Designing: a cure to South Campus stress

I am not easily categorized in either North Campus or South
Campus.

My humanities friends could not understand why I subjected
myself to taming, then befriending, my neuroscience textbook. My
fellow Phy Sci majors (that’s Physiological Science for you
North Campus people) never saw what I saw in ancient Greek
architecture.

When I contemplated staying at the Daily Bruin, this
juxtaposition was made all too clear. I was a lowly design
contributor in her second year at UCLA ““ not quite good
enough to design the big sections, but good enough that the smaller
sections were becoming cake.

Should I forsake pumping up my medical school applications with
pre-med activities? Or should I quit something gratifying that has
no direct impact on my future goals?

Obviously, I chose to stay at the Bruin, and I’ve been
designing all four years.

What’s the moral of this story? Diverse interests are good
and should be explored. Designing did not hurt my chances of
acceptance to a medical school ““ it has actually helped.

When I found myself caught up in getting As, waking up at 6 a.m.
to volunteer in the hospital, or analyzing data for research,
design was there to revive me.

Designing has been a de-stressor to my stressors, which is
basically anything geared at getting me into medicine. Sure, it
gets hot and hectic in the office, but designing is like playing
Sudoku for me. It’s challenging, but the complexity and
difficulty is why I love it.

After designing Orientation Issue 2005 pretty much by myself for
10 straight hours in a stuffy, windowless corner on a beautiful
summer Saturday, my eyes saw double and my neck screamed in pain,
but I was teeming with exhilaration and accomplishment.

I had withstood tremendous pressure by somehow remaining
unclouded so I could solve problems effectively. Nowhere else have
I been so challenged by my own abilities that I learned about both
my strengths and my limitations.

A diverse scope of interest expanded my knowledge and
experiences and allowed me to understand myself better. I’m
not just a designer, an analyzer of Euripides or an anatomy junkie.
I’m all of the above.

Wang most likely won’t have time to design anymore at
Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.