The Woes of Microbiology, Part II (It Isn't All Bad News)

My Social Psychology textbook would like to lead you to believe that Bill Gates was a product of his environment, that he had unusual access to computers, even to a "keyboard system" before it was widely used, and the ability to use the computer lab at University of Washington, opportunities that many, many children did not, and that by the time Gates was a teenager, he probably had more programming experience than any other youngster in the United States. He wasn't a gifted genius, he wasn't even special, he was a rapid combination of "dumb" luck. What they really don't make much notice of is the fact that something inside of him compelled him to use this computer lab at University of Washington, even though it was only available to him from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. in the morning. He was, I would say, unusually dedicated to the craft. That, at least in my eyes, makes him remarkable. His mom complained, apparently, that she couldn't wake him up in the mornings for school, because why? He was sneaking away to study programming at an university.

And we all know what happened. Despite the lack of sleep, he still managed to keep up the grades well enough to make it into Harvard--not that it mattered.

On my second midterm in Microbiology, I scored a little over 84%, which is remarkable. Most of the time, you don't get a jump from a D to a B from one test to the next.

I told my mother that I've decided to go to medical school, something I've wanted to do since I was about ten years old. Most of the prerequisites I can get here at the community college (I will have to take biochem at an University, along with histology and others).

What's interesting about Microbiology? Since it's made for nursing students (we have one student who is pre-vet), it's focused on clinical studies, and this next exam is all about pathogens--disease-producing germs, which is fun. My very first interest in medicine, as a young child, was in food-borne illness, infectious diseases.

At least for the state of California, for the year 2017, accepted medical students had an average GPA of 3.71, and for their science courses, it was around 3.6. I find it odd that the science course GPA was lower than the overall GPA, but that probably speaks to how rigorous the program is.