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Hello everyone, I am a 3rd year neuroscience, with a minor in psychology, Pre-PA student hoping to shadow a PA in any specialty! I am willing to travel to any part in South Florida. My email is mtejo2016@fau.edu

Why you should join FAPA by Nicole Schtupak-Zernitsky, FAPA South Regional Director: It’s a great idea for all Florida PAs to be members of our state academy, the Florida Academy of Physician Assistants (FAPA). It allows for SO much: networking, information, mentoring, biannual conferences and being up to date with all the PA legislation, just to name a few. Dues go to help lobby for our profession, and protect it against non friendly PA legislation, and lobby to help pass laws that ensure we have the practicing rights we do. It’s also tax deductible! It does not go to pay salaries… I am on the board of directors as the South Regional Director, and everything I, and the other members of the board, do are all voluntary. We do what we do because we believe in and love our profession. If you love PAs, love your PA, want to protect the PA profession, be a PA, working hard to become a PA then support your state academy. It’s super important. I had no idea until I became a PA student, and even more so now that I’ve become one. You want to protect everything you’ve worked so hard to attain. And don’t think that for one second there aren’t non friendly legislation attempting to sneak into laws. It’s currently happening! It’s bc of the state academy and their political action committee that help to combat those groups. Non friendly legislation in one state opens the door for other states. We have to all band together in all of the ways we can. One way to help, is just as simple as becoming a member. Nicole’s background: ER PA, critical care flight PA, South Regional Director for FAPA, adjunct faculty at Barry University, and previously sat on the admissions committee for the PA program. Thank you for reading. Please share. Join today: http://www.fapaonline.org/default.asp?

I graduated in May 2012 with a B.S. in Psychology and a minor in Business. My final GPA was 3.26. I started taking my science courses in that last semester. I took Chem and Microbiology and got a B in both (these were taken at a community college). I work as a Physical and Occupational Therapy aide to acquire my patient contact hours and have 377.75 so far (the programs I'm looking into require 500). I also have about 100 hours working with Autistic and Developmentally Disabled children at my other job. I still need to take 2 semesters Bio, 2 semesters Chem, A and P 1 & 2, and Biochemistry. I wish I would have known earlier on that I wanted to go into this field but it wasn't until I started to work at the hospital and saw that I didn't want to become an Occupational Therapist (the reason I got the aide job in the first place), that I shadowed PA's and decided I wanted to be a PA. The more I researched everything about it, the more it made sense that this is what I wanted to do. I've talked with several PA's and MD's and they feel that I'm making the right decision. So here is my problem: When I was in high school, I was taking all honors courses (even took 2 college courses) and my parents thought I was going to do really well when I went away to school. When I first went to college at 18, I dropped out after the first semester (because of major depression) and my grades were an F, D, and A. Then when I returned home, I took another stab at school the next semester and also got a C and F. Fast forward to age 24 and I entered community college again going part time and my GPA was more along the 3.6 area. Two years later at 26, I worked very part time and went back to school full time. When I transferred into my four year college, they didn't carry over my previous GPA and started me off at a blank slate. The very first semester I was at that college I had an awful professor for 2 classes out of the 4 I was taking and got C's in both (statistics and social psychology). I had not gotten any bad grades (besides when I was 18) and it was very disheartening. My GPA ended up being something around 2.6 or something like that for that semester. Every semester after I got A's and B's and finally brought it up to a 3.26. I know I am capable of a higher GPA but I just couldn't come back from that low GPA even with all of my high grades. My question is, once I have all of my hours, and I complete all of my pre-reqs, do you think that my 3.26 GPA is going to hurt me? I TRULY want to go to PA but I'm not sure if my GPA is going to cut it since the minimum is 3.0 and we all know that minimum GPA's don't really mean anything. Also, I've been taking my pre-reqs at a community college (because it is more cost effective and what I can afford), but I want to know if PA schools are going to put their noses up in the air at my courses since they aren't at a four year college. I'm 30 years old and need to know if I'm even considered a valid candidate at this point. I don't want to spend money taking all of the pre-reqs and incurring more debt on top of my undergrad loan, only to have to find another career at 32 or 33 with nothing to show for all of my hard work. What do you think about my stats? What do you feel are my chances of getting into PA school? Can anyone give me advice on what to do to be a better candidate? Or do you think I'm not even close to being considered? Please be honest with your answers and don't sugarcoat it. Thank you so much for taking the time to answer.