As a part of the profile series on notable students at Macaulay, I recently sat down with Mariya Dvoretskaya.<\/p>\n
JJ: What is your field of study? Has it changed over the course of your undergraduate years?
\nMD: I’m majoring in Psychology and I’m on the pre-med track. I’ve switched on and off with pre-med over the years but finally decided concretely last year (junior year) that it was what I definitely wanted to do. I also was originally doing the Behavioral Neuroscience concentration under Psychology but decided not to go through with it because of lack of time.<\/p>\n
JJ: Why are you taking a gap year? Will it be after graduation and right before entry into grad school?
\nMD: Yes, it will be right after graduation and hopefully I’ll be entering medical school the year after I graduate. The gap year will give me time to apply to medical schools without simultaneously focusing on school and MCAT preparation. Also, I took some of the pre-med required classes a bit late so I couldn’t take the MCAT fast enough to avoid taking a gap year.<\/p>\n
JJ: What do you plan to do with your gap year?
\nMD: I’m definitely going to look for a job before the gap year begins, hopefully one in research or a medical-related field. It would be great to have a chance to travel to, get the most out of a year that is completely mine.<\/p>\n
JJ: What was the catalytic moment that made you firmly decide to take the year?
\nMD: The catalytic moment would have been the same one that made me decide I was definitely going to strive for medical school, since they went hand in hand. I know most people are against gap years because they add on an additional year to the education process but I think it will be beneficial to me to do something else for a little while, to experience some new things before jumping into the long road ahead.<\/p>\n
JJ: Advice or thoughts for anyone thinking about taking a year off?
\nMD: If you are considering a gap year, don’t be afraid! There’s no harm in doing it, unless of course you take a gap year and then just sit on the couch all year. But as a means of changing up your surroundings and being productive in something other than school, it’s such a fantastic idea. You can explore your interests, maybe ones that do not align with your undergraduate major or your future career, and learn something new about yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As a part of the profile series on notable students at Macaulay, I recently sat down with Mariya Dvoretskaya. JJ: What is your field of study? Has it changed over the course of your undergraduate years? MD: I’m majoring in Psychology and I’m on the pre-med track. I’ve switched on and off with pre-med over…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":703,"featured_media":2368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"portfolio_post_id":0,"portfolio_citation":"","portfolio_annotation":"","openlab_post_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,17,26,28],"tags":[369,381,866,978,1359,1368,1512,1753,1768,1940,2060,2113],"class_list":["post-2213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-hunter","category-science","category-spotlight","tag-campus-news","tag-career","tag-gap-year","tag-health","tag-mcat","tag-medicine","tag-neuroscience","tag-profile","tag-psychology","tag-science-2","tag-spotlight","tag-student"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/703"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}