{"id":3060,"date":"2026-07-27T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/graduateprograms\/?p=3060"},"modified":"2026-07-27T13:56:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T17:56:07","slug":"finding-success-in-grad-school-gillian-wilhelms-physician-assistant-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/graduateprograms\/2026\/07\/27\/finding-success-in-grad-school-gillian-wilhelms-physician-assistant-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Success in Grad School: Gillian Wilhelm\u2019s Physician Assistant Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-spotify wp-block-embed-spotify wp-embed-aspect-21-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: Finding Success in Grad School: Gillian Wilhelm&amp;apos;s Physician Assistant Journey\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"100%\" height=\"152\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/4EV7F5iH3LXSDwzzgjpudn?si=4462229f7ed04eaa&amp;utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>What does it really take to chart a successful course through graduate school? That\u2019s the question at the heart of this week\u2019s episode of the Victors in Grad School podcast, where&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/drchristopherlewis\/\"><strong>Dr. Christopher Lewis<\/strong><\/a> welcomes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/gillian-wilhelm-pa-s2-6226b4262\/\"><strong>Gillian Wilhelm<\/strong><\/a>, a second-year Physician Assistant student at the University of Michigan-Flint, to open up about her own journey\u2014the doubts, the decisions, and the lessons learned along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The episode kicks off with Dr. Christopher Lewis emphasizing that every grad school journey is unique, but that hearing from others can help you add tools to your \u201csuccess toolbox.\u201d Gillian Wilhelm\u2019s story is no exception. She traces her decision to enter the physician assistant (PA) field back to her junior year at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like so many, the uncertainty of that period forced her to re-evaluate her goals. She weighed her options\u2014medicine, nursing, or something else entirely\u2014before discovering the PA career through a friend\u2019s recommendation. What resonated was the balance of hands-on patient care and work-life flexibility, ultimately fueling her passion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Preparation, Gillian Wilhelm shares, was key\u2014not just academically, but practically. She discusses the importance of researching programs, understanding prerequisites, and gaining patient care experience. Her pragmatic tip? Make sure you meet admissions criteria before sinking money into applications\u2014a lesson learned through creating spreadsheets, taking extra courses, and shadowing various healthcare professionals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once in grad school, juggling personal and academic expectations became crucial. Gillian Wilhelm candidly discusses the reality of adjusting to a demanding program: learning how to study again, relying on the support of therapy and family, and experimenting with different study and self-care strategies until she found what worked for her. She\u2019s honest about imposter syndrome but stresses the power of simply \u201cshowing up for yourself\u201d each day, whether or not you feel confident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The episode also highlights the importance of community. Building relationships with classmates\u2014often by just suggesting a walk to class\u2014becomes a lifeline, as does forming connections with thoughtful faculty who genuinely want students to succeed. Gillian Wilhelm found meaning in serving as cohort president, helping bridge students and faculty concerns, reinforcing the theme that success often grows from collaboration and communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you\u2019re considering graduate school, this episode is a must-listen. Through Gillian Wilhelm\u2019s authentic reflections, \u201cVictors in Grad School\u201d offers not just advice but genuine encouragement: do your homework, embrace your unique journey, build your community, and remember\u2014it\u2019s about progress, not perfection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tune in to the full episode for inspiration and wisdom you can carry into your own academic adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>TRANSCRIPT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:01]:<br>Welcome to Victors in Grad School, where we have conversations with students, alumni and experts about what it takes to find success in graduate school. Welcome back to Victors in Grad School. I&#8217;m your host, Dr. Christopher Lewis, Director of Graduate programs at the University of Michigan, Flint. Really excited to have you back again this week. As always, every week, I love being able to have an opportunity to sit down, to talk to you, to work with you as you are preparing to go on your own graduate school journey. And I call it a journey because it is a journey. Every person that is thinking about graduate school has to go through a distinct and unique journey for themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:39]:<br>But there are things that you can do, things that you can do right now that&#8217;ll help you to prepare yourself for graduate school. That&#8217;s why every week, I love being able to provide you with opportunities to learn, to grow, and to meet new people with different experiences that can share some of their own graduate school journey with you. That&#8217;s why this podcast exists. It is here to help you to be able to listen to other people&#8217;s experiences, to take in what works, set aside what doesn&#8217;t work, and add some tools to your toolbox that&#8217;ll help you to move forward in your own journey that you&#8217;re on. This week, we got another great guest. Jillian Wilhelm is with us. I&#8217;m really excited to have Jillian here with us today. Jillian is a second year graduate student in the physician Assistant program at the University of Michigan, Flint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:28]:<br>And, and we&#8217;re gonna be talking about the journey that she has gone through to be able to get to where she is today and that she&#8217;s going through right now to be able to help you in your own graduate school journey. Jillian, thanks so much for being here today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:01:41]:<br>Thank you for having me, Dr. Lewis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:43]:<br>Well, it is my pleasure having you here today. I&#8217;m really excited to be able to talk to you. And I always love to start these conversations with an opportunity to turn the clock back in time. And what I&#8217;d love to do is go back. I wanna go back in time, back to that time back at University of Michigan. You were working on that bachelor&#8217;s degree in neuroscience. And whether it was during your time at Ann Arbor or at some other point, there was a point in time where you said to yourself, I&#8217;m not done. I&#8217;m going to continue on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:11]:<br>And you had that spark in your head that said, I want to be a physician assistant. Bring me back to that point. And what was going through your head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:02:18]:<br>That point for me came in my junior Year at U of M Ann Arbor, it was the middle of COVID I was living on campus because I was an ra. So at that time, I&#8217;m not sure how familiar you or anyone else listening was or is with the situation that we were in. But because of the super high number of cases, the university was instructed to kind of shut down and have all students who were able to return to their homes, return homes. And we had a mostly online experience then for the rest of that semester. But because I had the opportunity to be an ra, we still had students, athletes, international students who were there. So I was still living on campus. And being in the middle of the pandemic, we really didn&#8217;t know what was going on. But I knew even still then when I went, when I started my bachelor&#8217;s, I knew I wanted to do something in medicine, and I just wasn&#8217;t fully sure what.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:03:12]:<br>And then being in the middle of the pandemic, we didn&#8217;t really know what was going to happen. We didn&#8217;t know how long we were going to be in that situation for. And I was having some doubts of, well, do I want to go the medical school route? That&#8217;s a lot of other schooling, a lot of research, and just volunteering. Shadowing opportunities are super limited. I could do nursing, but that would be an extra bachelor&#8217;s degree. And I was already most of the way towards my neuroscience degree. And I actually had a really good friend reach out to me. She was also in college at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:03:45]:<br>We&#8217;d been friends since kindergarten. And she sent me this article about what a PA was, and I had no idea of what a PA was. I&#8217;d never heard of them before. And she was like, I found this career, and this seems, like, really great. And it seems like exactly what you and I want to do. And I read the article, and it was truly just like, it mentioned work, life, balance, it mentioned still all of the patient interaction I was looking for. And I just thought it was a really unique thing. It was a role that was really rooted in teamwork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:04:19]:<br>You got to be a collaborator with many different people, many different professions, whether outpatient or inpatient. And that was that, like, you mentioned, that kind of seed or that kind of spark. And I just. I kept looking more into the profession, and as the year progressed and as I looked closer to graduating, I started looking more into the role, and I realized, like, that&#8217;s what I want to do after I graduate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:04:42]:<br>Now, I know that after you graduated, you went, you got some experiences, some work experiences that allowed for you to prepare yourself for applying to physician assistant programs. Because for most PA programs you&#8217;re going to need to see at least about 500 hours. Sometimes it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s much more than that. Sometimes it&#8217;s right at the minimum. But, but you do have to have some hours of direct patient contact experience. And you did do that. You went out and you had some experiences for yourself to prepare yourself. And as you got into that year when you were applying to physician assistant programs, I&#8217;m sure that you were looking across many different types of schools and trying to identify, okay, what&#8217;s the best fit for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:05:23]:<br>You ended up choosing to attend the University of Michigan Flint. But talk me through that process for yourself and what did you do to be able to not only prepare yourself for that academic, for that admission journey, but also how did you look and try to break down for yourself what were the programs that you were going to apply to and how did you ultimately decide that the University of Michigan Flint was the right program for you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:05:50]:<br>So I did a lot of research when I was looking at programs. I know statistically it&#8217;s such a growing like profession and a growing field that the admissions journey is, can be very hard and very challenging just because it&#8217;s a super high demand field and you have a lot of wonderful applicants who are all applying for that, those limited number of spots as you. But my journey was really just a lot of research. I knew I graduated from U of M at Ann Arbor in 2022 and then I applied during the, I think it was like the 2425 CYC because then with U of M Flint we started in January of 25. So I knew I was researching quite a bit with some classes have like, or some schools have term limits. So some of the classes I took for my degree back in like my sophomore year. So like 2019, 2020, there are limits with like how long they&#8217;ll accept those classes versus like how soon you can take. So some places have five year limits, some places have 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:06:52]:<br>So I had to do a lot of research to make sure that like the schools I was interested in I could actually like meet the admissions criteria for. Because applying to PA school is super expensive and I didn&#8217;t want to put money towards application fees to a school that I knew like wouldn&#8217;t accept my credits or my classes or things like that. So that was definitely something I had to spend a lot of time looking into. I had a big spreadsheet, a lot of different notes. My Google Drive got a lot of use, which was Great. And then I ended up as well, working as a physical therapy aide for about five months. And then I was a nursing, a certified nursing assistant for the majority of my patient care experience. So that was also something I knew that I wanted to be in a hospital and I wanted to really kind of immerse myself in that, like, healthcare environment because I had never been in an environment like that before, so I wanted to really get a feel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:07:48]:<br>And even though I knew I wanted to be a PA, I wanted to see like how PAs were in kind of that natural environment. So with working. And then I also was fortunate to shadow a couple different PAs. I shadowed one in the ER, I shadowed a cardiology PA and then as well as an interventional radiology PA. So I got to see how they interacted with patients and other healthcare professionals. And those all really solidified. That&#8217;s what I wanted to do for a career and kept me going through the admissions process for sure. Because when you&#8217;re sitting there staring at multiple essays, your big spreadsheet, and you&#8217;re trying to just figure everything out and keep everything going, you kind of need that extra motivation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:08:27]:<br>You can just remember, like, I really saw how that PA worked with that patient and that was really key for me, is to remind myself like, that&#8217;s where I want to be. So to make all of the paperwork and the research worth it. And then for U of M specifically I, or U of M Flint specifically, I really was interested in the fact that they have a 16 month didactic year. That was something that Most programs are 12 months didactic and then 12 months for clinicals. And as someone who I had been out of school for a couple years and while I still had a big science background, I mean, you, if you&#8217;re not using all of that knowledge all day every day, sometimes it can be a little tricky to review back on and get back in that mindset of a student. And I thought the 16 month didactic would be a great opportunity for me to just have maybe a little more time to just like kind of flush out some topics. So that was definitely a draw as well. And then, I mean, I graduated from U of M Ann Arbor, so why not try and keep it in the U of M family, you know? But yeah, and then I went.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:09:27]:<br>I was lucky enough to be selected for an interview and I really liked the professors. All of the students I spoke with on my interview day were all just had really positive things to say and I just thought their admissions process was truly holistic. I think that&#8217;s something A lot of programs say, and I can&#8217;t speak to other programs, but when I went for my interview and then as well as just like the supplemental essays that you. The prompts that U of M Flint asked about, those were things that I felt truly added on to my application. Because definitely some other programs, it&#8217;s like they ask for essays that I kind of felt were. I was repeating myself with the other things I had had in my application. And U of M&#8217;s prompts were just. It allowed me to show like, other aspects of my character and my ethics and kind of like my moral compass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:10:18]:<br>And I just thought that was really cool. And I made sure to let them know that too when they asked us, like for questions or feedback because it was just something else that I felt made me stand out and just like kind of showed how else or how I carry myself and who I am outside of just the same essays that you kind of send to everybody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:10:36]:<br>Now, for every person that&#8217;s going to graduate school, there is a transition that you go through. Now you had a transition out of undergrad into the workforce. You worked for a little bit of time and then you made a transition to graduate school. And as you make those transitions, there&#8217;s definitely a different bar when it comes to going from undergrad to grad. There&#8217;s a different way that you&#8217;re being educated and the expectations are also different. And every person has to be able to maneuver through that for themselves. Now, you found success in graduate school. Thus far, you&#8217;ve been able to maneuver through this process for yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:11:12]:<br>And as you think about the transition that you had going into graduate school, what did you have to do to set yourself up for success, and what have you had to do to maintain that success throughout your graduate school journey thus far?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:11:27]:<br>That&#8217;s a great question. The first thing that came to mind, truthfully, was having a good relationship with my therapist, which obviously is not specifically academic related, but that was something I knew I wanted to continue. Just having another person to kind of like a third party to just like really hear me out and help me like process and work through the big, like, emotional changes and just amount of stress I was under with that transition. So he definitely helped me through quite a bit of that and helped me just process and make some good changes to help keep me mentally healthy as well as making sure I could get to class and get through class okay. So that was my first thought for sure for the big transitions. Otherwise, definitely relearning how to be a student. Because like you said, I&#8217;d been in the workforce for a few years, and I hadn&#8217;t truly been, like, studying and getting back into that mindset and kind of unlearning older, not very helpful study habits. I think I had a unique undergrad experience just with being in the pandemic and having constant, like, academic changes of, like, if we could be in person, if we can&#8217;t, if we&#8217;re online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:12:35]:<br>So those were challenging to build, like, good study habits, at least for me. So then coming into grad school with having just even a greater amount of material, but having it come a lot faster and just being more unfamiliar with quite a bit of the material, that was definitely something where I had to really just try different study techniques and different study habits. And as I kind of went through, I realized what was working and what wasn&#8217;t. So that was definitely something I had to continuously work on and realize, like, hey, I tried this last week. I don&#8217;t think it worked for me. Or last week, last month, last unit, last body system. Let&#8217;s try something else this time. And that&#8217;s something I hear quite a bit from just, like, talking with my other classmates or even myself, looking back to where I was, like, starting the program, for some people, they really figure out what works for them and how to study and like that, and they stick with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:13:31]:<br>And that&#8217;s great for me. It definitely took some trial and error. And I, when asked about it, I truly don&#8217;t feel like I really had my good study habits down until, like, last fall. It took me a couple semesters, and I&#8217;m happy I got to that point. But I&#8217;m also okay with the fact that I went through some trial and error, and now I know, like, what sticks and what helps. So that&#8217;s definitely a big part of the transition, is relearning how to be a student, especially if you&#8217;re not someone who just finished your undergrad and went right into the program, which is wonderful and advantageous if you have those good study habits. But it was just something I had to relearn and kind of go through. And then I think otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:14:09]:<br>For the transition, to set myself up for success, I think it was still keeping in touch with my family. My family is, like, my biggest support system. Coming into the program, I really didn&#8217;t know anybody. I didn&#8217;t have any, like, former classmates. My friends who were also on their PA journey were going to different programs. So that was definitely. I leaned on my family quite a bit, and I still do, and I&#8217;m very thankful for their support and their Understanding and picking up the phone, even if it&#8217;s late at night when I just need to talk about something. So that&#8217;s, I appreciate that a great amount as well, more than I could probably ever say in words otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:14:46]:<br>Setting up for success. You just have to keep showing up. I think that was the other thing I learned was even when I was super tired and frustrated of I still couldn&#8217;t understand a topic or I didn&#8217;t get through as many questions as I wanted to the night before. Still showing up as much as you can every day and just be willing to just keep showing up for yourself and just keep going. Okay, I know yesterday was hard, but maybe today will be a little better. And that&#8217;s all you can really do is like just keep showing up for yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:15:14]:<br>Now talk to me a little bit about that connection and that balance that you had to find for yourself. Because you know you&#8217;re in a program that is a high stress program. It is, there&#8217;s a lot of expectations. You are on campus and it is a full time program. So it is an intense program. So talk to me about balance and how did you balance school, work, family, personal responsibilities while in graduate school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:15:38]:<br>For me, I think living on campus definitely helped. I know that was something. When I was considering all the financial aspects of attending a grad school, I was really torn between like commuting or living on campus. And I ultimately kind of chose to live on campus just for the commute and then kind of saving myself a little time that way. So that definitely helped the balance of. I, if I stayed up a little late studying, I could sleep in and still make, get to class with plenty of time even with the weather because we, we love Michigan winters and they&#8217;re unpredictability. But I think for balance it was, it was something it took me a while to figure out. U of M Flint&#8217;s program starts in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:16:21]:<br>So it&#8217;s dark when you go to class, it&#8217;s dark when you come home. The weather&#8217;s not super great. So definitely that is just a little external factor. But I think overall for balance, it just kind of took me a while to figure out. It was also my first time like truly living alone and making sure to cook for myself. I hadn&#8217;t really lived alone in that capacity since undergrad and making sure I was able to balance, making sure I could eat, I could eat okay. Making sure I could cook. I definitely meal prepping was super helpful for my balance of I would cook on the weekends and then have things to eat throughout the week and that definitely helped for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:16:59]:<br>I could come home, have something ready to eat, and then continue to study or do whatever else I needed to. So that definitely helped. And I&#8217;m still continuing to do that as I&#8217;ve gone through grad school. That&#8217;s helped a lot. And I, I think finding a schedule that works for you. Fridays for me were my cleaning days. I&#8217;m someone who thrives on routine. So even just outside of academics, like I liked having, like my Friday was my end of the week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:17:24]:<br>I would do my grocery shop thing and I would clean and it was like my reset for the week. And then I would go into that, I think definitely focusing more on the outside factors, but I&#8217;ll get to the academics in a second. But I think otherwise too. I&#8217;m just very fortunate, like I mentioned earlier, to have the support of my family, of them knowing that I would wouldn&#8217;t be able to attend every family party, every event, everything that I really want to. But understanding that this is a two and a two and a third year commitment and they know that it&#8217;s the career I&#8217;ve been working towards my whole life. So really just thankful for having their support and knowing like, if I can&#8217;t come home for this, then it&#8217;s my parents and my sister driving out and going to breakfast on a later week when I don&#8217;t have an exam. So I really appreciated their flexibility and their willingness to keep me involved as much as they could and make sure they really just emphasize that we know you&#8217;re working for your career. You have your whole rest of your life to go to family birthday parties and things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:18:26]:<br>So having that support and understanding really helped me manage that balance and that kind of fear of just missing people and like missing those things when I&#8217;m stuck when I&#8217;m studying and then academic balance as well. I think something that took me a while to learn too was just understanding that sometimes things might take you longer to understand or to process. I definitely was someone who would see classmates, things just clicked for them or they really just got into their studying pattern right away and they were super successful and I was really happy for them, but then really frustrated that that wasn&#8217;t happening for me. I felt like I was taking super long to understand the same concepts that they were or stuff just wasn&#8217;t processing or clicking for me in the same way. And I think once I realized that that&#8217;s okay and as long as I KE working at it, that definitely helped. I no longer found myself like comparing myself to other classmates. It was more like that&#8217;s wonderful that they&#8217;re getting it. Like, that&#8217;s great, but let&#8217;s just find a way that you can get it too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:19:27]:<br>And then definitely just making sure I was sleeping def. I know everyone says, like, oh, you don&#8217;t really sleep in grad school, but you do have to. That definitely helps your academic performance, is making sure you do get sleep. And then also I&#8217;m someone. I learned that studying by myself is for the most part what I need. But sometimes, like studying with a friend or alongside a friend or a group of friends was helpful too, because then you have someone to tap on the shoulder and say, hey, do you get this? Can you explain this to me? And then maybe you can explain a concept to them. So sometimes my hangouts with my classmates would be, we all go to the library together for an evening and just sit at the same big table and study independently, but then have our little breaks where we can kind of chat quietly and compare topics or compare notes. So I feel like the process of balance is truly different for everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:20:20]:<br>If I had to kind of sum up my thoughts, I know I kind of went in a bunch of different directions. But I think that&#8217;s to say that balance doesn&#8217;t look the same for everyone. And that&#8217;s okay. You just have to remember if it&#8217;s working for you in the sense of you&#8217;re accomplishing what you need to studying wise, while you&#8217;re also like taking care of yourself physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, how, in whatever way speaks true for you, then I think that&#8217;s the best way to figure out, like, if you are really balancing everything to make sure you&#8217;re still a person throughout while also being like a grad student.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:20:53]:<br>Those are great points. Now also, every one of us go to graduate school, there&#8217;s a point in time where you hit that wall, that proverbial wall where you say to yourself, am I made for this? Am I? Is this really? Am I going to be good at this? And it&#8217;s that self doubt, it&#8217;s that imposter syndrome that everyone faces. And it&#8217;s hard to explain it and it&#8217;s hard to help someone to understand it. But talk to me about that for yourself. Did you face it? What did you have to do to be able to handle it? And maybe you&#8217;re still handling it and that&#8217;s okay too, but how do you continue to handle it if that&#8217;s the case too?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:21:31]:<br>Yeah, I definitely had imposter syndrome and definitely at the beginning. And even so, sometimes, like, I was really feeling it before we went to clinicals of just like, I&#8217;ve spent 16 months learning all the textbook stuff. Like, how is that going to be in the. In the real world? Because it&#8217;s just a whole different aspect of. You no longer have the textbook cases of conditions or diseases you have now, like, true people who aren&#8217;t going to present in the same way. You learn everything. So definitely was feeling the imposter syndrome there, but at the start of grad school, I definitely was feeling it, like, very much so. I would come home from class and go, how am I going to make it through another two years of this? It&#8217;s overwhelming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:22:15]:<br>You just have so many. You&#8217;re trying to make friends, you&#8217;re trying to get. Make sure you&#8217;re getting everything and finding how to study. And I think working through that, I definitely leaned on my therapist. We talked a lot about that. And just ways to remind yourself you were chosen. This program saw something in you and said, she&#8217;s great, or, they&#8217;re great, he&#8217;s great, she&#8217;s wonderful, great applicant, but we want to help them become a pa because you can. I definitely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:22:46]:<br>I&#8217;m obviously not on the admissions committee, but I kept trying to remind myself, like, they. Jillian, they saw something in you from your application, from your letters of rec, from how you carried yourself in interviews. Like, they saw something in you that said, we want to work with her, we want to help her be a great pa. We want to teach her. And it was constantly, truly reminding myself of that. I had the privilege of being selected, and especially I got into school on my first try, and I know that is not very common to do. So that was also something to just remind myself of. Of like, you were chosen for this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:23:21]:<br>Like, you obviously want it, and you are. You keep showing up even though you feel that imposter syndrome. And that speaks volumes, like, more than you know. And I think that was also my motivation was I keep showing up and I don&#8217;t have to be perfect, but if I keep showing up, then that&#8217;s actively kind of fighting that imposter syndrome. Because it would be so much easier to just hide. And you obviously can&#8217;t skip class, but it would be so much easier to hide and not go to school at all. But I kept having to remind myself of, you are here, you got here, you worked your butt off to get here. So use the opportunity you have to the fullest and to celebrate that and remind yourself like, you&#8217;ve got through the really hard part of getting in now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:24:09]:<br>Continue to do what you have been doing and work hard and show up. Even when you show up and you don&#8217;t really believe in yourself that day, like still show up, ask your questions and make the most of the experience. Because I only plan on doing this once. So definitely something that if it goes away for you, then that&#8217;s wonderful. But it continues to be something I work through and I just kind of keep giving myself those reminders of you&#8217;re still here, you&#8217;re still showing up. Even when you&#8217;re scared or nervous or don&#8217;t really know where to go your first day of clinicals, or don&#8217;t really feel great after an exam, like, you still showed up and you still gave it your all and that&#8217;s the best thing you can do is just show up for yourself every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:24:50]:<br>And earlier you talked about when you came into the program, you didn&#8217;t know anyone. And for some people going to graduate school, that is the case. For others, they may know people going in. But for you, as you are transitioning and going through what you&#8217;ve gone through thus far to where you are right now, how did you go about building those relationships with faculty or peers? And were any of those relationships especially impactful? And if so, how were they impactful to you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:25:17]:<br>Yeah, I think for me, I ended up living on in our on campus housing for grad students, which is Riverfront. And I kind of got lucky and had some built in camaraderie and friendships with the other people or classmates in my cohort who also lived in Riverfront. That was something where we move in. Day is the Sunday before classes start on that Monday. So we&#8217;re of course all kind of cramming in. There was a bunch of us that lived on the same floor and I remember sending like a group or a message in our group text of just like, does anybody want to walk together to class tomorrow morning? And we all walked to class together for our first day of grad school. And it was definitely just nice having those people. It&#8217;s like you see them in class all day, but then you can come home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:26:02]:<br>And it was like having kind of built in study partners of it was just something nice where we could say like, oh, we have an empty classroom on the second floor, Riverfront, if you want to come and just study in a group, like feel free. And we just built some friendships based on that. I think it&#8217;s easy to form friendships when you&#8217;re going through something as challenging as grad school because you&#8217;re all in it the same way. And it&#8217;s definitely something challenging maybe for other people. To understand. So that was definitely helpful, is we all were in the same place all the time. We all knew what was going on, and. And we&#8217;re all kind of helping each other through that, so that definitely helped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:26:40]:<br>And then as, like, my cohort, like, went through and continued onto the program, I think we all definitely just, like, got to know each other more and got to, like, figure out our personalities. And once we got over being completely scared, maybe that first month, like, we just started, like, letting our personalities shine through more, and I think that definitely helps. We have a lot of. A lot of, like, fun and creative personalities in our cohort. And I. It&#8217;s just a cool mix of people. I definitely would say my best friend, probably in the program is Kate, and she is just wonderful. And I think that was just the combination of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:27:15]:<br>Part of it is we sit next to each other in class. So that was really cool just having someone to, like, chat with. But I don&#8217;t know, I feel like we got to a point where we just, like, found ourselves hanging out more. And she&#8217;s just someone I can talk to about anything. And I&#8217;m just really grateful to have met her. But truly, everyone in Riverfront, like, I&#8217;m, I think, the only student in my cohort who still lives there. We&#8217;ve all kind of spread out, but we still have our Riverfront group chat where we&#8217;ll, like, chat and see how everyone&#8217;s doing. So that&#8217;s been really great just to kind of get to meet people that I probably would have never met otherwise or.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:27:47]:<br>And then we&#8217;re all going to be co workers in the future. So that&#8217;s really neat. And then with faculty, I definitely think it&#8217;s like, coming into grad school, you&#8217;re like, oh, I have to impress my professors. Like, these are also going to be my co workers at some point in the future, which is really cool and also just kind of different to think about, because you think about, like, your professors, and they are a lot of times, like other experts in their field. And unless you&#8217;re going into that field, it&#8217;s just different to think about. But I think for me, I was just a person who asked a lot of questions. And I&#8217;m also someone who wears her emotions on her face. So if I wasn&#8217;t getting a topic, it was pretty clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:28:27]:<br>And I think that kind of helped my professors, too. I know one Professor Raymakers, she taught us more in our summer term. And she&#8217;s also my academic advisor, so I would talk with her more. And she was someone where she would Be like, I really appreciate that you wear your emotions on your face, because I can see when you&#8217;re not getting something. And then I suspect other people might not be getting it too. So she knows maybe I need to explain something else differently. And that&#8217;s also really cool. I think, as well, for faculty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:28:55]:<br>To me, it was just really clear that all of the U of M Flint PA faculty want us to succeed like they do. They ask for so many surveys, and they really ask for our feedback as much as they can. And I think it&#8217;s pretty clear that they take our feedback seriously because they just want the program to be the best it possibly can, and they want us to be the best, best PA students and then PAs that we can be. So that definitely came through in the interviews. And then just as a student moving through the program and getting to, like, work with all of our different staff and faculty, I just really think it shows that they care. And then for me as well, I. Within the PA program, we have the PA Student Society, or pass, and every cohort has their PASS officer, and we all vote. And the past officers help organize different events and work with faculty for different things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:29:50]:<br>And I was actually elected by my classmates to be the president of my cohort. So I&#8217;ve had the unique privilege to work with faculty and meetings and really be kind of a bridge between students and faculty. And it&#8217;s been a really unique experience to kind of be a point person for students and have people feel comfortable coming to me and saying, this thing is happening and this is really challenging for us. Could you bring this up to the professors and see what we could do? And I&#8217;ve been able to do that and really be a voice for my classmates, and it&#8217;s been really cool. So I think I&#8217;ve been. Or I&#8217;ve had the privilege of being able to be that person and then just get to know faculty more throughout that role. And it&#8217;s just really cool. I think coming into grad school, I didn&#8217;t really know what to expect with, like, that relationship with your professors, and I&#8217;m just really grateful that I have those relationships with them and my.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:30:44]:<br>And the cohort does, too. I. I truly do just think it comes across as they care so much and they just want their students to be as successful as they possibly can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:30:52]:<br>And I think that&#8217;s really important because whether you&#8217;re going through a physician assistant program, a medical school program, a law school program, walking into that classroom your first day, it is intimidating. And there will be times in which you will be Scared to speak up and to have your voice heard because of the fact that you don&#8217;t feel that you have the knowledge to be able to impress the faculty. And one of the things that I would say to you is that you don&#8217;t have to impress. You&#8217;re there to learn. And all of your faculty know that. They don&#8217;t expect you to be experts. They don&#8217;t expect you to be where they are because they had to go through the same thing that you went through along the way. So it&#8217;s their role to facilitate that learning and to help you to be able to get to the point of competence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:31:42]:<br>Competence in the knowledge that you need for the profession or for the academic area, but also the ability for you, to push you and to challenge you and to get you to a point where you are confident in your own abilities to be able to, whether it&#8217;s in the medical field, to be that advocate it and to be that practitioner that is going to be able to help your, your patients or in some other area where you&#8217;re working with a computer or you&#8217;re working with other co workers. So just know that. Know that there is going to be a point in time where you&#8217;re going to feel that way and that&#8217;s perfectly fine. But also know that at by the end of the program you will be in a different place. And that&#8217;s what Jillian is talking about, is you start one place, you&#8217;ll end at another one. Now Jillian, as you think back to your own graduate school experience and you think of other people that are thinking about graduate school, whether it be going to become a physician assistant or something completely different, what are some tips that you might offer others considering graduate education that would help them find success sooner?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:32:47]:<br>This is such a good question. I think definitely do your research on the programs that you&#8217;re applying to. Whether like you said, that&#8217;s PA programs, whether that&#8217;s for law, whether that&#8217;s for engineering, do the research and ask the questions for of the admissions teams and try and find programs that match. Maybe your personality is not the best term, but match like who you are, what you want out of a graduate experience. Because if you&#8217;re going to invest your time, your money and your education into a program and put that in their hands, definitely make sure it&#8217;s a program that you are sure you would want to attend if an admissions offer was extended to you. That definitely I&#8217;m very grateful. I did a lot of research into to my PA programs and I&#8217;m grateful I chose to apply to U of M. Flint because I truly do think that their values, as well as their admissions process and speaking to other students, they just really reflected what I wanted out of my graduate program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:33:46]:<br>And I think that&#8217;s definitely why I chose to apply here. And I have found success as I&#8217;ve gone through. It&#8217;s not been without its challenges, but I definitely know that the program and I mesh well with like our expectations and what our values are. So that definitely was helpful. So I would say do your research 100% percent. Ask the questions if you have them. All the programs I worked with, their admissions teams were very kind and responding to emails and just answering my questions. So that was wonderful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:34:14]:<br>And I would say as well, if you&#8217;re considering applying to grad school, remind yourself that it will be challenging at times, like no matter what you do, but just remember that you have the courage to just apply and put yourself out there. And I&#8217;m trying to figure out the best way to phrase it, but do it because you&#8217;re sure you want it and do it only for yourself. Whether it&#8217;s other people might have expectations for you, but make sure you do it because you want it, and that&#8217;s what you can see yourself doing. Grad school can be a very challenging process and making sure that it&#8217;s something you truly want, that&#8217;s definitely helpful too. And I think that goes into your research. As you can see, maybe this program doesn&#8217;t necessarily mesh with me or how I think or things. So that definitely, I think, ties back into that and I think just finding success sooner. Just understand too that once you get in or even, even just through the whole admissions process and the application process, just remind yourself it&#8217;s impossible to compare yourself to other students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:35:14]:<br>Even if you have similar statistics or similar backgrounds in the education or the work that you did to get to that point of applying and working through that process. Comparing yourself, it&#8217;s never going to help you. It&#8217;s never really going to give you anything to compare yourself to besides like more nerves or more anxiety. Every applicant is so different. Even, even if you have similar stats, similar grades, similar gpa, everyone is so unique. So it&#8217;s hard to. I would argue it&#8217;s kind of impossible to compare yourself to applicants. And then once you&#8217;re through and once you&#8217;re in a program, it&#8217;s hard to compare yourself to other students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:35:54]:<br>Everyone has to take the time to find their own journey and through what works, how best to study, how best to balance your work, your school and your life. Because. Because I know I don&#8217;t have any children, but I know students with children. That&#8217;s a whole other area that I could not compare myself to because their process of studying and just managing is so different than mine. So reminding yourself that everyone&#8217;s journey is so vastly different and comparing yourself is just. While it might be easy to do, or your anxiety might be telling you, or your fear, your nerves, like, oh, just compare. Because it&#8217;s something. It&#8217;s like almost something to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:36:33]:<br>Remind yourself that you are completely unique and independent of everyone else. Even if you&#8217;re in the same program, no one is going to be the same. And just it might take you more time than others. Like it did with me with, like, finding that balance and finding what study techniques or things work for you, or just reminding that imposter and the imposter feeling inside you like, hey, it&#8217;s okay. You can still be here, but you&#8217;re not running the show. So just don&#8217;t compare yourself to anyone else. Remind yourself you are you and you are wonderful and I know you&#8217;re working hard. And don&#8217;t be afraid to find your own journey through grad school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:37:09]:<br>It&#8217;s okay that it doesn&#8217;t look like everybody else&#8217;s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:37:12]:<br>Well, Jillian, I just want to say thank you for sharing your journey today. Thank you for being here, for the honesty and the openness because it&#8217;s not always easy to go through graduate school. It&#8217;s good to put that out there, and it&#8217;s great to be able to allow for others to be able to learn and grow from your own experience. And I just want to say thank you. I know, I know you&#8217;ve still got a little bit of time left in the program, and that&#8217;s great. And I&#8217;m excited to be able to see what happens next in this clinical part of your education that you&#8217;re going through. But also as you get ready and you go off into the workforce where you end up, I&#8217;m excited about that as well. And I just want to say thank you again and I wish you all the best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian Wilhelm [00:37:50]:<br>Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here and to share about my experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:37:55]:<br>The University of Michigan Flint has a full array of master&#8217;s and doctorate programs. If you are interested in your continuing your education, whether you&#8217;re looking for in person or online learning options, the University of Michigan Flint has programs that will meet your needs. For more information on any of our graduate programs, Visit umflint.edu graduateprograms to find out more. Thanks again for spending time with me as you prepare to be a victor in grad school. I look forward to speaking with you again soon as we embark together on your graduate school journey. If you have any questions or want to reach out, email me at Flintgrad officemflint. Eduardo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What does it really take to chart a successful course through graduate school? That\u2019s the question at the heart of this week\u2019s episode of the Victors in Grad School podcast, where&nbsp;Dr. Christopher Lewis welcomes Gillian Wilhelm, a second-year Physician Assistant student at the University of Michigan-Flint, to open up about her own journey\u2014the doubts, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":509,"featured_media":3063,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,108],"tags":[816,640,1299,2375,27,1758,2990,32,1186,996,3042,1568,2623,109,2368,1478,1019,999,226,832],"class_list":["post-3060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-graduate-school-general","category-physician-assistant","tag-academic-journey","tag-admissions-process","tag-grad-school-success","tag-grad-school-tips","tag-graduate-school","tag-graduate-student-life","tag-healthcare-careers","tag-higher-education","tag-imposter-syndrome","tag-mental-health","tag-overcoming-doubt","tag-pa-program","tag-pa-student","tag-physician-assistant","tag-student-advice","tag-student-community","tag-student-experience","tag-student-support","tag-university-of-michigan-flint-2","tag-work-life-balance"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/graduateprograms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/graduateprograms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/graduateprograms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/graduateprograms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/509"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/graduateprograms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3060"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/graduateprograms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3116,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/graduateprograms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3060\/revisions\/3116"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/graduateprograms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/graduateprograms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/graduateprograms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/graduateprograms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}