Hi everyone! Thanks for reading my post.
I am currently a going-to-be junior in college in Computer Engineering with a Physics. Although I really enjoy my Computer Engineering classes and am doing quite well (I typically always enjoy my classes in science and engineering, regardless of whether I do good in it or not) as well as my Physics classes, I suddenly found myself confused on why I am doing Computer Engineering. Don’t get me wrong: I actually really like my major and minor, as it was my dream ever since I was young. But recently I’ve discovered a few things about myself that make me want to change majors–perhaps to become a doctor.
For me, a good salary doesn’t mean anything–maybe because I’m not mature enough to understand the importance, but for now all I want to do is something that I enjoy and something that is meaningful to both me, my family and society. You see, I am a very family-oriented person. I really want to be able to do something for my parents as they grow older. I also like to see people happy. When I was young, I thought computer games made people happy, which is why I originally went into the Computer Engineering field. However, as I grow older, I’ve realized that computer games aren’t the only way to make people happy.
I also want to be able to do something meaningful for the world. However, I don’t see how being a Computer Engineering major can help me achieve that. Recently I’ve taken interest in cyber security and artificial intelligence, which are both extremely interesting to me, but I don’t see what they can do to make other people happy.
Also taking into account that I am not the most creative person out there–in fact, I’m much better at following instructions than coming up with new ideas, I am not quite as sure whether becoming a computer engineer is the right thing any more. After taking all this into thought I thought that becoming a doctor would be a better option.
I had never actually considered becoming a doctor until this year. Because I thought that everyone is becoming a doctor–the world needs something else. I also hid behind the excuse that I’m afraid of blood and that I can’t handle the responsibility of someone else’s life. I never liked biology or chemistry and I’ve never liked memorizing different things. All these are still true for me, but I feel that some of these things can be overcome.
I definitely still want to finish my computer engineering degree and I know it is a little late to change to a biology major, however I still plan on going to grad school. I am willing to work hard to take the med school prereqs and studying is not something hard for me. So I was wondering what other people think of my situation or if you have any different career paths to suggest for me. What do you think?
Thank you so much!
You do not have to change major to take the pre-med courses, although if your major has little free elective space, it may be hard to fit the additional pre-med courses (general chemistry, organic chemistry, biology) into your schedule.
Note that if you do not like biology and chemistry, you may not do well enough in them to have a medical-school-acceptable GPA in those courses.
What is your college GPA? To even have a chance at getting admitted to medical school, you need very high college GPAs overall and in biology/chemistry/physics/math courses. Even then, only about half of applicants get admitted to any medical school. And, if you do get in, it will likely mean $300,000 of debt, which can severely constrain your life choices (including whether the lower paid medical specialties are financially viable for you).
My current GPA is 3.94 out of 4.0, so grades are definitely not a problem–however I haven’t taken any chemistry or biology classes throughout college.
At this point, I’m not really thinking about feasibility–rather, I want to know what kind of career would fit me, as a person, better. I will not drop my computer engineering classes since I like it a lot. If I were to go into medicine, it would definitely be after I graduate from college. Taking this into account and my personality as I described above, do you think I should consider med school or a different career?
Perhaps you can consider this: finish your degree in your current major. If you want, you can try some chemistry and/or biology courses if you have free elective space in your schedule.
Then go to work as a computer engineering earn some money to save up. If medicine is still of interest (and you did not detest chemistry and/or biology courses that you took), you can start using off-work time to do expected pre-med extracurriculars (e.g. volunteering in medical contexts). If medicine is still of interest, you can investigate completing the remaining pre-med courses, preferably at four year schools (which will need some of the money you are saving). If medicine is still of interest, you can then take the MCAT and apply to medical schools (and if you get interviews, you will need some of the money you are saving to travel to them).
If medicine becomes uninteresting to you at any point (chemistry and/or biology courses, pre-med extracurriculars) or you are not admitted to any medical school (MCAT, applications, interviews), then you still have your job as a computer engineer.
Note that you can make lots of people happy as a computer engineer. For example, if you do work in computer security to keep malicious crackers out of people’s lives, then people will be happier than if their computers were cracked. If you do work in artificial intelligence that makes self-driving cars a reality, that can make many people very happy. Your grandparents would probably be much more excited about that than about a colonoscopy that a physician recommends.
Computer games do make people happy! But they’re not the only way, of course.
Any job can do something meaningful for the world; it really just depends on what you mean by meaningful, how you define that. For example, a computer engineer who builds video games can do something meaningful by encouraging their games to include diverse characters in the game that represents many people’s experiences, and help people in minority groups see themselves reflected in the game. Or, a computer engineer could do something like engineering software solutions to help microfinance investments in resource poor countries or apps to help kids who are feeling suicidal or want anonymous counseling, or something like Doximity (a professional network for doctors and other healthcare providers) or Epic (an electronic health record software program).
Cybersecurity and AI can make a lot of people happy and make a lot of people safe. Cybersecurity can help restore people’s accounts and money if they’ve been hacked; protect people from getting their money stolen from them; restore service to certain websites or services if they’ve been attacked with a denial-of-service attack; etc. Think about this - computers are used in almost everything now - our telecommunications networks, our utilities services, the aviation field, our money, our purchasing systems. Think about how devastating it would be if people hacked and damaged the electric power grid, a nuclear power plant, the water utility plant, or an air traffic control tower?
AI is another thing that can make people happy; think about personal assistants like Siri and Cortana, or products like Amazon Echo. But I’ve also read accounts of people trying to create an AI that will talk to teenagers who are thinking about killing themselves and help them get help; that will answer questions about sexual and reproductive health for people who have no one to turn to; that will safely navigate driverless or computer-assisted cars around our streets.
I mean, if you want to be a doctor by all means do that. You can take the pre-med prerequisites with any major, so you don’t have to change. But if you are worried about helping the world and making people happy with a CE major, don’t! Almost everything uses computers nowadays, and you can do a lot of good if you know computer engineering.