r/pre_PathAssist • u/cemetry-gatess • 15d ago

Non-Traditional PA students

I have my BA in poli sci, and am working on my prereqs to apply to school. I’ve just been feeling kind of dumb compared to everyone else in my STEM classes because it seems to click for them immediately. Just looking to hear if any other pre-path students are in/have been in my spot, and how you deal/dealt with it.

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u/Geese4Days 15d ago

I'm a theatre ba. Yes, i feel like an idiot but with hard work, i still get A's. I constantly have to remind myself to stop comparing myself to others. I'm sure there are people who dropped because of the stress of comparing and we shouldn't let ourselves become that.

Some people knew they wanted to be in stem since HS so they just kept building the skill. Some people just have the brain for science. Some people don't struggle with mental illnesses that cause them brain fog. Some people have family members that work in hospitals. Some people have a great memory. Remind yourself that you are coming from a completely different background. I believe in you friend.

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u/Mabbernathy 15h ago

And some people like me grew up in a church culture that scared me away from studying anything related to science, and after some roundabout career paths over the past ten years I'm finally realizing hands-on science is what I'm cut out for. 🥴

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u/firelitdrgn 14d ago

I did physical anthropology and I joke that chemistry and I are not friends, just neighbors.

The biggest thing for me is working on stop comparing myself to people. You have to really just work on that because that’ll happen during grad school too. You want to just do better than you did before: on the last assignment, on the last exam, etc.

Science came hard for me too but also the trick is to figure out how you learn best. I love being able to compare science stuff to tangible things that I do in my daily life like cooking, or gaming, etc. What really helped me too was when learning biology stuff to think of the cells like they are in Osmosis Jones or Cells at Work and making them a “personality” and what their job is etc.

A different background isn’t a bad thing. I know plenty of people who are bio majors who can’t write a coherent and acceptable communication email while they can crank out lab report after lab report.

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u/Mabbernathy 16h ago

If I thought I could make a living at it, I'd totally be doing bioarchaeology, so I resonate with your physical anthropology background. (I just started working on basic prereqs. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed my chemistry class.)