Finding a Masters Program Postbac to Fix Early Mistakes

Introduction

Dr. Ryan Gray: The Premed Years, session number 198.

Hello and welcome to the two time Academy Award nominated podcast, The Premed Years, where we believe that collaboration, not competition, is key to your success. I am your host Dr. Ryan Gray, and in this podcast we share with you stories, encouragement, and information that you need to know to help guide you on your path to becoming a physician.

Now welcome back to The Premed Years, or welcome to The Premed Years if this is your first time joining us, or joining me. I am Dr. Ryan Gray; I host The Premed Years, The MCAT Podcast, and the Old Premed Podcast. So if you are interested in any of those topics you can go check out everything that we do over at www.MedEdMedia.com. That’s www.MedEdMedia.com.

Now today’s podcast I have a very special guest with me, somebody that I worked with through the now closed Academy, and we worked together and she got into medical school, and now is a medical student which is awesome, and she’s going to share her journey and her decisions on doing a postbac, doing a Master’s program, and all of that fun stuff, the struggles that she had in college, everything about her journey and hopefully it will help you on your journey. So let’s go say hi to Ange’le. Ange’le, welcome to The Premed Years, thanks for joining me.

Ange’le: Absolutely, thank you for having me.

Dr. Ryan Gray: So you’re a medical student.

Ange’le: I am.

Dr. Ryan Gray: What do you think about when you hear that?

Ange’le: It’s still kind of surreal. It hasn’t quite hit me yet, but I’m really, really excited to be in this place right now.

Dr. Ryan Gray: Yeah, where are you right now?

Ange’le: I’m currently at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California.

Dr. Ryan Gray: And you’re first year?

Ange’le: Correct.

Ange’le’s Background

Dr. Ryan Gray: Yeah. Let’s rewind back to first having this crazy idea of wanting to be a physician. Do you remember your ‘aha’ moment if you had one?

Ange’le: I wouldn’t say I really had an ‘aha’ moment per se. I do remember wanting to be an actress for a really long time for whatever reason, I’m not quite sure. But once I got into the eighth grade and I went on a school trip to Washington D.C., I remember being really inspired by like all the monuments, and all these political leaders and thinking, ‘Wow they really did something real to benefit the world.’ And I didn’t feel like I would get a sense of that as an actress so I started thinking of sort of other career paths. But it wasn’t really until I took an anatomy physiology course my senior year of high school that I really started to think about becoming a physician.

Dr. Ryan Gray: What was it about that class that hooked you?

Ange’le: I just found the entire thing so fascinating, just kind of learning about the human body, and for me it kind of felt like this maze that I wouldn’t mind getting lost in. And I also really liked dissecting the cat which was kind of creepy to my parents, but I had a lot of fun doing it.

Dr. Ryan Gray: That’s what hooked me, dissecting Mr. Bigglesworth in my senior anatomy class.

Ange’le: Yeah, our cat was named Toulouse.

Dr. Ryan Gray: What was the origin of that name?

Ange’le: It was that cartoon movie The Aristocats.

Dr. Ryan Gray: Okay.

Ange’le: Yeah one of the cats is named Toulouse so that’s what we came up with.

Dr. Ryan Gray: So you were dissecting a cartoon cat.

Ange’le: Yes.

Dr. Ryan Gray: So that was your senior year of high school. Did you jump right into college and proclaim yourself as a premed student?

Ange’le: I did, yup. I went to the University of Southern California right after high school, and was pretty much premed as soon as I started.

Dr. Ryan Gray: What was that process like? Going from high school, getting into USC, a big private school, and saying, ‘Okay I want to be premed.’ What was that like for you as far as hanging out with others proclaiming to be premed as well?

Ange’le: So it was interesting because I actually didn’t- most of my friends were not premed, most of them were- had other career paths. But when I was in that classroom environment, you’re kind of talking to fellow students, there was definitely a palpable competitiveness there. Definitely not a super collaborative environment that I would say, just because the school is so large and so I felt people weren’t as collaborative as maybe they could have been.

First Big Hiccup

Dr. Ryan Gray: Okay. What was your first big hiccup along the way if you had one?

Ange’le: Oh I definitely had plenty. Probably those first couple years of college, I think I really underestimated the rigors of college coursework, and I had a really hard time sort of adjusting my study habits to accommodate for those changes. And so with that I definitely got grades that I felt were subpar for someone that was planning to eventually apply to medical school.

Dr. Ryan Gray: So you mean you got A minuses.

Ange’le: No, no not quite. That was definitely a big struggle for me, was going from that A student in high school, and all of middle school, and then getting to college and not being that A student anymore. That was a struggle.

Dr. Ryan Gray: What do you think was the cause of that? Were you taking on too much, too many extracurriculars? Or was it really a study habit thing where it’s like, ‘Okay I’m on my own here, I’m not told what to do every day, I need to figure out how to organize, and plan, and study.’

Ange’le: Maybe actually a little bit of both. Definitely the study habits were not there, they were not there and I didn’t reach out for help like I should have definitely. But I also had a lot of things going on outside of academics. I was working all throughout college, and so that took up time away from studying as well, so I would say it was a little bit of both actually.

Dr. Ryan Gray: What eventually helped you break that and start to become a better student?

Ange’le: I don’t think it really was until after- I mean I started to get better grades my latter years of college, my third and fourth years, but it wasn’t really until after I left USC that I really started to like kick it into high gear and start focusing on building better study habits. Because once I left SC I still had some prerequisites left to take, and I kind of knew, ‘Okay I really need to do well in these courses right now to sort of show admissions committees I can handle these courses.’ And I can’t really say exactly what clicked, maybe it was being out of the college environment and being at home, I didn’t have as many distractions when I was studying, and so things just kind of went up from there.

Dr. Ryan Gray: So if you were premed in undergrad, why did you still have prereq’s that you needed to complete? What changed in your undergrad years to cause a delay?

Ange’le: Yeah so I remember going in to see one of my pre-health advisors, this was probably like around my junior year, so just to go over my grades, and sort of like whether I was on the right career path, and she had recommended that I consider doing something else because the academics just weren’t there. And I took that to heart, I was like, ‘She probably knows what she’s doing, she’s been doing this for a while,’ so I actually started exploring other career paths, more specifically physical therapy because I was a kinesiology major and that’s what a lot of the other students in that major were doing. So I actually took some time and started taking like psych classes and just focusing on getting into PT school. But after a while I kind of decided maybe I should at least give this a shot first before- maybe I should at least like apply and if I get rejected every time, okay then fine I can call it quits. But I really wanted to give myself a chance first. And so once I left SC I still had like physics to take, and organic chemistry at that point.

Dr. Ryan Gray: So you left SC without ever applying to medical school.

Ange’le: Correct.

Taking the Next Steps

Dr. Ryan Gray: Okay. How did you go about figuring out those next steps of taking those prereq’s that you needed, and did you think about doing a postbac to repeat classes that you didn’t do so well in?

Ange’le: Yeah. So actually I came along your podcast shortly after I left SC. I think yeah, probably definitely within that year. And so that helped me a lot actually, I felt like you were my pseudo pre-health advisor. I listened to all of your shows and tried to get advice that way. And then I also tried to maintain contact with some of my pre-health advisors from SC as well, just sending them emails back and forth letting them know what I was doing, what I should do next. But I definitely did consider doing a postbac program. I had actually applied to a program at Cal State East Bay, and had got in and was planning to go until I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to get the financial aid I needed to take that course, just because it wasn’t- it didn’t have like a degree at the end of it. So because it wasn’t like a degree seeking program I wasn’t going to be able to get the financial aid I needed. Yeah. So then from there I started looking for other opportunities to sort of like course correct as you always say, and I’d seen one of my friends who actually was a student athletic trainer with me in college, and he had done a Master’s program at Western U, and was then moving on to his first year of medical school. So I was like, ‘Huh I should look into that program.’ And that’s exactly what I did, I talked to him about it, ended up applying for that Master’s program, and got in, and it’s probably the sole reason why I’m where I am today.

Dr. Ryan Gray: What was the decision to take those- take a Master’s program, more time, more money, versus just doing a couple classes and trying it, at least applying for the first time without the Master’s?

Ange’le: Well I did retake a couple of classes that I had poor grades in. I took the physics class, I took the organic chemistry class and did well, but I still felt like my GPA at that point still wasn’t high enough. Like it’s really hard to come back from a low GPA mathematically. So I felt like I really needed some type of extra program to get me into medical school. I really didn’t feel like if I had applied before taking any of these programs that I would have gotten in anywhere. So yeah, I saw the path of what my friend did, it seemed to work for him, so I just decided to go for it. And it was only a year long so it wasn’t too bad.

Dr. Ryan Gray: What was your undergrad GPA?

Ange’le: I had a- I came out of USC with a 3.2.

Dr. Ryan Gray: Okay so not terrible. And that was overall, do you remember your science GPA? Was it lower?

Ange’le: Yeah, probably like a 3.0 or 2.9. It was lower.

Dr. Ryan Gray: Okay. So you made the determination yourself that ‘I’m not going to get into medical school with these stats. I need to do more.’ You didn’t apply and let the medical schools tell you no.

Ange’le: No, I didn’t.

Dr. Ryan Gray: Had you taken the MCAT at that point?

Ange’le: Yes. Well I’d taken the MCAT in 2014 so I’d pretty much finished all the prereq’s at that point and then took it. But I also felt like my MCAT score wasn’t really doing me any major favors as well.

Special Master’s Program & Linkage Agreement

Dr. Ryan Gray: Yeah. Okay so you find this Master’s program, you do well I’m assuming in your Master’s program because you’re telling yourself that ‘my undergrad GPA isn’t good enough, I need to do something more, do something better,’ so I’m hoping you did better in your Master’s program.

Ange’le: Yes, definitely.

Dr. Ryan Gray: Was it- what was it like going through a Master’s program for something unrelated, knowing all along that your ultimate goal was to still go back and apply to medical school? Was it distracting for you knowing that you still had to volunteer, and do extracurriculars, and possibly study for the MCAT again?

Ange’le: Well no because the Master’s program that I was in was actually designed for students that were planning on going into health professional careers. So I think if anything, being in the Master’s program wasn’t a distraction in any way because we were able to do volunteering while we were in there. But it was basically designed so that you would try to link into the programs at Western U, or at least get the help you needed to apply to outside programs.

Dr. Ryan Gray: So was it a Special Master’s Program?

Ange’le: Basically, yeah.

Dr. Ryan Gray: Okay. Go ahead, you were saying at that point-?

Ange’le: Oh I actually lost my train of thought.

Dr. Ryan Gray: That’s alright. So you applied for a Special Master’s program basically. So it’s not a Master’s of Public Health, a Master’s in some sort of hard sciences. It’s really a postbac program disguised as a Master’s program.

Ange’le: Exactly.

Dr. Ryan Gray: Interesting. And so you applied there, it sounds like they had a linkage agreement with Western, is that what that- you were mentioning Western.

Ange’le: Yeah. So it changes every year. Currently they no longer have the linkage agreement, but my year around late fall we were all given a contract that basically said if we met certain academic requirements, and also like characteristics just as far as like making sure you’re being a good student and respectful overall to your faculties and staff, that a spot would be held for you in the medical school class for next year.

Dr. Ryan Gray: That is nice.

Ange’le: It was very nice.

Dr. Ryan Gray: So when you applied did you know that that linkage was going to be there? Or was it just something you didn’t know and just went ahead anyway?

Ange’le: I did not know. There was no guarantee that there was going to be a linkage. We didn’t find that out until after we had already been in the program for several months.

Dr. Ryan Gray: What is that like to be told basically, ‘Here’s your acceptance to medical school,’ have that being waved in front of you, and being told, ‘Don’t screw up.’

Ange’le: I mean it was nice to have that opportunity because you knew exactly what you had to do to get in. There was no like guesswork involved, like when you’re applying to medical school you don’t always quite know what the admissions committees are going to be looking for. It’s kind of like a gamble. So it was nice to have that sort of assurance that I know exactly what I need to do. But at the same time it can be very stressful as you’re taking your courses knowing that, ‘Okay if I like fail this one course, like this isn’t going to happen.’ But for me it was just a great motivator. Like this is what I need to do, I’m going to do everything I can to get this done, and I can get into medical school. So it worked out.

Dr. Ryan Gray: Do you know of any classmates where it didn’t work out?

Ange’le: I do, yeah not all my classmates were able to matriculate right away, yeah.

Dr. Ryan Gray: If you could guess as to what their struggles were, what would you say they were?

Ange’le: For those students it just seemed like they almost maybe didn’t take the program as seriously as they should have. Like pretty much didn’t realize the opportunity that they were given, and maybe took it for granted, and didn’t work as hard as they probably should have. Which is kind of tragic because not a lot of students get an opportunity like that where you’re basically handed an admissions. Yeah but for some students it just didn’t seem to click like it did for others.

Dr. Ryan Gray: Some of the programs where you have linkage agreements, some of them basically say when you sign this agreement, we want you to go to this school and not apply to any other schools. Were you given the option to still throw your hat in the ring for other medical schools and apply to other schools?

Ange’le: Yes. Yeah we were definitely able to apply to other medical schools, and I did. I actually started applying to schools well before we knew that we were going to have that linkage agreement because beforehand there wasn’t a guarantee. So I decided to go ahead and apply to schools just in case things didn’t work out at Western U.

Dr. Ryan Gray: What did- when you got that linkage agreement, did you say, ‘Okay I’m pulling out from all of my applications. I don’t want to go to any other school. I have my linkage agreement, I think I’ll do well.’ Or was there this fear in the back of your mind that said, ‘There’s always a chance that I may screw this up. I should continue applying to these other schools.’

Ange’le: Yeah that fear was definitely still there because you just never know. Like even if it wasn’t like an academic thing, like maybe- like you just never know what could happen. So I continued applying to schools. I did withdraw from all of the DO schools that I’d applied to at that point because I knew if I was going to go to a DO school it was going to be Western U; just purely location wise it was perfect. But I did still keep a lot of my other applications open.

Dr. Ryan Gray: Were you accepted anywhere else?

Application Process and an Interview

Ange’le: No, I only got one interview, thought it went great, I really wanted to go there but they ended up- I ended up not getting that rejection letter until like July 5th of just this past year a couple months ago.

Dr. Ryan Gray: Yeah so you were pretty high up on the wait list to not get a rejection until that late.

Ange’le: It took a long time, yeah it was kind of agonizing actually because I really did want to go there.

Dr. Ryan Gray: Talk about the application process. What do you think, given that you’re kind of a nontrad at this point, taking a Special Master’s Program, trying to improve your grades, and you’re in an academic program trying to apply to medical schools at the same time. What do you think you could have done better looking back on it?

Ange’le: I’m not quite sure what I could have done better besides have better stats as an undergrad. But I think applying at that point, like even though I was already in the Special Master’s Program, you know when you submit your applications in early to late summer, you don’t have those grades yet. No admissions committee can see like how you’re doing in the program yet when they’re deciding whether or not to send you a secondary application. Or even if they do, you only have a couple of grades at that point. So I felt like applying at that time was very similar to what it would have been like had I applied even prior to entering that Master’s program because all they had in front of them was my grades from college, the grades from- the classes I took after college, and the same MCAT score.

Dr. Ryan Gray: There’s nothing really tangible from your SMP that they can see at that point.

Ange’le: Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Ryan Gray: Okay. Talk about your interview day. You said you thought everything went well. What was it like for you interviewing, and what kind of questions came up because you were in an SMP, and didn’t do so well in your initial undergrad path?

Ange’le: Yeah, well I really liked the entire interview day. It was in Atlanta so it was cool to go out of state, and meet students from all over, and I really felt like the school that I was at had a very welcoming and familial type of atmosphere, which was nice. My mother is from Atlanta so I could kind of connect with them on that. And the interview, I felt like they asked a lot of the questions you kind of expect to be asked in an interview. Like it was basically an open application type of interview where they asked you, okay like maybe like, ‘Why did you not do so well in college? What are you doing now? Describe to me what this experience was like as an athletic trainer. Oh, do you want to go into sports medicine? How do you see your future playing out as a doctor in that way?’ It felt very conversational, like they just asked me questions about my application, and there was no really surprising questions I felt that I gave, and it felt very comfortable and not too nerve-racking. And there was actually two interviews. So we had one person who I guess stood as like a primary interviewer, and then another person was like a secondary interviewer, and the secondary interview was less about my application and more just about me as a person like my hobbies, what are my parents like, what do they do, what is my sister like, and what’s that dynamic like having a sibling. So it was very interesting. But yeah, still not quite sure what maybe did it for them, maybe it was the grades ultimately, they probably had a lot of other applications with people with much better academics and so they just went with them.

Dr. Ryan Gray: Yeah, you never know which is why applying to a lot of schools is a little bit beneficial because you never know what exactly they’re looking for, or what they’re going to frown upon in your application, so it’s awesome that you had that opportunity with your Special Master’s Program with the linkage, so that’s great. What has it been like transitioning from undergrad to then a Master’s program, and now to medical school? How have each of those steps been for you as far as stress levels, and difficulty with the classwork?

Transitions along the Way

Ange’le: Well I would say compared to the transition from undergrad to college, the transition into medical school has been a little bit easier, at least thus far. I feel more prepared and now my study habits have improved. I have a better sense of what the coursework is going to be like. We actually were required to take a summer anatomy course with the med students while I was in the Master’s program, and then I ended up having to take that same course again as a medical student. So starting off as a medical student, I was taking a course I’d already taken before so I felt really comfortable with the coursework. The stress level was never really that high. I’m sure it will come later on, but I just haven’t experienced that yet just because the course I have taken thus far was a course I’ve taken before. But I definitely just feel more prepared overall. I feel like even though my path was kind of- it wasn’t a straight line in any sense. I feel like everything kind of happened for a reason, and where I’m at now I’m probably more prepared now than I would have been had I applied right out of college.

Dr. Ryan Gray: It’s interesting that they made you take a class with medical students in your Master’s program that you had to take anyway as a medical student. Do you think they did that as a weed out course? Like okay let’s try you as a medical student basically and see how you do.

Ange’le: That is a very good question. I’m not quite sure why they do that because they pretty much know at that point that we’re not prepared for medical school, which is the reason why we’re in that program in the first place for the most part. So kind of throwing people into the deep end, especially as their very first course, and it was like an eight credit course too, so it’s a lot of credits right off the bat. So I’m not quite sure why they do it that way, because if you didn’t do well then you kind of spent the rest of the program trying to make up for that grade. But if you did do well then you’re pretty much in good shape. But that’s a good question. I’m not quite sure why they do that.

Dr. Ryan Gray: So the anatomy class was one of the first classes you took in your Master’s program?

Ange’le: It was the first class we took, yes.

Dr. Ryan Gray: The first. So here’s my thought. They throw everybody into anatomy class with the medical students, and then they see how you do, and if you do well as a class then they’ll be like, ‘Okay let’s offer these kids a linkage agreement,’ which is why the linkage agreement came later.

Ange’le: Later, ah I like your theory.

Dr. Ryan Gray: That’s my theory. I’m a conspiracy theorist. That’s awesome.

Ange’le: Oh there’s always conspiracy theories, especially in programs like that where you’re not quite sure if you’re going to get in, so a lot of ideas come up but that’s a new one. I hadn’t heard that one before.

Dr. Ryan Gray: Alright, what does the future hold for you?

Ange’le: That’s a good question. Hopefully a graduation from medical school within four years, and a match into residency. That’s what my future I hope holds, is getting matched, having a job once I’m done with medical school.

Dr. Ryan Gray: Jobs are good.

Ange’le: Yes.

Dr. Ryan Gray: You don’t have any aspirations at this point for a specific specialty?

Ange’le: No I’ve always been interested- much like you, Ryan, in orthopedic surgery, because when I was in undergrad as a student athletic trainer I got to observe a lot of surgeries that were done on athletes, and I was completely enamored by it. I loved it. I’ve tried to stay in that world even after college; I used to work as a medical scribe for an orthopedic surgeon, and over the summer I also observed some more surgeries just to get a taste of what I was going after. So that’d be really cool if I could end up as an orthopedic surgeon, although I am very much aware how competitive that field is.

Being a Minority in the Medical Field

Dr. Ryan Gray: So let’s get a little deep here and serious, and talk about it from the standpoint of being a female minority, and the thoughts of going into a competitive field. Have you thought about it from that standpoint at all?

Ange’le: Oh yeah, absolutely. Because I personally don’t have a ton of role models per say that look like me that are in that field. All the orthopedic surgeons I knew were male and generally Caucasian, but I kind of like the idea of going into a field and maybe breaking down some barriers in that way. Because I’m also small too, I definitely don’t fit the sort of like jock type of personality that you usually think of when you think of orthopedic surgeon. So I’m small, I’m African American, and I’m a female, but I kind of like the idea of going into a specialty that maybe someone that looks like me is not usually seen in, and breaking down those barriers.

Dr. Ryan Gray: I love it. What do you say to the premed student who is on a similar path to you, and didn’t do so well their first couple years, and is debating whether or not to continue on this journey?

Ange’le: I would say if it’s really what you want to do, don’t let anyone persuade you to move on. Because honestly if I had let myself continue to be persuaded and not at least given myself a chance to see what could happen if I continued down this path, I wouldn’t be here today just quite simply. So I would just- yeah I really encourage people to at least try. I mean if this is what you want to do, like this is your plan A, pursue plan A to the fullest before you even start considering a plan B.

Final Thoughts

Dr. Ryan Gray: Alright again that was Ange’le sharing her journey of getting into medical school and the path that she took, and hopefully it will help you on your journey. I want to take a second to thank our sponsor for today’s podcast, Blueprint MCAT (formerly Next Step Test Prep). If you are struggling with the MCAT, if you’ve taken it once and need to re-take it, or if you haven’t taken it yet and need to still take it and are struggling with your studying, go check out Blueprint MCAT (formerly Next Step Test Prep). They specialize in working one-on-one with students. They are a born and bred tutoring company, but just recently they launched their first MCAT course that you can buy, and it’s not just any other course. It comes with tons of access to their instructors through live office hours, and very, very awesome course for you to take, and much, much cheaper than the other courses from the big name companies. And you can save some money off of the tutoring, or off their courses, or books, or everything else that they offer. They also offer lots of full length practice tests, they have ten of them I think at this point, so go save some money over at www.MedicalSchoolHQ.net/nextstep and you can use the code MSHQ in checkout in the promo code section to save some money. Thank you Next Step for supporting The Premed Years.

I want to take a second and also thank those that have taken a minute to leave us a rating and review. They do that, and you can do that over at www.MedicalSchoolHQ.net/iTunes.

We have one here from Rely8dc that say, ‘Love, love, love the podcast. Doc Ryan and his wife provide such wonderful info, my only wish is that these podcasts were longer and aired more often, maybe twice a week. One can only ask and hope. I feel like so many more stories of those who didn’t think they had it in them to make it to the finish line but are now either in med school or residency need to be explored to show one’s resilience when the odds seem to be stacked against them.’ Thank you for that rating and review. I would love to do these more often, but I think once a week is good for now, especially with all the other projects that we’re working on. So thank you for that.

We have another one here from Paden21 that says, ‘Amazing. I ran into these on a four hour drive. I love the information given in these podcasts. Anything will help with the road to medical school.’ So thank you for that.

And one more here from NeverGiveUpYourDream, ‘The best podcast for premed. An informative podcast filled with invaluable advice and inspiring stories. As a nontraditional premed, I especially appreciate learning about different journeys that other nontraditional premeds have taken to successfully gain med school admission. This podcast has given me hope and motivation to realize my dream of becoming a physician. Thank you so much Dr. Gray for an excellent podcast.’ No, thank you for an excellent review. Hopefully today’s episode was another inspiring nontraditional premed journey for you. Again, www.MedicalSchoolHQ.net/iTunes to leave us a rating and review.

I do want to remind you also, I think last week we talked about going to www.AudibleTrial.com/MSHQ where you can sign up for a free audio book. I love reading books and I do most of my reading through the Audible book. The newest one that I’m starting is ‘The Martian.’ I’ve watched the movie but I’ve heard the audio book is amazing and it’s even won awards, so that’s the next one I’m going to ‘read’ through Audible. If you aren’t a member of Audible yet, you can sign up for a free account, a free trial account, and get one free book that’s yours to keep even after you cancel your account if you don’t want to keep it. Again that book is yours to keep forever. And I also have a list of books for you to read over at www.MedicalSchoolHQ.net/tenbooks. Some of those books on that list you can also get through Audible, including all the amazing books from Atul Gawande.

Alright that is it for today. We are closing in on 200 episodes which is awesome. Next week’s podcast is going to be a great one with the folks at Iowa’s Carver College of Medicine where they have The Short Coat Podcast, and so I’m going to be talking to the folks over there that do that podcast, and some of the medical students as well. So check in next week here at The Premed Years. I hope you have a great week, keep pushing forward, keep staying motivated, and keep collaborating.