Yesterday was all about my future.
After english class, I rushed over to the dining commons and set a new world record for fastest time to eat a burrito. Then, I quickly strolled over to Atherton to hear from some Googlers.
Google has always enticed me. I don’t know exactly what it is: the academic vibe, how they treat their employees, the location of the headquarters. Maybe the answer is all of the above.
This past summer, I stayed with a Google engineer for a couple days right outside of the HQ in Daly City, California. I went down the Google indoor slide, drank free Google coffee, ate gourmet Google food. I even Googled inside Google.
Click here to see me sliding down the indoor slide: IMG_0692-2m35i6b
Three months later I’m standing, with a glimmer in my eyes, in front of two alumni of Penn State who work at Google. Over Papa Johns, they told me and my fellow classmates about….
- Google’s mission statement
- How they strive to make an impact
- That you meet one-on-one with your manager at least once a week
- The 20% Project (They encourage you to spent 20% of your time working on something that is not directly related to your job)
- That you get 8 hours a year to do volunteer work
- The Diversity programs (i.e. Gayglers and Grayglers)
- What they look for in a candidate
It got my heart beating, my palms clammy.
The problem is: I’m not a computer scientist.
I like biology and the social sciences, coming up with and implementing ideas, helping people. And, after years of thought, I think my future involves medical school.
I thought this was a problem, until I learned that Google wants and needs everybody. They need your typical tech wizard, economists, finance guys, and even MD’s. So, even though I’ve never taken a coding class, Google is staying on my list of future options for now.
With this newfound excitement, I stuffed the fluffy Android gift they gave me into my backpack and I rushed over to the HUB for medical school day. In the HUB there were close to thirty graduate school recruiters in rows scattered within Alumni Hall.
I talked with a recruiter from The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. I told her about why I think medicine might be the right choice for me. But I came clean, and told her “I don’t know.”
Then I asked two questions:
If you could give recommendations to a Freshmen with four years ahead of him, what would it be? What makes Pritzker different from all of the other medical schools out there?
She told me to keep poking at the why. There are a million ways to help people, why medicine? She also advised that I look into Fulbright, the Peace Corps, and she encouraged me to shadow doctors.
Her answer to my second question gave me the same rush of excitement I got earlier that morning.
“Our students our happy.” Along with this, she told me…
- How you have a real sense of community (class size is only 80 or so students)
- There is a Dean of Wellness on site
- The location is on the south side of Chicago, so there is a greatly underserved patient population
- First two years are pass or fall
Then she said something that made my ears perk up: “We are looking for students that want to make big changes and big things happen.”
As you can probably tell, I have absolutely NO idea what my future will hold. All I know is that I want to be happy and I want to somehow incorporate helping people into my daily responsibilities. If possible I want to do something big/astronomical and unique: something along the lines of what Adam Braun did with his nonprofit Pencils of Promise or what Mark Zuckerberg did with Facebook. We are living in a time when anything is possible. All it takes is a little hard work and optimism.
I love this post, and a big part of that has to do with your understanding that you can do anything you set out to do. You say many times that you are still unsure exactly what you want to do after college, but I love that you take advantage of absolutely every opportunity you can get your hands on. It is obvious that no matter what path you go down, you will excel, purely because you have the motivation to change the world. I am highly impressed with your continuous search for what you can do to make this world a better place. Great blog and GREAT message!
Thanks so much! I think it’s important to stay honest when writing these blogs. Your blogs have helped me to understand this. I think the reason why I go to all of these events is because I don’t want to have a traditional job. I want to have a job that has an impact, is fulfilling, and will make me stand out. Also, a big reason why we are going to college in the first place is to secure a job. Thanks again for commenting. I always appreciate it.
As a prospective computer scientist I was also surprised that Google wants truly everybody. It could make sense that experts on certain fields would be better at helping the technicians hone their search algorithm based on perhaps certain symptoms, but that also leads to a very dangerous path in my belief. We should not really rely on Google to diagnose our issues – it has been wrong, it will be wrong, and I am uncertain if I want to live in a world where an algorithm can simply know what illness I have based on a search – the privacy implications would be really, really bad.
Was this the day you came to south and ate with us for a brief moment?
Matt
Hey, Matt. Yeah I think it was the day I ate lunch with you guys. Thanks for letting me join. In regards to your comment, I think it’s important to realize the MD’s are not only being used for their search engine department. That may be part of it but Google is also doing things outside of search. For example, I think they have a whole research department focused on building prosthetics, which has nothing to do with search. But I do see where you are coming from. I don’t think there will ever be a time when we have to rely solely on a computer for our medical needs. If so, that’s a pretty scary future.
You’re doing great sweetie!
Hahaha 🙂
very nice article. congratulations.
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