A Tale of Two Career Choices: Medicine or the Legal Field

Ilham Matiker
SLIP Summer Intern
The Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis

Originally published in the August 2021 issue of the St. Louis Lawyer magazine. View in the archives.

This summer, I decided to become a high school intern in hopes of learning more about the work force and solidifying my future career goals.

Having a career that interests me has never been an issue for me; picking between two career paths has been the challenge. I find myself bouncing between medicine and law, two careers that fill me with passion. Of the two fields, medicine has proven to be the easiest to learn about and gain exposure to. My mom is a nurse and when she discovered that I wanted to potentially pursue a career in medicine, she made it her goal to help me gain as much exposure to the field before I finally decide after high school.

This is when we discovered the school that I now attend, The Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience (CSMB). I will be a junior in the 2021-22 school year and because of CSMB, I have learned so much about what it means to truly pursue a career in medicine. Through their rigorous courses and wide range of opportunities related to medicine, I found myself more interested in my medical-related classes and itching to learn more about the human body and all the amazing things it can do.

I also learned about the tough medical realities of so many people around the world and this made me want to help even more.

However, in the two years I spent in high school learning all I could about medicine, my other career interest was still something I did not yet fully understand. I took advantage of any opportunity I could at school that related to law, such as speech and debate, but it felt like I still had so much to learn about law before I could truly decide what career I would pursue.

That is when I came across the St. Louis Internship Program (SLIP). Founded by BAMSL in 1992, SLIP has been helping high school students gain exposure in the workforce to discover a career for which they truly have a passion. During the sophomore/junior year of high school, SLIP prepares students through a 10-day training and development session where we acquire the skills necessary to achieve excellence in our careers. Along with many opportunities like ACT prep, university exposure, tuition assistance and scholarship opportunities, SLIP also creates a comfortable environment for their students with mental health professionals who can further assist a student.

I learned more about the workforce in the 10-day training than ever. The staff was incredibly understanding and worked hard to give us the opportunities we needed along with the skills to succeed. I am now fulfilling my opportunity as a summer intern at BAMSL to learn all I can about the field of law and all it has to offer before I graduate high school.