EDUCATION I’m a Black Woman on My Way to Becoming a Doctor Because I Never Gave Up

By Oluwaseun Adebagbo, via https://theblackwallsttimes.com/

I grew up believing that excellence is not an option but rather an obligation. 

I breezed through high school. I didn’t have to study hard to do well on a test. I just got it. School came easy to me. I assumed college would be the same. I was wrong.

I started my first quarter at Stanford University with the notorious Chem 31A, Chemical Principles I, because that’s what every other pre-med was doing. Chemical Principles, I thought, how bad could this be? It couldn’t be much harder than my high school chemistry class, right? I approached Chem 31A the same way I approached high school—by just showing up for class and doing the problem sets. I barely made it through the class. I had never seen Cs before in my life, and suddenly, they just kept coming. Worst of all, at the time, it seemed like everyone else around me had it all figured out. Everyone but me seemed to have the pre-med playbook. 

Over winter break, I anxiously awaited my grades. Slowly but surely, the grades came in. In the end, I had earned a 2.4 for that…

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