The sidewalk smelled like trash.

It was Saturday night, and I was walking home from Chinatown - tired and slightly disoriented after a full day helping elderly Chinese residents with their tax documents. I’d also just finished tutoring a group of recent immigrants on the kind of English they’d need to survive a medical visit.

After college graduation, I’d told myself I wanted to help real people and real problems. No prestige. No shortcuts. My Chinese was fluent, my sociology minor had taught me to care about inequality, and I believed I could do good work in Chinatown. And I did - sort of.

People began to open up. Elderly residents told me about chronic health problems they couldn’t afford to treat. Some hadn’t seen a doctor in five years. Others rationed medications to save money. And I realized: I couldn’t actually help them. Not in the way they needed. Because I wasn’t a doctor.

I told my dad what I was doing. Part of me felt good. Like I was doing something useful. But part of me felt... lost. He didn’t push back, but he did say something that stayed with me: “If you want to help more people, you need to build your ability to help them. You need power, not just intention. “

I’d always avoided the typical ABC path - medicine, law, and finance. I didn’t want to follow the crowd. But now, after six months of community work, I was confused. I had purpose but no clear path.

.Two years after college, I applied to medical school. Here’s how I started my personal statement: “Maybe I’m applying later than most. But these past two years have made the decision mine - not my parents’, not my peers’. It isn’t a perfect story. But it’s an honest one. And it’s enough.” I was accepted by Harvard Medical School.

Here are what I’d like to share with graduating college students:

- If you’re in college right now, feeling behind, confused, or unsure, you’re not
broken. You’re just in the middle of it.

- You don’t have to go straight from A to B. Sometimes, detours make your
direction real.

- Sometimes, helping others shows you the limits of what you know, and pushes
you to become more.

There’s no wrong time to start. There’s just your time.

Make sure the next step is yours.