Thursday, September 1, 2011

Procrastinate Now! Don't Put It Off!

In a highly uncharacteristic moment of procrastination the other day (Ha. Haha. HAHAHA.), I was reading a novel instead of studying from my GRE test prep book.  Not to get all dramatic and stuff, but that seemingly not-very-significant moment may have altered my entire future:
The book is called Delivery and it's about (what else?) a midwife.
The main character mentions, in passing, the Yale school of midwifery.
I ambled online and began to peruse the Yale School of Nursing's website.
I clicked on the Admissions tab and saw these three magical little words: no prerequisites required
.
Let me stop and explain.  As I've mentioned, when I was at Smith, I thought I wanted to go on to medical school.  Thus, I took all the prerequisites necessary to get into medical school.  These occupied all four years of my education there, demanded more brain cells than I've ever collectively possessed, and drove me to tears about once a day.  I also took the entrance exam for med school, the MCAT, which required eight months of studying, a Kaplan prep course, and again, more brain cells than I can ever hope to regain.  What Smith did not offer (nor was I interested in at the time), were the courses required for admission into nursing school.  Yes, the two sets of requirements are different.  So, around about the time I started backpedaling furiously on the pathway to medical school and started sneaking peeks over the fence into the land of nursing school and midwifery, I came crashing unceremoniously into the fact that I'd have to go back to school and take four to five more college courses before I could even apply to nursing school.  This was a real blow.  Months went by before I came to begrudgingly accept that it was just a reality I was going to have to swallow and that I'd still wind up happier in the long run.  I hadn't yet advanced to the "how will I pay for these classes/when will I take them/where will I take them" stage, except to acknowledge such questions' existence and then promptly look in the other direction and start whistling.  Loudly.

But there those three words were.  No. Prerequisites. Required.
I read faster.
The program is ranked seventh in the nation.
I'd be a midwife - a real, honest-to-goodness midwife - in three years.
The application deadline is November 1st.
And then, I came to a screeching halt.  I needed to find out if they would accept my October 6th GRE scores, even though the scores might not be released before November 1st.  I hung in suspended animation as the phone rang and a nice woman picked up.  Oh yes, she told me.  They're accepting scores well past the deadline this year since the GRE has an altered format and score release schedule.
Boom.
I thanked her, and hung up the phone with shaking hands.
Today is September 1st.
I'm taking the GRE on October 6th.
My application to the Yale School of Nursing is due on November 1st.


Excuse me while I go jump up and down and squeal at decibels only Rupert can hear (poor guy).


3 comments:

Holly said...

That is amazingly exciting! Good luck--even though you don't need it, I'm sure you'll do great!

Cait said...

Thanks Holly! I appreciate the luck, even if you think I won't need it (I might disagree...).

dmsegel said...

Congrats and good luck, sounds like it was meant to be :)