To see it to the end.

[Qian Zhang]

It was pretty much a snap decision. None of what I now aim to be as my choice of vocation was ever planned or thoroughly thought out. But of course coming from a Chinese family whose parents both had a medical background, I was bound to face plenty of encouragement to go into that field. Surprisingly, though, most of it was from my Aunt. She would always say, “Being a doctor is the best, you don’t need to think about any other job.” Luckily, my parents were not like that, at least to some extent.Whether I was in elementary, middle or high school, thinking about the future was not my primary concern. I thought that was better left off to my future college self. The things that I was concerned with then was just to hang out with friends, playing games, catching up with shows, basically just to have fun without care while I still can. That is until the end of high school, where the topic of discussion changed to choosing majors and future career paths. I’ve always liked math, so I thought that I would go into something with engineering. But my friend said, “You should be a doctor. Did you know anesthesiologists make bank?” So why not, I went for it and joined the many thousands of pre-meds already at UCLA. Of course I would love to help people as physician, but at that time, I hadn’t really thought about it, and choosing financial stability in the long term seemed to me to be a pretty good idea.I used to think that I was in it for the money. I mean, that’s what I’ve already told some people. But I have always said it with some reluctance. In retrospect, I should have thought about what I truly wanted to do with my life much earlier on. I’ve met people who seem to be quite well off but are actually unsure of their choices; I guess not everyone has their future all planned out. Although what I am doing right now is something I just stumbled into, what it has led me to study and discover is not half bad. So no, I’m not just in it for the money, it’s becoming something I am truly interested in and want to do. Now I just want to see it to the end.