Do you ever wonder

what your life would've been like if you'd gone the other way for one decision?

I spent Saturday proctoring a practice MCAT exam. Seeing all those wanna-be-s reminded me of taking the exam myself; many of the students in the room looked like my peers who I wrote the exam with. None of them really looked like me though.

I never even considered taking an MCAT prep course - not at $1500. I settled for buying a second hand copy of a prep book for $20 - that was more my speed. [I actually made out okay - my physical science mark was average, but verbal reasoning and bioscience were above average, and I rocked the written part - 99th percentile!] I found myself wondering as I watched the students sweating it out (it's a seven hour exam) what they were thinking about the class, their desire to be a doctor, whether they were footing the bill for the class, or if someone else was. I find it hard to believe that students might have that kind of money themselves, though I'm sure there are some who do.

That's when I got to thinking about decisions.

When I was in grade eleven, my father sat me down and told me that he would not pay for my university education. He said that I would value it more if I paid for it myself.

I suppose I have valued it more since I'm the one footing the bill... but my bill would've been so much smaller if I had gone to university after high school instead of after I already had three kids and a husband on Workmen's Comp. But then I wondered. Would I have been unappreciative if he had helped me pay for university? Would I have made different choices?

I know at the end of high school, I wanted to go to university to study social work (hehe... and what did I end up working in for many years? human services jobs... no coincidence I suppose). Part of the reason I didn't apply was because I didn't have a lot of money saved up (I had some, but not enough for the whole bill) and I was a bit intimidated because I had heard the social work program at U of R was tough to get into. [I should note that I just assumed that meant I wasn't good enough to try to get in - I didn't even try applying]

Since I didn't think university was in the picture, I saw myself with two other options that I wanted: go to trade school in photography, or start a family - those were the only other two things that I wanted.

The rest I suppose is history. I got married - moved to a city that didn't have the kind of technical photography program I wanted, had children, and then came to the slow realization that the Leave it to Beaver life that I had tried to create wasn't working.

I wonder how many of those students I sat watching will actually make it into med school?