Is being a doctor still one of most coveted goals for a kid? (career, students)
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A few years ago I was reading a med school admission forum. A guy wrote that he was just accepted to med school, hated the idea and didn’t want to go but was under intense parental pressure to go. The docs on the forum screamed at him not to do it. He started med school.
The next two years he updated his thread. He hated med school and didn’t want to be there. And the docs still screamed at him to quit.
It's similar to the Ivy's trying to defend "their brand". Most people who are bright enough to get into Harvard, Brown, Yale, Dartmouth, Cornell, Princeton, Penn and Columbia, could have probably gone to PoDunk U and have been just as successful, of course the Ivy's don't want to hear that. It's not the school, it's the person!
Sure the connections made at those places are so-called "priceless", but the brilliance of the students would have been there regardless of the school or maybe even no school at all. Did both Gates and Zuckerberg need to go to Harvard (I know both didn't graduate) to become who they are today, probably not, could both have gotten into medical school, if they wanted and became physicians, probably.
I knew somebody while working down in Antarctica 12 years ago, he was our Network Engineer and came from Raytheon, worked in San Diego and lived on a boat. Brilliant guy, went to Brandeis for his computer science degree and loved IT stuff. He was a big outdoorsey type and climbed Aconcagua, Denali, Kilimanjaro, Mt. Elbrus and Puncak Jaya/ Mt. Carstensz.
While down there, he was the lead of our GSAR (Glacier Search and Rescue) Team and on our Trauma Team. He fell in love with medicine, especially emergency medicine in remote places. After a couple of years working down there, where he met his future wife (he has two daughters now), he decided to go back to school to get his prerequisites and eventually got his PA degree and works as a PA in emergency medicine in Arizona where he lives.
Could he have gone to medical school, sure, but he was already in his mid-to-late 30's at that time and decided the PA route was best for him. Could we have gone into medicine instead of IT from the start, most definitely.
Our youngest went into IT. Discovered he didn't like it, got laid off during the Great Recession, then started a two-year Pre-Med Program, followed by 3 years of Neuro-Science & Genetics Research
He was 32 when he entered Med School, now in his final year of residency as a Pathologist.
A few years ago I was reading a med school admission forum. A guy wrote that he was just accepted to med school, hated the idea and didn’t want to go but was under intense parental pressure to go. The docs on the forum screamed at him not to do it. He started med school.
The next two years he updated his thread. He hated med school and didn’t want to be there. And the docs still screamed at him to quit.
It is human nature not to want to do things that are difficult.
Notice that the easiest college majors tend to be the most worthless and pay the least after you graduate.
Stumbled upon this thread and saw some earlier discussion about student loans w/r/t law school. The opposite of med school holds true here. A lot of law schools simply don't provide lucrative long-term options. The middle-of-the-pack schools are perfectly fine if you want to practice at a small law firm or work in the government in some capacity. The most lucrative options here are plaintiff law, which is highly polarizing (but needed). The lower-tier schools are mostly the same, but some are for-profit scams that should be shut down. The huge starting salaries come from either top schools, e.g. Ivy League schools, strong publics such as UVA or UCLA, or strong regional schools like Notre Dame for the Midwest, USC for the West Coast, or SMU for Dallas. It's highly unwise to take out $150k plus for a school that doesn't fit the lattermost description.
My wife demands that one of our kids become a doctor, regardless of their interest. Or I should say she attempts to nurture their interest in this field.
I think this is primarily due to the conventional thinking that doctors are one of the best professions.
Is that conventional thinking still true on the eve of 2020?
keep your interests [hobbies] separate from your trade [profession]
if they are the same then thats grts , good for you but for 90 percent of us they are not
but this foolish trend of trying to make every interest into a profession and calling it a passion has to stop, too much heartache, debt and loss of time
but this foolish trend of trying to make every interest into a profession and calling it a passion has to stop, too much heartache, debt and loss of time
I somewhat agree? Sort of agree?
It is a big jump from deciding against a career and deciding for a passion. There is wide range of options in-between.
Becoming a doctor isn't for everyone. Many people don't like blood or touching people. Some people might have the brains for STEM field like medicine, but not the necessary people skills. Medicine is an odd combination of left/right brain functions which different from most other fields.
Doesn't mean someone should follow their passion - like a Phd in film which won't payback student loans. Rather don't do something exclusively for money - because without a commitment, it usually doesn't work out.
It is a big jump from deciding against a career and deciding for a passion. There is wide range of options in-between.
Becoming a doctor isn't for everyone. Many people don't like blood or touching people. Some people might have the brains for STEM field like medicine, but not the necessary people skills. Medicine is an odd combination of left/right brain functions which different from most other fields.
Doesn't mean someone should follow their passion - like a Phd in film which won't payback student loans. Rather don't do something exclusively for money - because without a commitment, it usually doesn't work out.
There should be some middle ground.
dont do something only for money if you will not be good at it
a lot of dirty jobs if you are good at it can be worth it for money
My wife demands that one of our kids become a doctor, regardless of their interest. Or I should say she attempts to nurture their interest in this field.
I think this is primarily due to the conventional thinking that doctors are one of the best professions.
Is that conventional thinking still true on the eve of 2020?
A career or profession should never be based on prestige or even interest [ for most people with few exceptions ]
It is purely a calculation of what will bring the best income for the least amount of time
"follow you passion" is really bad advice for the vast majority of people
A career or profession should never be based on prestige or even interest [ for most people with few exceptions ]
It is purely a calculation of what will bring the best income for the least amount of time
It would be nutty to determine one’s career choice based on ‘best income/least amount of time’ sans any consideration as to how much they would actually enjoy it, particularly relative to jobs in which there is a huge time/educational commitment, per the thread. Keep in mind you’re in the Education Forum.:-)
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