Moving Interstate for Medical School

Medicine is a highly-sought out career, and although careful preparation and the help of an online UCAT Exam preparation course can significantly increase your chances of getting in your dream school, it is common for students to have to move interstate to fulfill their dreams of studying medicine.

As an interstate student carrying out an undergraduate medicine course myself, I can provide some insight into the pros and cons. 
 

Advantages:

• You increase your chances of getting in by increasing the number of potential schools you can apply to!

• It’s a great social learning experience! When moving to a new city where you  barely know anyone, you are bound to make many new friends, as opposed to sticking to your old crowd.

• Learn to live on the go! If you move interstate you will learn to move around a lot, that’s a useful skill to prepare you for the early years of training as a junior doctor, where yearly contracts are the norm.

• A degree of freedom! You can basically do whatever you want! Want to go to your mate’s house tonight and then maybe hit up a party? Go for it!

• A lot of independence! Living away from home can teach you a lot of skills you might not have learned while living at home. (E.g. cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, and how to manage your time more effectively)
   

Disadvantages:

• Cost of living – probably the biggest concern. Living on your own is quite costly, even when using the cheapest alternatives like shared housing. Moving away from home will definitely be more expensive than living at home, which is something to keep in mind when considering moving interstate.

• Leaving behind your family and friends. Yeah this one sucks, and you’ll also miss out on a lot of events back home… but hey, remember home is only a short flight away!

• Being independent. Yes, it can be an advantage, but also hard to handle at first. Living on your own can be overwhelming at first – but I can assure you that it’s not as scary as it seems, you’ll be fine!

• Not knowing anyone… Again, also one of these double-edged swords... Remember that first day of primary school where you didn’t know anyone? But then after you found a few friends everything became better? Yeah that is kind of what I’m getting at here – it can be really daunting not knowing anyone at all and living in a completely new state, but once you get into it I can assure you it will be great!

• Dropping in internship priority for back home. You might think that it’s just 5-6 years away from home and then you’ll be working back home in no time – but this is not always the case as your priority in internship allocation drops once you start studying medicine in a different state. Realistically, you might have to also finish your internship and residency in that state before being able to move home (and there’s still no guarantee at that point for highly sought-out metropolitan areas). Bear in mind that training positions in some states (like Victoria) can be very hard to obtain for those who graduated interstate. Although some people manage to return to their home state, there are no guarantees, so choose wisely!

In spite of all the above disadvantages – I can assure that once you get used to your new living situation, the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. Moving interstate is an invaluable experience; not to mention your dreams of becoming a doctor will be that much more likely to become true.