As some of you may or may not know, I am applying to medical school this year. I decided to rewrite my personal statement, and I am (maybe foolishly) posting it here for everyone to read and constructively criticize.

When faced with a tough decision, some people will logically weigh out the pros and cons of each, some might consult friends and family and some people will just follow their gut. In September of 2008 I had just received my MCAT scores and had to decide if and where I wanted to apply to medical school. All my classmates were applying, my family was eager to see me in medical school and I didn’t have any job prospects lined up if I didn’t continue school. To everybody around me it seemed like a logical decision to go to medical school, but I knew in my heart that I was burnt out of school. I entered a big university as a sheltered 16 year old boy, and spent more of my undergrad caring about having the fun I missed out on in my youth than caring about my studies. I knew med school was much more important than undergrad, and I didn’t want to not give it my all.

So I decided to take a year off. I figured that I would find some boring lab job to work at for a year then apply. Instead I found online poker over winter break my senior year. I quickly discovered that it was a fast paced logic game (and one that I was good at) and that the professionals were very similar to day traders on wall street and nothing like the degenerates at race tracks that I pictured them to be. With the prospect of making $100k+/yr by playing a game on my computer, I passed on the boring lab job after my senior year. My family was horrified, thinking that their son had thrown away his promising medical career and was destined to be a degenerate lowlife.

It ended up being the best decision of my life. Over the past two years, I have lived in places like Vancouver, Las Vegas and La Paz, Mexico. Since I could work from anywhere, I would spontaneously take trips to visit friends on less than 48 hours notice. I once decided to stay in Mexico for a week with six strangers from around the world. I ended up making six lifelong friends. I learned how to cook, how to speak Spanish and how to snowboard. I am the two year defending champion of the World Series of Roshambo. I had more than enough fun to make up for being sheltered at 16. I met a myriad of intelligent people that changed the way I think for the better. I learned how to view the world in a much more logical manner and I am better at solving tough problems quickly and effectively.

I also accepted an offer to help write a book on poker. Its currently available via tablet and will be released in hard copy form in October. I also got involved in a charity that focuses on raising money from poker players for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. This summer we raised over $125,000. I became involved in a few different business ventures, some of which failed miserably but all of which I learned a lot from. I am currently really interested in business and investing, and because of my poker background I am picking things up very quickly.

Two years later I find myself much more interested in medicine. I find myself on wikipedia at least once a week looking up something related to medicine/science, and its not because I have to but because I am genuinely curious. Now that medicine isn’t a goal crammed down my throat by others, it has become something that I want to do for myself. I hate the fact that with poker I don’t add value to anybody’s life. Nobody ever goes home thankful that I did my job. In poker there is no end goal, no grand achievement to work towards. I could be the best player ever and revolutionize the way the game is played and it wouldn’t greatly affect anyone’s life. There are only financial goals, and reaching them, no matter how high, never leads to any lasting satisfaction.

All of my friends from back home are in grad school or working and they constantly tell me how great I have it. I make money playing a game and have all the freedom in the world. While poker has blessed me with so many great opportunities, I realize that I would never want to make a career out of it. Two years later, I am applying to medical school as a much more well rounded human being who cant wait to dive into this next phase of my life. That’s something I couldn’t say right after I finished undergrad. As Robert Frost said, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference”