It was during this period that
I lost the motivation
to pursue medicine.
Hey, everybody! My name is Arham and I am
a third year medical student at the University of Oslo.
Today´s video is going to be a laidback conversation
/storytelling where I talk about
my experiences and
my journey to medical school.
Also the challenges,
the highs and lows that I encountered and
how all this impacted me. One important thing that I must mention here
is that I am going to be very open about my grades,
my experiences and feelings
even though I am not really comfortable doing that. I am not trying to
be boastful or blow my own trumpet
but I just want to be open and transparent
with my viewers. The video is divided into
3 parts. The first thing I will talk about is
how the situation was when I used to live in Pakistan.
After that, I´ll dive into how everything changed
when we moved to Norway and
lastly I shall mention an
important life lesson which I have held on to.
Probably, many of you do not know that I grew up in
Lahore, Pakistan.
I had always been good at school and dreamed of becoming a doctor.
I even remember how the password to my e-mail
used to be the word "doctor".
I completed my GCSE O´levels
which is a 3 year British academic qualification
and is, in a way, equivalent to
upper secondary school here in Norway. I passed my GCSE´s
with flying colours and the plan
was ,as I already mentioned, to become a physician. But things changed completely
when the family decided
to move to Norway in 2013.
19.June 2013, was a beautiful summer day
when I landed here for the very first time
in Norway. I was obviously very excited
but, at the same time, quite nervous as well.
The problem was that I didn't quite know where to begin.
But, the first step was to learn the Norwegian language.
Even though everybody here speaks and understands English,
I soon figured out at that if I wanted to
establish myself and integrate in the society,
then I had to work super hard to eliminate this language-barrier.
I attended the language course
from September 2013 to June 2014
and it was during this period that I
lost the motivation to pursue medicine.
The reason behind this was that I experienced a lot a negativity around
when it came to getting into med school in Oslo.
And I also started thinking that "Yeah, yeah,  this ain't possible".
I was in a vulnerable age where
I cared a lot about other people and their opinions
and pondered little myself.
In order to cover my own shortcomings
I convinced myself into thinking that
it wasn't really medicine that I wanted to pursue.
So I kinda used that as an excuse.
After the language course, I decided to start IB
which as an international educational programme
instead of the Norwegian high school.
I took this decision because the medium of teaching at IB
was English and I was very unsure
if I was capable enough of attending the Norwegian high school system.
After 3 weeks at IB,
I realised that if one wanted to stay and live in Norway, then
it was probably not a good idea
because I had already started forgetting Norwegian,
which I recently had learned and
dedicated almost an entire year to.
That made me leave IB and start the Norwegian high school.
I was completely lost. I lacked motivation to do well in college,
didn't know anything about the grading system or the subject choices
and didn't thrive socially either.
And I am quite sure that
all this contributed to the my low confidence
and therefore diminish my college motivation further.
Even though I wasn't satisfied with my efforts at all,
I somehow managed to get
A´s in all the major subjects
except for Geography where I got a B.
I decided to change my college for the my 2nd year at college
and this marked the start to a whole new era for me.
Unfortunately, the motivation was still lacking
because I still had the same negative approach
that it wasn't possible to get into medicine in Oslo,
At least for someone like me who had just recently moved here.
Anyway, I worked relatively better during my 2nd year
and was able to achieve A´s in all the majors.
Summer 2016 was the period when things changed completely.
I started thinking that "No, the dream was to study medicine
and that's what I am going to do"
My father also told me the same thing,
"Arham just do your best so that you don't have any regrets 20 years from now".
I've held on to this advice and
applied it to almost everything I do  in my life.
I calculated my grade point average (GPA) and realised
that I need A*s (full grade points) in every single subject in my 3rd year
to get into med school in Oslo
starting spring 2018.
Said to myself "Okay, I won't worry about my grades,
I just have to work as hard as I possibly can and do my best.
That´s it. The rest is not in my hands".
Long story short, I worked super hard and
my grades also started improving immensely.
Our finals were done, and I needed A*s
in all the 4 exams in order to
precisely meet the GPA merit for med school.
To be honest, I was quite sceptical and
didn't have much hope that this would happen.
My backup plan was to study medicine in Poland, so
I flew to Lublin right after my finals,
took the entrance exam and got into med school in Poland.
I was also, to a great degree, mentally prepared
to move there and begin med school.
The results for our finals got published, and I had achieved my required GPA!
Now my GPA was just 1 point above last year´s med school merit
so it was still quite uncertain
if I would get into medicine here,
because the merit increases every year.
Anyway, I started my summer job at a local grocery chain (KIWI)
and one day, while I was refilling the shelves,
I received an e-mail from the Norwegian Universities and Colleges Admission Service.
Words can't describe the feelings that I had ,
and I remember that very moment as if it was only yesterday.
I remember exactly
which item I was refilling,
which shelf it was, and even
which way I was facing while standing.
The most important life lesson that I have held on to is that
one should never listen to what people say.
If you have a dream, no matter how big or small,
you should always go for it and ignore
the negativity around it. Even if
the dreams seems impossible to realize,
one should always go for it so that
you don't have any reason to regret 20 years from now.
And that was all I had to say, I would really appreciate if you choose to subscribe.
Thanks fro watching, see you!
