BRIDGING THE GAP (YEAR)
Omar Halawa ’12 Connects Personal and Professional Fulfillment BY OMAR HALAWA ’12
B
y the fall of my junior year at King’s Academy I had already decided: I wanted to pursue a career in medicine. I took several Advanced Placement (AP) science classes, set up shadowing experiences at a hospital in Amman and looked into the medical school application process in the United States. The process is long and complicated. After four years of an undergraduate degree, I would need to complete another four years of medical school before undergoing specialty training that could last anywhere between three and seven years. Because there are so many hoops to jump through to actually get there, I was determined to focus all of my energy on the goal of becoming a doctor. This required taking only premed college classes, signing up for every medicine-related volunteer and research opportunity out there and studying for the MCAT (the medical school entry exam in the United States). 104
BEYOND KING’S
I was so afraid of “wasting” my time on anything else. By my third year of college, however, I was spending less time in a lab and more time dancing in a Dabke group, writing recipes for the culinary society and taking classes on Spanish history and Islamic civilization. I studied in Argentina and had the experience of a lifetime. I did not stop working towards medical school applications — I took pre-med classes, volunteered and participated in research — but I chose to also spend my time doing other things that were fulfilling to me. Studying abroad meant that I couldn’t apply to matriculate into medical school straight after college. I needed to take a “gap year,” which would add more time to the long journey of becoming a physician. But the decision to take the additional year wasn’t very difficult: it was one more year of experiences added to my medical school application, and one more year of personal growth. I worked
as a research assistant on a clinical research project, made wonderful new friends at my job and got to learn some ballet. I applied and interviewed at medical schools during this gap year. Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly), the three most common interview questions were: What is Dabke? Tell me about your time in Argentina. What is your favorite Middle Eastern restaurant in New York? I was asked very few questions about my research or hospital volunteering. The interviewers were more interested in getting to know me as a person. I wish I could go back and tell myself, the 17-year-old King’s Academy senior with a necktie and a face full of pimples, to stop and smell the proverbial roses. In the years I’ve spent preparing to be a physician, life hasn’t stopped. I’ve had plenty of time to have fun, grow and explore the world, making me a more complete human being, better equipped to take care of my future patients.