Don’t worry about this page until March, but the end of third year will approach a lot faster than you think. And that brings thoughts of deciding on a specialty and applying for residency. Some helpful things to think about in the last few months of third year:
- Think about updating your CV. Career services on the 9th floor will look over it for you and help you revise it. (They’ll also help you write one, if you don’t yet have one!)
- What is an away rotation? You’ll hear a lot about these that you will take in your 4th year. Basically these are electives that you will do at an outside institution, usually in the discipline that you want to go into. These are not something that you have to do, but a lot of people like to do them to get an idea about how other hospitals work, to get a feel for a place that they might be interested in doing a residency at, etc.
- April/May is a good time to start thinking about if you want to do any away rotations during 4th year. The applications are more time consuming than you think (ie letters of recommendation, updated TB tests, every immunization record you’ve ever had). So a good idea is to start researching schools and looking at their applications earlier rather than later especially to make sure you meet any deadlines if you want to take any aways in the summer.
- Your schedule for fourth year is even more flexible so don’t worry if you don’t get your first choice for schedules!