Becoming a lawyer or a doctor....advice! please help!

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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<p>I'm going to be a freshman this year in the UGA Honors program....I know it's fairly early for me to say this, especially considering that I haven't taken any classes yet, but I think I want to either be a doctor or a lawyer. Here's my dilemma though:</p>

<p>I think I would be much better at being a lawyer--I feel like my ability to critically think in terms of politics, law, and philosophy is much stronger than my ability to think critically in the field of science. I'm also much more interested in politics and constitutional law/theory than science (I'm currently a poli-sci major).</p>

<p>I, however, don't really like the idea of being a lawyer, even though I'm interested in it and I think I would be good at it--I feel as though lawyers don't really "help" the world (I know this is a law forum--please don't get angry at this! This is just a generalization. Please prove me wrong!). My dad is a tax lawyer (a.k.a. he helps rich people get away with evading taxes) and I hate it.</p>

<p>I really like the idea of being a doctor, but as I said before, I feel like I'm better at the humanities than the sciences (although I consider myself to be fairly well-rounded). In high school, I always felt so bored in my science classes (even the higher level IB Chemistry Class). Does this change in college? I really just want to help people, and I feel like I could do this more directly by becoming a doctor. I especially like working with kids and am thinking about becoming a pediatrician. All of the pre-med courses for freshman have already been taken up, so I would have to wait until next semester to start on the pre-med track, but I may be able to exempt a semester of freshman chem with my IB scores and a placement test. Is there any way I could combine poli-sci and pre-med in a RELEVANT way and would med schools like this? Also, is there a way to do study abroad during the school year (fall/spring) for pre-meds? Most study abroad courses are for political science. Help! I'm just really confused right now.</p>

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<p>You’re going to be a freshman, so how could you have a major already?</p>

<p>Anyways, I would suggest dabbling in each, maybe major in political science and take the pre-med courses and possibly minor in biology so that you can get relevant background in each. See which you find more interesting, although biology is by no means an accurate indicator of medicine. I’d also suggest shadowing a physician and interning at a law firm if you can arrange it, it would give you a better idea of which you like better. In the end, you still have a long time to decide (even though it doesn’t seem that way) and you should do whichever you enjoy more, not which one you would be better at. You can always become better at things if you’re willing to put in the effort.</p>

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<p>What’s wrong with “or other”?</p>

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<p>Do the world a favor and become a doctor.</p>

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<p>This is like saying, “I either want to be a fireman or an astronaut.” There’s a lot more out there.</p>

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<p>Astronaut.</p>

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<p>I know how incredibly nieve I probably sound with this whole post–no point to reiterate that. I feel like the best route would be to just play it out and see where my courses take me and stop stressing about it at this point in time</p>

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<p>Yes it would. Take a science course or two but also try out poli sci or something completely random like polynesian. See if you can shadow a doc over winterbreak or intern at a law office next summer.</p>

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<p>Thanks! I was having a rough day but reading that helped :).</p>