My dream job was to be an MD. I went to a grade deflationary undergrad, UChicago, and was too interested in music, social life, and sleeping to achieve a high GPA. I scored 90th percentile on the MCAT and had choruses, piano, humanities, and research in my background, but merely having a 3.35 GPA meant I got 0 interviews after 11 applications to medical school.<p>How devastating is that: you dream to be an MD for a decade, you work on it for 5 years, spend thousands of dollars prepping and applying, and you receive ZERO responses from a human voice, just automated email replies? Okay, dream A was quashed, so then what?<p>I fell into programming for healthcare. I'm not good at it. I struggle to understand basic SQL joins, intermediate R, and intermediate statistics. I can barely solve beginner-level coding interview questions and I never pluck up the motivation to build side-projects, given all the "real life" chores and hobbies distracting me. I lost my last 2 healthcare coding jobs for being too outspoken with my criticisms and opinions. I didn't have the political savvy or grit to swallow my objections and play nice.<p>I'm still looking for my next position. I want to use SQL, R, and statistics to solve real-world problems in healthcare or climate. This isn't a dream, but it's interesting, it'll pay better than anything else I could do, and I can tell myself I'm lessening suffering and improving human lives. For this next post, I'm going to have to find a place that accepts my openly disagreeable nature, or just swallow it down and say "Yes, Sir" to whatever my bosses demand.