CES seminar; constructing or destroying dreams

In the US, 0.25% of all people are doctors. Twenty – 30% of all US citizens want to become doctors at some point in their life. However, 0.8- 1% of all people succeed.  Wanting to be a doctor is a dream that many people have, however do they actually know and have what it takes to be one?

CES university is a university in Medellin that provides to all Sophomore and Junior students the chance to do a medicine seminar. This seminar is known for being an eye opener to all of students that dream of getting into the field of medicine.  It is an 100 hour seminar that costs 1500,000 pesos.

 

What TCS students think about the seminar

Last year, around 20 TCS Sophomores did the CES seminar in order to really understand what being a doctor means. 

Sofia Niño is a Junior at TCS, and she is extremely dedicated with her passions and she is willing to leave everything behind in order to become a doctor.

“I think the seminar is very useful because it is a way to decide whether you like it or not, since it gets very real about the facts of medicine,”said Niño.

Isabela Arias knew she wanted to become a doctor since she was around 10 years of age. However, when she took chemistry she started to doubt her potential. Later on, one of her good friends told her about the seminar and she decided it was the perfect way to end her doubts.

“When I took chemistry, I started to doubt myself, I didn’t know  if I had what it really takes to be a doctor,” said Arias. “I completely believe that CES provides the seminar to narrow the people that are going to apply to the university.¨

Arias and Niño expressed that a lot of teenagers go to the seminar to fool around, last year, the seminar started off with more than 40 students and at the end, there was less than half of the class.

 

Pros and cons of the medicine seminar

Although the seminar is an opportunity of a lifetime, it is exceptionally demanding. The seminar’s schedule is extremely rigid and students need to put their heart and soul into it.

“I am going to have class both Friday and Saturday for 4 months; I’ll have classes on Fridays from 3:30 pm to 6:30 pm and on Saturdays from 8am to 1 pm so it is going to be interesting,” said Simon Giraldo.

Giraldo leaves directly from school to the seminar every single friday. He will study 11 continuous hours in order to get the medicine seminar diploma. He also expressed that it is an expensive seminar.

The fact that the seminar is such a part of the student’s personal life desincorages many of the students that are taking the course.

“I personally adored it, I ended up liking medicine more due to the seminar; I was inspired, but I know that for a lot of people once they did it, they said ” I don’t want to study medicine anymore,” said Niño.

Niño expressed that there are a bunch of students that think they can fool around and skip class, however at the end of the seminar half of the class was missing and the 10 students standing  in the last class were the ones that had been focused throughout the whole seminar.

Giraldo and Niño talked about the horrible schedules that the seminar manages, the classes are long and it is definitely a challenge to manage time between the seminar’s homework and school’s homework.

 

Insight of what you do during the seminar

CES’ main goal is to give medicine enthusiasts an insight look on what they will be doing during their years in university. The seminar is extremely complete and it includes both theoretical and practical classes.  

“You take the cool classes and the no so cool classes, because they want you to have the insight of what you would do in the career,” said Arias

As Arias stated, medicine is not all fun and games, some classes are just about reading and listening a teacher talk for hours and hours. It is a reality check for students that think that medicine is all about doing surgeries and going to hospitals.

“We learned a lot of pre med stuff, we learned first aid, so you end up with a first aid degree,” said Niño.

“I had the opportunity to see four surgeries: maxillofacial surgery, liver biopsy, a surgery of tibial saucers and a vesicle removal surgery,” said TCS junior student  Antonia Gaviria.

Gaviria dreams about becoming a dermatologist and she knew this was the first step to make her dream come true.

The seminar tries to be as forward as possible with the students, teachers don’t try to sugarcoat anything, since they want them to fully understand that in order to become a doctor they need to give their 110%  in every single class.

“If you don’t like the seminar, then medicine is not for you,” said Arias.