did you have a general template/method for putting down all you wanted to, dos/donts, etc. thank you!

[@dotMDlive]

Noted, thanks for the suggestion!

[@elizabethlee1490]

Thank you for the transparency! It’s comforting to know someone as successful as you has gone through some of the struggles that I have (especially with the lack of internships as a BME and low turn-outs for extracurricular events😪). Definitely agree that the fear of failure is something worthwhile to work past, I like to look at failures as stepping stones, albeit many, to success😅

[@alexpan5199]

I came across this right after pulling a paper submission from a conference. Thanks for the honesty and the encouragement to others; I relate to this very much! Michael, you've always seemed like a super composed, dedicated, and hard-working person. It's cool to see how far you've come! I wish I had talked to you more at Caltech :P

[@Lilwar195]

Really appreciate this video!

[@ludifessehaye6868]

I feel you for the club events nobody shows up to. I was so hurt the first time. Logistically, planning takes so much effort and people don’t end up honoring their “I’ll be there” ’s

[@martinbuggard6672]

I asked a question on a previous video about your publications. Thank you for the honesty and transparency here. I am happy for your success dude you are a genuinely nice and helpful person.

[@tiffanyaddy3201]

Thanks for sharing your story with us.

[@ziiamkyz]

Thanks so much for this! Out of all the videos, this is by far my most favorite! Really appreciate your honesty and you for being so candid, but also admire your tenacity and perseverance! And definitely did not see you as a ballroom dancing type... should consider posting a video of you dancing, haha.

[@michaelli2347]

This is such a real video. Thank you so much!

[@mokshadilip7063]

You are truly the best!

[@anthonytsai5482]

Swimmer pre-med here! I'm just amazed how you managed to get to where you are right now, and you deserve everything!

[@200rhea]

this is so inspiring! Thank you so much for making this video :)

[@rez505]

Thank you so much for posting this. I can really with this video, other then the caltech student and 5 years of research part 😂

[@neetikarastogi941]

Thank you so much for sharing this.

[@nd3723]

I just took an orgo test im pretty sure I did terrible on and I needed this. Thank you

[@maanasgupta]

Love the video thank you for keeping it real. I was kind of curious what ur takeaways from the research shortcomings were regarding publishing as well as applying fellowships/grants I'm kinda worried that the same thing might happen to me, is there a way to kinda keep ur best foot forward

[@dotMDlive]

The best advice I have is that specifically when it comes to applying to medical or graduate school, my impression is that it truly doesn't hurt you if you don't have any publications yet. During my interviews, I got the impression that the people I met cared a lot more about how I explained my research rather than any names on certain papers. If you're able to explain exactly why you made certain decisions in your experiments, the limitations of your projects, and how you stuck with a project for a long period of time to see where it may lead in the next 5 or 10 years, you'll be a much more powerful applicant and researcher than someone that has a couple of publications but wasn't involved enough in the projects to explain their work at a very deep level. (This advice is based on my experience as an MD-PhD applicant, for MD applicants I imagine it'd be very different!)

[@maanasgupta]

@@dotMDlive Thank you so much for the advice! That makes a lot of sense. Your channel has been a huge inspiration for me as I start down this pathway. One last question haha: I was quite lucky w this summer and being able to find a summer research position (in a lab away from my home school). Do you have any advice for how one can make the best out of a summer research experience?

[@dotMDlive]

@@maanasgupta Congrats on finding a summer research position! My advice is that treat people and labmates as important as your experiments. It's very important to do high quality and meaningful research, but I think something I've neglected myself in the past was that these summer research opportunities are also great ways to meet labmates and other students. Personally I've learned so much from my current lab members about not only science, but also about life skills, balancing lifestyle and work in academia, how to choose between different career options, and just how to be a good researcher and person as a whole. Don't neglect actively making new relationships with people! They'll be your future colleagues, mentors, friends, and everyone in between

[@samanthahenderson3749]

Love this, this was so helpful!! Do you have any advice on starting research as a sophomore? Thanks, and great content!

[@dotMDlive]

I think the best piece of advice is to try to work with a lab where you like the lab and the people in it. Yes, it'd be great to work on research that helps you develop your research skills in your future research area of interest for graduate school but imo that's very hard to predict (for myself, I'm still not positive what I want to do my PhD in after 6 years of research!). I think the best thing is to join a lab that you actually enjoy working in and can get along with your mentor, PI, and other lab mates well. These people become your future colleagues, recommenders, mentors, and friends. It's important to answer questions like do you like a fast-paced or more laid back lab culture? Will you be obligated to work on weekends? What's the PI-student relationship like? etc etc

[@samanthahenderson3749]

@@dotMDlive thank you so much, I will definitely look for a lab like that!!! Hope you know how helpful this advice is, at this point you’re more like an advisor than my premed advisor haha. I know replying to all these comments and planning out these organized vids can’t be easy w your busy schedule, so even if you were to understandably stop or pause on posting vids, I hope u know how helpful you’ve been to me and so many students!!

[@dotMDlive]

@@samanthahenderson3749 Thanks for the support! Glad you find the vids helpful 😊

[@wihibdaniel4537]

Hi Michael, Thanks for this video! Do you have any tips for someone who's taking a gap year or 2 between MD/Ph.D. or MD program? How would you go about letters of recommendation from professors who will probably not remember you after a year or so?

[@dotMDlive]

I think 1 gap year shouldn't present itself as that large of an issue, since you'll still be finishing up your senior year of undergrad when applying. For 2 gap years, it may be a little tricky but hopefully after only a year or two, the professors you're asking will still remember you. Unfortunately I don't think I'm very qualified to give any advice on this though, as I didn't take any gap years before applying or anything and have no experience in this. My best advice would be to ask anyone - school alumni, pre-med advisors, and any friends or family - if they've had a similar path/experience as you!