[FiftyBelow]

I'm fairly close to finishing my BA Political Science and all of a sudden I'm starting to have second thoughts about what I want to do with my life. I wanted to be a doctor when I was a kid up until high school. Before University started, I had to make a decision between the science route and social sciences route. I graduated with high 90s in every high school class I took, so my natural abilities weren't biased towards any particular area. While I was leaning towards medicine, I was lacking some self-confidence and didn't think that I could commit myself to a suicidal process that is a medical career.

I decided to try anyway and went into BSc Honors Immunology. However, being a typical lazy first-year student who let himself get distracted, I ended up doing fairly average. Not spectacular, but not terrible. My low confidence got lower, and I left sciences for political sciences.

So 2nd year goes well... so does 3rd. However, during those years everything around me seems to be slowly reigniting my old passion for medicine. I tried to ignore such feelings but they only persisted and got stronger. Every visit to the hospital/clinics, every image of a patient that I see, the news I hear about MSF (I used to dream about working for them) and medical related news, always caught my attention and would linger in my mind.

Here I am, ready to graduate. All of a sudden my guard breaks and I can no longer deny what I'm meant to do. I'm regretting everything that I've done thus far. I feel stupid for not having the cajones and drive to suck it up in first year. While I understood that the road would be tough, I should have rose to the challenge instead of cowering. I admit I totally failed in that respect.

However, I've put that all behind me and I've realized that I'm still 21 years old. Still young enough to make a change. I also realized that if I don't pick a profession that I'm truly passionate about, then I will never be happy. 4 years maturer, I feel like I'm ready to go through the grueling process and sacrifice of becoming a doctor. I'm willing to do whatever it takes.

A preliminary assessment of my competitive qualifications yields that I have a lot of work to do. While I have a majority of the core-requisites for medicine (from first year), I did fairly average in those courses and in one case, O.Chem, I got a C+. Furthermore, my volunteer record is virtually non-existent. As well I'm going to be an Arts graduate competing with science grads.... I do know, however, that I'm ready to put my foot down to amend all of these, no matter how long it will take.

Is it too late for me? Am I out of my mind and just another hopeless doctor-wannabe? Should I just forget about it and choose a more realistic path?

I apologize in advance for this long post, and possible disorganized and messy read. Any advice is helpful, particularly for anyone who has gone through the process.