As a student, even as a junior, I always get asked the question: “What did you do over the weekend?” Or the dreaded, “What did you do over the summer?”

 

In the 0.150 seconds it takes for my brain to form a response, I decide whether I should answer with my hobby or a made-up internship that I completed. Since most people who ask me are pre-meds, I tend to answer: “I baked everyday and golfed a ton over the summer. Over the weekend I stayed in my room and did nothing.” I felt that if I responded with “research, or a summer internship,” there would be some sort of unspoken tension forming a line between us. I also do not find any of those things to define me. 

 

Usually during the school year I stay locked up in a study room or stare at a wall for half the weekend to catch up on missed assignments. So nothing spectacular there. Though when it comes to this question, there may be several subconscious objectives. People may be probing to learn what your interests or hobbies are. It could also be a conversation starter, inspiration, etc.  In my experience, some premeds are probing for information to evaluate themselves. 

 

Sometimes I give up when I am asked about my hobby. I assume it is not interesting enough for others to keep listening. In that case, does it mean I don’t find the hobby interesting enough as well? 

 

Thinking back, I realized that throughout my early life, I was pushed to have certain hobbies because my parents thought it was needed to be a “normal” person. I am not joking lol. I started ballet at five years old, transitioned to rhythmic gymnastics and volleyball throughout middle school, then golf until now. I vaguely remember my parents yelling at me that playing with slime was not a hobby. “Why don’t you play a sport? Everyone else is doing it so why can’t you?” They also stressed that when I am older golf will be useful for networking. At the time, I did not understand this because golf was brutal. Now I am grateful for playing golf, and am genuinely excited when someone mentions playing it. 

 

But what if there are no golf courses nearby? What do I actually do in my free time? I was asked this question during an interview with a med school located in New York, where there aren’t many golf courses. Earlier in the interview I had already mentioned that I liked to bake cakes and danced in a team at Rice. The first thing that came into my mind was listening to music. I had remembered my interviewer mentioning music in his bio on the medical school website. Maybe this made up response was just my attempt to connect with him. How many of my previous responses have been fake? Nevertheless, his face lit up for a split second before he realized that I wasn’t able to back up that response. Up until this point, I realized that I had been blindly limiting my interests to defined, well accepted hobbies. I started digging into why. 

 

Usually the question can be interpreted as a filler question, or people really do not have anything to ask. In addition, when I answer the question, I change it based on who was asking me the question in the first place. If it was a student, I would talk about golfing, or dancing, or baking but I realize that all these answers are made to be generic. Even though I love to bake, that concept in itself does not excite me. Talking about it does not excite me. What excites me is the act of coming up with new recipes.  Even something unconventional such as acrobatic snowboarding does not excite me. I am intrigued, but not entirely because it has no relation to me. Why would it be generic? Is it possible for me to build my own interests that I have never thought of before? Now I am starting to question, when people talk about having new hobbies, what makes it such that these hobbies are often associated with pre-existing hobbies? What constitutes an actual hobby?

 

I started to come into terms with myself that a hobby doesn’t have to be a concrete, continuous interest. Something I just thought of was, what if for my gap year before medical school I went to China or Hong Kong for a year, not to travel, but to find and document new jobs that I could become a part of? I know someone in Hong Kong who directs construction for Michelin restaurants. Although my construction experience is limited, I have several design ideas for the upcoming Japanese restaurants he has lined up. What if this next restaurant is inspired by a forest? I imagine there could be a mini waterfall in the middle of the restaurant. The water would flow into large crevices on the wooden dining tables, in which the side dishes can be transported. 

 

At the same time, if I go to Hang Zhou where my cousins live, I could join the National Silver Industry Conference for medical devices to understand how the speedy output of technologies affect life in that city. These are just some arbitrary ideas that I came up with on the spot without the previous limitations

 

Rather than confining your hobbies or interests to be one of the 20 things, expand your possibilities. Sometimes what you do may define you, or what others define you. It may become part of your identity such that you feel disinclined to do something unaligned to this identity.