She never finished high school. She doesn’t have a GED. Yet, next month, Jennifer Chen will be graduating from FIU with a medical degree.
How is that possible? You’re not the only who’s been asking.
On their last year of medical school, students traditionally go on interviews with residency programs where they are considering continuing their medical training. Imagine the look on the interviewers’ faces when Chen would volunteer that despite being close to graduating from medical school, she never graduated from high school.
“They would look up from their papers and stare at me,” she says. Then they’d ask, “Can you explain how you did that?”
Easy.
Not easy to do, but easy to explain.
Chen, who admits to being “kind of a nerd” in high school, skipped 10th through 12th grades. Only 14 years old, she went straight from 9th grade into the Early Entrance Program at California State University, Los Angeles. Five years later she had her bachelor’s in biology, but realized her youth made it difficult to get into medical school; so she took off a year to do research.
At the age of 20, she was accepted and got a scholarship to the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine (HWCOM).
“I was lucky that FIU took a risk [with someone so young] and accepted me,” she says.
It is here she became interested in pursuing radiology.
“All the surgeons are going to kill me, but I think it’s really cool that you can look into people’s body without cutting into them,” she says.
Last month, on Match Day, Chen learned she’d been accepted into a surgical residency at the University of California, Riverside, followed by a residency in radiology at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital. Both are in Southern California where her family lives and she’s glad to be going back, closer to home.
The Match Day Ceremony is traditionally followed by a reception that includes celebratory Champagne. Chen, who looks like a teenager, had to show the server her driver’s license before she’d serve her a glass of bubbly.
Next month on graduation day, Chen will be 8,969 days old and will officially become the HWCOM’s youngest graduate beating the previous youngest by 95 days.
At 24, the average age for a person entering medical school, she will have earned the right to be called Dr. Jennifer Chen.
[…] High school dropout soon to graduate from medical school […]
“High school dropout soon to graduate from medical school” did you even write this article.? Obviously she was super smart to pass straight from high school to college not dropout like some druggie. Very misleading title for future Dr. Chen. That is libel. Have respect for your subjects.
SJMC Major
Jose,
The headline was misleading. We have revised it to be more representative of the story.
Thank you,
Jose,
Headlines are meant to “grab” attention, and this one did just that. As a journalism major, you should know that. As it turns out, the term “dropout” was taken from an anecdote provided to me by Chen who said that she and others in her group wore t-shirts that read “High School Dropout and Proud of It”. Unfortunately, you missed the play on words and its intent. By the way, not everyone who drops out of high school is a “druggie”. For the record, I am an award-winning former broadcast journalist, and in thirty years in the business have never been sued for slander nor libel.
Just had to comment…Wow, how unprofessional of you to reply back with that!
Actually, it’s called clickbait. Pretty common in internet articles, not a bad thing and not something you can be sued over, but you can’t call it “good” journalism. If you were going off of her anecdote you would’ve put dropout in quotes because according to the dictionary/general knowledge, she’s not a dropout.
Apparently the old headline was used to “grab” people’s attention. Too bad it was a negative connotation being used. Fortunately the writer (or editor) decided to use some brain cells to revise the headline: College of Medicine to graduate youngest student to date (Something that is more positive!)
Impressive story, congrats to the future Dr. Chen! Although the headline of the social media post was very misleading headline, not a drop out at all!
Radiology seems like it would probably be a good fit.
Way to Go !!!!!!!!! 👍👍🌸
I am a Respiratory Therapist…..and so happy for Jennifer Chen. !!!!
Her hard work and dedication is much appreciated…🌷✌
wow, this story is so inspiring, especially to a future medical student such as myself, congratulations Jennifer, or should i say Jennifer Chen M.D! I wish you the best of luck in your up in coming residency and your future career as a radiologist!!
Dual enrollment is seriously the best thing a high schooler can do. Free college classes (possibly free degree). Get the job sooner in life, to climb up faster. Upon graduating, help humanity while your peers are still stuck trying to finish school. It’s not all about the fast money, it’s about helping humanity faster and longer. Great going Jennifer! Hopefully the first of many!
Dual enrollment is a good idea, for the right person. I made the same journey in 1981 via dual enrollment and the CLEP exam. Graduated U of F COM (1985) at age 24, along with turning down a chance to graduate at 23. My middle daughter dual enrolled her senior year and only completed 90 hours of college and took an early acceptance to medical school. She graduates medical school this May 2015 at 24. Her older sister graduate medical school just after turning 26 (180 credit hours of college, political science/economics) and their youngest sister is also graduating medical school, just after turning 25. They all dual enrolled and saved lots of money and time. Public schools, State schools and economical medical schools. With the declining reimbursement, longer hours and socialization of healthcare, better not waste time and money or you will be bankrupt. The financial risk, might not be worth the effort in the future.