Hi,
I am in desperate need of advice.
I am a high school senior and I am absolutely stuck with what direction I want to head. I have always thought about being a doctor since I love helping people and find the work environment and constantly changing conditions appealing. However, my greatest concern is I am not comfortable with giving up my social life for such long of a period when I don’t even know if it is right for me.
I am a senior in HS, 4.25 weighted (probably 3.85-3.9 UW) GPA, 33 ACT. I am near the top of my class, in several AP and honors courses. However, I work tirelessly, and am often fairly stressed out in trying to maintain such grades. I love the idea of being a doctor, but I am tremendously scared of the immense amount of work and lack of social life that seems to come with being a successful premed. Also, the fact that the majority of kids who try to go into medical school get rejected worries me, because I don’t want to spend 4 years working hard to get nowhere.
I am not particularly excited about the idea of building things that comes with engineering, but I like science subjects and think it could at least leave a lot of doors open for me. Please help! What is it really like to go into either, are their other options I should consider (not a dentist, nurse, or working in a lab all my life), and what is life really like as a premed or engineering student. How can I have a fun social life but still build a strong career in these fields? Thanks so much for reading to this point and for all your advice.
Engineering is solving design problems using math and science principles. But it seems like that is not your interest.
Pre-med requires a lot of attention to your grades and GPA even to be in the game, so if that causes excessive stress for you, that can be unpleasant. Then, of course, there is the stress of the MCAT (one try) and going to medical school interviews all over the place when applying to medical schools. Note that pre-med can be done with any major, if you add the pre-med courses in your elective space.
It looks like you should avoid being a doctor, dentist, nurse or lab worker. Probably you should not pursue engineering, either. That leaves several hundred occupations, all of which directly or indirectly help somebody and almost all of which don’t have to be initially targeted in high school.
It is, I know, very appealing to have a vision of a specific occupation when you study, but I think in your case such a vision is not yet indicated. I suggest at this point you think less of the long range and more of the short and medium ranges and that your current vision(s) should be to continue your high GPA, have a social life, try to get into a college or university that is good in the sciences, there take college-level math and the basic science courses (biology, chemistry, physics), as well as useful disciplines such as economics and psychology, and THEN do some research on the many, many employment tracks.
Thanks… I know it is hard to try and accept that I don’t need a clear path haha
It does seem, however, that your reasons for wanting a medical career are more reasonable than those of most who take that path, and you don’t have much interest in doing anything else with STEM. If stress about grades is your only problem, then honestly I’d recommend learning how to structure your educational experiences so that grades really don’t stress you out. It’s possible to get great grades that will get you accepted into medical schools without having to worry about feeling like your GPA dominates your life.
Here’s a helpful tip: the amount of effort/stress put into getting grades is more a function of how efficient you are than how hard you work. Some people can do in 2 hours what would take others 20, and it’s not really about aptitude as it is about how you approach it (more work is always much, much less efficient). The truth is that “barely” getting an A in every class is about a fifth as hard as it is to push yourself to your limits and study so hard that you compromise your health (the 40-hour work week rule applies to students as well, perhaps even more so than for adults) for grades that are “safer” but not better. You can make yourself highly competitive if you learn to stop overexerting yourself for grades, and learn other skills that matter for doctors, such as through volunteering and by taking more interesting classes within and outside of the medical field.