SIMI Juriasingani

FAILURe

Failure isn’t fatal but your mind can make you feel like it is. I came to Western with an IB diploma, a scholarship and the dream of becoming a doctor. I wasn’t too familiar with failure at the age of 17. Until my Calc 1301 midterm, I had never failed a test in my life. While it was difficult to move past that failure, I managed to pass the course and do better in the rest of my classes. However, my defining experience with failure was yet to come.

When all my medical school applications were rejected in fourth year, I remember feeling disappointed. However, it wasn’t too devastated because I knew my admission scores could be better. So, I decided to do an accelerated MSc, retake the MCAT to improve my CARS score and finish 4th year with as many 90s as I could manage. I pushed myself to the limit and managed to improve my CARS score by 3 points while doing research full-time. I even got my name on a publication and attended several conferences. By the time September 2017 came around, I felt good about my second round of medical school applications.

Being rejected again was truly devastating. I’d held on to hope until the absolute last moment but when I got the final rejection email, I didn’t know what to do or how to move forward. I found it difficult to get up every morning, but finishing my MSc thesis kept me going. It was tough to talk to my friends and family because I felt like a failure. The thought of moving back home without a job was deeply unsettling, so I decided to continue my research as a PhD candidate because my project was showing promising results.

Through introspection, I realized that somewhere along the way, getting into medical school became tied to my identity and self-worth. Over the past 18 months, I’ve worked hard to lead a balanced life and make sure I see myself as more than the sum of my achievements and failures. While I don’t regret my decision to do a PhD, I feel like it was rushed. Taking some time off probably would have helped me work through the failure faster and ease the transition to PhD life. To be completely honest, fixing my self-image is an ongoing process and there are still some bad days when failure weighs me down, but I’m proud of myself for having the courage to continue and I’m excited for what’s coming next.