Windows RT cannot run desktop applications normally for 2 reasons.
Firstly it uses an ARM architecture processor commonly used in phones and tablets whereas your normal laptop or desktop uses an x86 architecture processor. The 2 are not compatible, same way my A+ blood is not suitable for a B- recipient (as far as my limited medical knowledge is concerned anyway).
Secondly, unlike windows 8, windows RT features digital signature enforcement. In order to confirm whether a piece of software is legitimate or malware it requires microsoft to add a digital signature to the executable. If the signature is missing or invalid then it won't run it. Apps you download from the windows store will come with this signature so its not a problem there. Unfortunately there is no way to obtain a certificate for desktop applications available to us at this time so only microsoft office, internet explorer and the other built in desktop programs that came preinstalled have the required certificate.
The jailbreak removes the signature checking on windows RT 8.0 only, it does not function on RT 8.1. Black friday is not a thing here so I have no idea when you got the tablet, it could have come with 8.1 rather than 8.0 in which case you can get an 8.0 recovery image and "downgrade" the device again. That solves the second issue and allows us to run software not authorised by microsoft.
The first issue. I don't know how much you know about software development but normally you take a human readable file(s), run it through a compiler and that spits out the executable binary. Of course existing software that you can just hop online and download or pull from a CD will have a binary for x86 processors not ARM. Microsofts C/C++ compiler with support for windows RT is available though so we can at least get binaries which will run on the Surface RT (and other RT devices). Downside, in order for us to port this software to RT it has to have the human readable source code available and that source code needs to work in microsofts compiler, if either of those requirements is not met then there is nothing we can do for a port.
If you are running the 8.0 version of RT rather than RT 8.1 then you can obtain the jailbreak tool from here:
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2092158
A list of applications which have been ported to RT can be found here:
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2092348
So what do you gain as a medical student/gamer by jailbreaking? The ability to run the software in the list above, that is it (and if I was to pick up an RT device that would be highly important to me, but thats me, not everyone)