Brainstorming about "fall back" jobs if med school is not in the cards - help!

Parents Forum
1

So my high schooler is all about med school - and that’s awesome. She’s got great reasons for wanting to go and I hope that’s the track she takes. However, I know that lots of kids are thinking med school while in HS and that it doesn’t always happen.

I want to guide our school tours with less laser focus on just a biology major. Even Chemistry seems more employable to me - everything from cleaning products to motor oil to makeup is likely created in some kind of lab.

Yet, I don’t know the difference between Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. Does one of them create the shampoo and the other do something else? No idea.

What are some good majors to think about that definitely involve math and science (she’s a total math/science kid), and will allow her to go to med school if that’s what she wants and have a career if the concept of med school becomes unappealing for whatever reason. Preferably with BS, but going on for a masters is OK too.

From a family of lawyers, I’d love a doctor in the group, but I don’t know anything about the process and would like this college search process to be as open minded as it can be.

2

There is always Math. Data Analytics is big right now and very employable.

3

You can major in anything so long as you take the required courses; the required courses are basically the same, but check with each medical school to see if they have any additional. Here’s Berkeley’s advice:
https://career.berkeley.edu/Medical/PrepPrereq
It starts with GPA and MCAT score. But in the case of your daughter, a math major works, etc. What does she enjoy? That’s probably what she’ll do best in(GPA), and both private industry and government(e.g. NSA) are big on math majors.

4

Really? She wants to squeeze in a double major in Math, because she just loves Math. I scoffed in my head - what the heck can you do with a degree in Math? I’m glad that was only in my head!

I feel so much better already! Maybe she could even reverse them - major in Math and fit in the pre-med prerequisites.

5

https://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-Degrees_that_Pay_you_Back-sort.html can give you a rough idea of what majors are associated with starting and mid-career pay levels.

But note:

  1. The person needs to be interested in the job in order to do a good job and earn good pay.
  2. Some majors are associated with elite-or-bust career prospects (e.g. visual and performing arts), while other are much less variable. You can take a look at the 10th versus 90th percentile mid-career pay levels.
  3. Some majors are associated with jobs that are sensitive to industry cycles (e.g. some of the more specialized engineering majors; petroleum engineering, which is not listed on that page, is known for boom or bust periods based on oil prices).
6

Common career directions:

  • Finance.
  • Actuarial.
  • Computing.
  • Data science.
  • Operations research.
  • Teaching high school math (requires teaching credential).

For any of the above, in-major and out-of-major elective choices in college can matter.

7

When I hear Math degree, I picture professors working giant proofs on three tier blackboards in university lecture halls, and/or the movie Good Will Hunting.

So pleased to know I’m completely wrong.

8

“When I hear Math degree, I picture professors working giant proofs on three tier blackboards in university lecture halls, and/or the movie Good Will Hunting.”

But that’s the fun bit when you love math :wink:

9

biotechnology has a big future and that seems right up your daughter’s alley, you should look into it!

10

She’s had Type 1 Diabetes since she was 10; between her insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor, she’s a 24/7 walking advertisement for how modern advancements in biotechnology make life so much easier! It’s also what sparked her desire for a career in medicine!

11

Med schools require, in part, completion of premed reqs and a college degree in any major of a student’s choosing. Most premeds choose some flavor of bio perhaps out of interest, but also because it tends to fill degree reqs and most premed reqs at same time (ie kills 2 birds one stone). D should consider major that interests her (ie math) because if she likes material she is more likely to do well GPA wise which is something med schools care a lot about. D won’t get bonus points for double majoring if her GPAs suffer. As premed reqs mainly involve year long sequences including labs which can eat up a lot of time, perhaps others, in addition to career choices (Plan Bs), can address any potential scheduling issues with a math major and trying to fit in premed reqs, GE reqs, ECs, having a college life, etc

@WayOutWestMom

12

At our school one thing students need to do for graduation (this starts in 9th grade and runs through senior year) is investigate career options they are interested in. Have her get on google and see what she can do with various majors (math, bio, etc). Make sure she gets reputable sources for median income (esp starting) and see what jobs are out there for each. Our kids also need to shadow someone in their junior year.

One of these should naturally end up starting off as her Plan B (she should shadow a doctor if possible, Plan B if not). When she gets into college and sees other things she might not even have thought of before, she can always shift what Plan B - or even Plan A is.

Our students need to use their average starting income and make a budget from it. They have to find a place to rent, a car, clothes, furniture, etc, all from ads, and figure out how it all works. Personally, I consider this project one of the best guidances for actual life the school does. Many start figuring out reality vs dream.

13

@3kids2dogs

There is a section on this forum for medical school advice, and one section is for high school students. Here is the link…

http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-student-topics/

14

@3kids2dogs

Both my daughters were double majors with one of their majors being math/applied math. (Math/physics and Math/biological neuroscience) Both went to med school. The math degree plus a some exposure to computer programming opened all sorts of post-college job opportunities. D2 directly leveraged her math degree + research lab experience into a tailored just for her job (job description written so no other candidate would qualify for the position) at a top 10 medical school after college graduation.

The math degree also opened up the potential to pursue a variety of medicine-adjacent career pathways in grad school, including BME, epidemiology, biostatistics, bioinformatics, radiation therapy, health & medical physics–all well paying and in high demand careers. (So in demand, in fact, three of D2’s friends dropped out of their bio PhD programs to earn a MS/MPH in bio stats because the job market is so strong.)

Outside of medicine-adjacent careers, a BA/BS math degree can open doors for careers in finance & investing, risk management, insurance, engineering, biotechnology, software development and IT, engineering & technology, (D1 was offered a job w/ a major cell phone company doing calculations on how to optimize cell coverage & routing; another classmate went to work for a multi-state utility to help manage & optimize the electric grid; still another went to work for a major airline doing schedule optimization and the traveling salesman problem ), city planning and development, plus probably more I can’t even think of.

Med school adcomms are agnostic about what undergrad major an applicant has, though both philosophy/humanities and math majors do disproportionately well in med school admissions. (See–[MCAT and GPAs for Applicants and Matriculants to U.S. Medical Schools by Primary Undergraduate Major, 2018-2019]( https://www.aamc.org/download/321496/data/factstablea17.pdf)) Warning–[selection bias]( Selection bias - Wikipedia) is undoubtedly involved in the data.

D1 & D2 had classmates w/ all sort of “exotic” majors-- like agriculture (just finished her MD/PhD, matched into IM/research hepatology); sociology (pediatrician), Spanish (IM hospitalist), music theory (IM geriatrics), English lit (pediatric surgery) , theology (oncology).

Note: math and other “hard” majors do not get any slack from adcomms for having a lower than optimum GPA/sGPA. Your D still needs to excel academically, but math does offer better Plan B career options than bio or even chemistry does. Having a double major also gets no slack from adcomms, nor do adcomms find it impressive. Your D should do a double major only if it makes financial sense or is crucial to her alternative career plans.

RE; scheduling. D1 needed to complete a full math minor as co-req for her physics degree. A major meant adding 3 additional math classes–which she took over the summers since she was working at the university anyway. Because she didn’t decide to apply to med school until her senior year, she was missing ochem --which she took after graduation as a part-time student while working and getting her ECs in order.

D2 entered undergrad with math coursework through linear algebra (4 semesters of math major math) already completed during high school. She only needed 5 math classes to complete a major, 2 of which she “double dipped” (took classes that counted toward both majors). She had no issues whatsoever scheduling since all her pre-med requirements were included in her second major. She finished her double majors & all pre-reqs in 8 semesters.

15

Thanks for your insight @WayOutWestMom It sounds like a lot. Thanks for not sugar coating it. I assume no AP course grades can be used to get out of any of these classes?

16

@3kids2dogs

“Really? She wants to squeeze in a double major in Math, because she just loves Math. I scoffed in my head - what the heck can you do with a degree in Math? I’m glad that was only in my head!”

Don’t feel bad. I had a similar reaction the first time I met a philosophy major. Turns out you can do a whole heckofa lot with that degree. Further research proved very humbling.

17

@3kids2dogs
Medical school policies w/r/t AP credit vary by school. Some medical schools do not accept any AP credits at all for pre-reqs; some accept them only for specific re-reqs (like calculus or gen chem). However, at those schools that do accept AP credits, the expectation is the student will take additional coursework in the same department to supplement and reinforce any AP credit awarded.

If your D wants to be math major, I encourage her to take any math AP exams she’s qualified for. Getting advanced standing in math means she will need to take fewer required math classes to complete her degree/major and have more space for non-math science electives in her schedule. If she majors in math, she could also take the Bio AP, but not with an eye toward letting it sub for the bio admission requirements for med school. Instead she could skip into bio and move into genetics or A&P or cellular biology. (Bio classes not usually specifically required for med school admission, but which are useful to have for the MCAT and actual med school classes.)

I strongly recommend she doesn’t try to skip gen chem using AP credit and start w/ organic chem in college. Ochem is big jump up in difficulty from college gen chem; from HS AP chem the leap is enormous

18

Ecommerce is a big user of data analytics. Lots of cutting edge analytics at these companies to make them competitive and math majors are sought for these jobs.

19

Single variable calculus is a common lower level requirement for math majors (although at some colleges, lower level courses may be omitted from explicit major requirements, though students need to take them or have equivalent knowledge as prerequisites); AP calculus is commonly allowed to skip single variable calculus.

Medical schools that have a calculus requirement may not necessarily accept AP calculus credit, but a math major will take more advanced calculus-type math courses anyway in college (e.g. multivariable calculus, real analysis), so there should be no pre-med need for a math major to repeat his/her AP calculus credit.

20

My kid who is presently in medical school was a bio major with a minor in business. (UNC offered juicy incentives for top undergrads, and one was automatic admission to the school of business.) He used that business minor to gain three grant funded summer positions at UNC med school clinics in Malawi and Nicaragua as an undergrad - because they needed help with the business side of the clinic operations.

After he graduated he worked for a medical consulting firm for two years before going to medical school.