I am currently a freshman at Hopkins, and I am deciding what major/career path to go into. I originally was chemical engineering, but I switched out due to the rigorous course load and the salary limitations. I am looking for a major that would allow me to get a job that is intriguing and has the potential of making over 500k.
Pre Med:
After switching out of engineering, I decided to take pre med reqs first semester. I am interested in becoming a doctor as I believe it would be fulfilling and the salary is quite high. I am hesitant to committing to this path because I do not know if I am completely sold on becoming a doctor. It has been a difficult decision as my parents are immigrants and have not been able to give any insight as they do not have jobs or connections in the fields that I am interested in. It seems like all the other pre med students have parents who are doctors and know exactly what they want to do. I believe that I could be very successful pursuing pre med, but I am scared that I will have a change of heart later on and be stuck with no other options. If I were to go this route I would probably go into private practice (not sure what specialty exactly).
Comp Sci:
I took all pre med reqs first semester except 1 class which was intro to business. My professor influenced my career choice. He said that it is important to have a technical skill coming out of college. Next semester, I will be taking Java and I am considering a double major in CS and applied math and statistics. I have never taken a CS class, but I have always done well in math and consider myself a logical person. However, as of now, I am not very interested in the typical job that a degree in computer science yields. Sitting at a desk all day coding does not seem appealing to me. (This may change depending on how much iI like Java) If I were to major in CS and applied math and stat I would want to go into business. I have learned a lot from talking to other people and found out that some people go into CS and engineering only to work as a typical employee for a few years. Then they get an MBA and manage the company. As I stated before, I do not have much knowledge in these areas and there aren’t many people I can talk to. I am not sure what positions are available in business for a CS major and if this is a practical idea. My thought process is that a CS and applied math major may set me apart from an econ major. I have also noticed that many successful entrepreneurs and billionaires have majored in CS or engineering and gone int business.
If anyone could give some insight on these options or clarify things I brought up it would be greatly appreciated.
Create different resumes, apply for 500K+ jobs. See with which resume you get responses, and decide.
Joking aside, I feel you are approaching it wrong. You need to look at what you will enjoy doing and what you will be successful doing. For a doctor earning 500K+, you need to be in one of the top specialities (e.g. cardiac surgery). The typical path is: 1) have an excellent medical school application and go to a top medical school, 2) have a top residency application (USMLE score, publications, recommendations) and go to a top school for residency in surgery, and 3) repeat to get to a top fellowship program in cardiac surgery. This will be the plan for next 14-15 years …
Median salary for a Harvard Business School MBA graduate with 10 years of work experience is about 200K. To get 500K, you probably need to have an excellent business acumen, need to work extremely hard and be in right place at the right time. Your life will be miserable unless you truly enjoy what you are doing and do not mind 80 hr weeks and hoards of personal sacrifices.
But seriously, I think you are assuming
happiness if and only if 500K+ job
which I think is a mistake.
Why not both? You still have to pick a major if you become premed. I’m Applied Math and pre-med. You could also minor in Entrepreneurship and Management if you’re interested in business. Many careers seem good in theory, but you really need to 1. shadow some physicians, and 2. talk to people in the Comp Sci department / Applied Math department (there’s a financial mathematics concentration) / E&M faculty about possible career options.
Don’t commit to premed until you’ve done some shadowing, though. You do have to take initiative about these things, but there are many students here who don’t know exactly what they’re doing / aren’t completely sold on premed / don’t have connections with people in medicine (at the very least, me, lol).
And lower your expectations about the salary. Find a job that makes you happy by itself. Everything that osuprof said is true; it will take a lot of time, hard work, skill, and luck to get yourself to that kind of position.
Since you are hopkins student, you know about med tutorials. So do them and figure out whether it’s something you will enjoy it. If med tutorial is full, just go to the website of each individual dept at hopkins (ex. department of surgery) and email MD faculty members for shadowing. That route worked for me. I would say keep CS for now. You don’t even need to necessarily take any pre med classes this year or next year. Let’s say you like pre med sophomore year, then you can do your pre-reqs junior and senior year (or even postbacs). Even if you decide go into medicine, i feel like CS is a good option right now. Healthcare informatics and apps are a hot a field in medicine and they would love to have docs who are entrepreneurs with background in cs. And there are certain med schools that encourage entrepreneurship: ex stanford (obvious)
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/07/19/423882899/siren-song-of-tech-lures-new-doctors-away-from-medicine
Also as a current med student, i am a first generation soon to be doctor. There are a plenty of ppl in my class (over 50%) whose parents are not doctors. If some 40 year old mom with three kids is finishing med school in my class (yes, there is a person like that in my med school class), you can do it too (and it will never be too late to go to med school)
IDK, a lot of the med tutorials I saw were primarily related to research, so you really have to make sure that there will be an opportunity to shadow. The benefit is, though, that it’s easier than cold-calling a physician because you’re doing it through the school.
You are going to have to do whatever you decide to do every business day for 40ish years. Accounting for vacation and holidays, you are going to practice your chosen profession for roughly 250 days per year. So you’re going to be practicing your profession for roughly 10000 days.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t be interested in money. I’m saying that you should figure out what you enjoy doing because you’re going to be doing it a lot. THEN figure out how to make serious money doing it. Most serious money is made by entrepreneurs. If you’re doing something you don’t enjoy for 10,000 days in your life, you will surely become bitter and resentful about how miserable your life is.
You’ve come up with a figure of $500K/yr. I’d like to know if you have any idea what that means and why you couldn’t be happy with $400K/yr? $200 K/yr.