UNC Greensboro

As a California girl, born and raised, I get a lot of different reactions being here in North Carolina. Most people, outside of school of course, will ask how in the world I ended up all the way across the country in Mebane, of all places. This is usually accompanied by shaking their heads and a blatant look of disbelief. They always congratulate me when I tell them it’s for school but most will follow-up by asking whether it’s a culture shock and whether I’ll go back. While it’s not the typical environment I’m used to, it’s also not a shock in any way.

We are a couple years into using Match and felt our first “Acceptance Anxieties” post could use a bit of an update. While it may no longer be a new process, it still certainly causes a lot of anxiety. Here are some more recent thoughts.

I am one of those applicants who decided to pursue genetic counseling in the last term of my senior year of college. I had not been part of any genetic counseling student organizations, done any shadowing, or really had much exposure to the field in general. A big part of me wished that I had made that decision with more time left, so that I could have remained at UCLA, surrounded by so many resources to utilize for building my application. Thankfully, what I gathered from the last two years was that meaningful experiences can be found anywhere.

Self-care is important. I’ll go further and say it is absolutely essential in grad school. Genetic counseling graduate training is notoriously very rigorous and can contribute to two very stressful years, if you allow it to overwhelm you. It is easy to say self-care is a necessity, but it is much harder to maintain at the top of your priority list when immersed in the stress and anxiety that grad school conjures. A lot of people say school should always come first, but I would argue that self-care and academics should be tied for first in order for students to maintain their composure when assignments, capstone, and clinic responsibilities feel unrelenting.

When we were applying to genetic counseling programs, something that was important to us was learning more about the place we would be living for the next two years. Of course, finding a program that fits best with your needs is a priority, but feeling at home where your program is located is also necessary for personal growth and a well-rounded learning environment. And you never know, maybe you’ll end up deciding to live there after graduation (like Haley)! Everyone is different and we all have different preferences, but some of the most common questions we hear from prospective students are 1) How big is the city?; 2) Are there fun things to do?; and 3) What is the cost of living? To hopefully help answer some of those questions, here are some of the things we’ve learned since moving to Greensboro:

The stark fact is that genetic counseling is 95% female and 5% male. I understand this and I understood this coming into interviewing for programs in this field. It is valuable to have that in mind if you are a male because it will hit you in the face when you see all females at your interviews (to be fair I did meet one male at mine who is now a classmate). I was fully prepared to be the only male in my cohort, and that was something I was accepting as fact. I was told when I accepted a spot in the program that I was not the only male however. It turns out there are two other males in my cohort, and we are shattering percentage records of male to female ratios in genetic counseling programs.

Before graduate school I had the opportunity to work as a genetic counseling assistant in a diagnostic testing lab in Maryland. It was an incredible experience, and it helped me to develop a sense of the field before graduate school. I came out of Virginia Tech knowing that I wanted to be a genetic counselor, but I did not really know what I needed to do to prepare to get to graduate school to be one. The application deadlines had all passed for that current year, so I began scrounging around for jobs I thought might be applicable. I knew two things at that point in my life:

Mercedes: Woohoo, first semester is off the list! Margaret: I cannot believe it is already the spring semester. Where has the time gone?!

I am telling you something you already know, but interviews are stressful. However, I urge you to try and enjoy that time in your life. You get to travel (hopefully) to different states and schools and take in all it has to offer

I am sure that interview preparation is different for everyone, but here is some insight into my own preparation techniques. I hope this is helpful and Good luck!