Volunteering

Gain hands-on medical experience and exposure to the healthcare environment while helping your community

• Local hospitals - Apply as a hospital volunteer to assist nurses and help patients

• Clinics & Healthcare Centers - Assist with front-desk duties or help doctors with errands

• Retirement Homes - Assist nurses with feeding patients during mealtimes and activities

Contact: Reach out by calling or emailing them if they are in need of student volunteers. They are often looking for extra help from high school students.

Extracurricular Activities

Reminder: Don’t force yourself to do something just to make your resume look good. Choose extracurriculars that brings interest and that you enjoy like sports or drawing. Colleges prefer students who are passionate about what they do instead of students who just do it “for show”.

Shadowing doctors

Gain insights of a real clinical setting and observe the duties and responsibilities of a healthcare professional across different medical fields

• Shadowing a doctor can be difficult to find, as most doctors will allow only undergraduate or medical students due to prior experience requirement.

Contact: Reach out to local clinics or specialists in your area if they are open to high school students shadowing.

Research Internships

Gain hands-on experience by assisting professors and scientists in research projects

• Finding research internships can be difficult to find, as most labs require students to have prior research experience or a strong foundation in science

Contact: Find a topic you are interested in, then search for professors or researchers who research on that topic at local universities and labs. Reach out to them via email if they are accepting high school interns or offer summer research opportunities.

Passion Projects

Starting your own project based on something that you enjoy or care about while gaining leadership experience and demonstrating your interest in the field

• Check out the list of passion projects ideas made for both pre-med and biomedical engineering majors—all on this website.

Click here to see the list (more ideas will be added soon)