On Friday, I visited the UC Denver campus where I'm hoping to go for PA school. They had a whole presentation about the physician's assistant career, the curriculum at the school, and admissions. Then there was a student panel that answered our questions. And there was a short tour of the classrooms and labs. Luckily, a DU alumnus that I knew was on the student panel so I got to speak with her afterwards.
A few things I learned: PA is a fantastic profession! You still get to see patients, write prescriptions, and even assist in surgery at a hospital. You can change specialties very easily throughout your career. This program has an emphasis in pediatrics. Right out of school, the average salary is around $77K and it goes up to over $100K with experience. I'm very happy with that! The program is also very impressive. It's the longest in the country, 3 years. But, it's also one of the cheapest- for CO residents, it's about $38K for all three years. That's less than DU is for one year. Definitely affordable. Unique to their program is that you begin rotations your very first year. You have class 4 days a week, and rotations on the fifth day and then the weekend off. The students said it's very similar to an undergraduate schedule. It's not much more rigorous or time-consuming. Over the summer you are just doing 2 two week rotations and then your whole third year is in residency. And when you're done, you have a master's degree in physician's assistant studies. The program is very closely integrated with the medical school. The campus is an all medical campus. There's a medical school, dental school, pharmacy school, physical therapy school, pharmacology school, children's hospital, general hospital, and outpatient center. And your first term, you take anatomy which is a whole human cadaver dissection! Crazy. My biggest concern now is getting accepted. My current overall GPA is within the range of the students they accepted last year. My science GPA is a little under the range, but I still have 3 classes this quarter and 3 classes next quarter that will be factored into that. I have all the prerequisites, and the GRE is no longer required, but highly recommended. I'm definitely going to take it because if my GPA is a little low, but if my scores are really high, that will look much better on my application. I am SO EXCITED to start PA school and learn everything about treating patients.
The other exciting thing is that I got an interview for a job! I applied kind of on a whim last week. An acquaintance told me about the job, so I applied really quick. Yesterday I got an email that they want me to come in for an interview TOMORROW! Yikes. This is a full-time salary with benefits position in a research lab at UC Denver- the same UC Denver that I'm applying to for grad school. I've heard the salary will be around $30K. The lab researches breast cancer. The job description sounds just perfect for me. The list of requirements is practically the same list of skills on my resume. I just hope they can wait until June for me to start. But they wouldn't be interviewing me if they weren't willing to wait. They know I'm a student, it says it on my resume that I'm graduating in June. And when scheduling my interview, they said they knew we had to work around my class schedule. I have never had a real in-person interview before. My last job was a phone interview. So I'm super nervous. I've already read up on the lab and their current research. Now I need to think about some good answers to common interview questions.
Alright I'm going to grab some lunch before I meet with a professor, and then have a group meeting, and then a class, and then go pick up Daniel, and then have my piano lesson, and then pass out from exhaustion and nerves!
1 comment:
Rachel -- how exciting! No wonder you're breathless! I can't wait to hear how it all turns out!
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