Confused....why do the tough undergrad route?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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3) 50,000 is nothing though seriously...i mean if your making 100,000, how much of that goes to taxes, bills, etc?

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<p>Ok, if you say so, but I would point out that plenty of college grads from even the best schools don't make 50k to start, and certainly nothing close to 100k. </p>

<p>For example, take an elite school like Princeton. Even many of Princeton's grads don't make 50k to start, and certainly nowhere near 100k. Let's keep in mind that most Princeton grads work in the Eastern Seaboard, especially NYC, where salaries tend to be high. Nevertheless, plenty of them are making less than 50k. So if 50k is "nothing" according to you, then that must mean that lots of Princeton grads are making "less than nothing". </p>

<p><a href="http://web.princeton.edu/sites/career/data/surveys/CareerSurveyReport2005.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.princeton.edu/sites/career/data/surveys/CareerSurveyReport2005.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Look, if all you care about is money, then don't be a doctor. Go be an banker on Wall Street. Those guys can make more money in a year than a doctor can make in his whole lifetime. You should be a doctor because you really care about helping sick and injured people.</p>

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<p>dude calm down, we were having a normal discussion about teacher's salaries, that's all, and how i think they deserve more than what they get. I know medicine is more than the money</p>

<p>and anyways i hate business...business to me anyways is a job that has only 1 goal, to make as much money as possible which I think there is more to life than the dollar bill..of course it can be fun 2 but it's just not my thing</p>

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<p>Dude, I am completely calm. I would suggest that it's perhaps you that need to calm down. </p>

<p>I just wonder if you can see just how arrogant it is to make statements that 50k is 'nothing'. How do you think that looks to people who studied hard, went to a good school, but nevertheless make far less than 50k?</p>

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<p>The educational system in the United States is in shambles. Part of the reason why we are lagging behind other countries in public education is the paucity of qualified teachers. Think about it, an intelligent man like me can do many things. I'm a neuroscience/chemistry major. I could do research, work for in pharmacology, medicine, blah-blah. Notice that teaching is not on my list. We could use intelligent, competent teachers. Especially in science, where teachers are often suspect (at least in their ability to teach), the United States needs more teachers. Why don't I want to become a teacher? As much as I would like the chance to make a difference, I'm not willing to work for 40-60 thousand dollars per year. My mother was a teacher and she worked much more than the regular 40 hour week. She graded papers, held office hours (she worked at a community college), spent time in meetings. Overall, I think she was probably working 50 hours per week. Even in grade school, teachers work hard to structure plans and grade assignments. Teachers deserve more pay, and if we were to enhance the salary of teachers, we could attract capable teachers to this noble profession.</p>

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<p>50 hours per week (7 per day plus 15 misc.)
37.5 weeks per year (2 weeks Christmas, 11 weeks Summer, 1 week spring, .5 weeks Thanksgiving)
50,000/(50*37.5) = $26.67 per hour.</p>

<p>I have no idea how that compares to other professions, although salary.com indicates that investment analysts (assuming 80 hours a week) make roughly $15/hr. - and I think that's reputed to be a very high-paying job. Anybody?</p>

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<p>I think people often forget that teachers get the summer off when computing how well-paid teachers are.</p>

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<p>if the guy is making 50 grand a year but loves his job, then I have no problem with that.... as long as they love there job, which of course isn't always the case</p>

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<p>yea true, summer is a nice break...2 1/2-3 months? lol...nice break for us students too, haha</p>

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<p>
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I'm a neuroscience/chemistry major...I'm not willing to work for 40-60 thousand dollars per year

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<p>Not willing to work for 40-60k, eh? </p>

<p>Well, according to this, the average starting pay of Chemistry grads in 2004 from UC Berkeley, which is one of the top schools for Chemistry in the country, was less than 40k. </p>

<p><a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Chem.stm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Chem.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>According to the BLS, the median pay of chemists in the country in 2004 was 56k.</p>

<p>"Median annual earnings of chemists in May 2004 were $56,060"</p>

<p><a href="http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos049.htm#earnings%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos049.htm#earnings&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I don't know about neuroscience majors, but I strongly suspect that they aren't exactly pulling in high salaries either. For example, the Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB) grads from Berkeley in 2004 pulled in an average starting pay of only 32k.</p>

<p><a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/MCB.stm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/MCB.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Compared to that, I would have to say that being a teacher is looking pretty good. For example, in California, as a teacher, you get 32k to start. You get the whole summer off, and a number of weekly breaks around the holidays. After 2 years of working, you get tenure, which makes you unfireable. Contrast that with the Berkeley MCB grads who only make 32k a year, have to work the whole year, and can be fired at any time. </p>

<p>Hence, I think teaching is a very sweet deal compared to some of the jobs you could have. The pay isn't the greatest, but it's not bad compared to some of the other jobs you could have as a college grad. Huge blocks of time off. Plus when you get tenure, you know that as long as you do the bare minimum of work, you can't be fired.</p>

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<p>I think sakky has compellingly made his point.</p>

<p>Still, I think the core issue is that umar is simply misunderstanding how much money $50,000 is. My guess is that it's considerably above the national mean for a family of four, and that most people who make that much have the usual money squeezes but have no excessive trouble paying their mortgage, paying for gas, putting some away for retirement, and eating very comfortably.</p>

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<p>I agree.</p>

<p>Look at the 2005 data compiled by the BLS.</p>

<p>To make $50,000 a year is to make $960 a week. According to the BLS data, the vast majority of Americans in the vast majority of occupations don't make $960 a week.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat39.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat39.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>hey i sorta wanted to join in here and want all of you to know i REALLY REALLY REALLY appreciate everything that's been compiled here... this is really going to alter what school i choose for next year(i'm a HS senior)</p>

<p>i know i'm in no possition to be saying this, but i don't think its too crazy to say at my age that you can't be set on becomming a doctor, or atleast have a great passion to be one. I've thought over many paths, but honestly, i don't think anything will compare to medicine... and i've REALLY done my research. I think if you've reseached what all is really involved in becomming a doctor and still have a drive to become one then that is really saying something. 4 years of undergrade, another 4 years of med school and several more years(seems as many as 5) for a residency... i know if i cut it i'm going to be living a pretty frugal lifestyle till easily my late 20's and probably early 30's.... believe me if money were a serious reason for me wanting to be a doctor i(and i'm sure most people who understand this) would already be thinking about other professions.
I'm also well aware that even being done with all of that doesn't guarantee any success. I've seen both sides of this personally. One of my uncles is living it up as an anesthesiologist, while I have another who after moving to texas from new york, was forced from his initial area of work(dermatology) to infectious diseases and who even in his mid 40's is still struggling financially and is working his butt off practically all the time and hardly sees his family.
But like someone mentioned earlier, medicine calls out to certain people. To me, i can't possibly imagine anything more rewarding than devoting my life to working with people to improve some aspect of their live.
In short, I'm going to med school whatever it takes. I've already bought up teaching guides for Chemisty and Organic Chemistry that I plan to review as much as possible over the summer while volunteering at my local hospital and have desperately faught the urge to start browing through MCAT study guides from other advice i've read here.
I think most people who are driven by money(except for the extremely intelligent) are goign to weed themselves out if the school doesn't. I know i'm in for what maybe be the most intense two years of my life but i'm happy and excited to do anything that it takes to make the grades and excel on the MCAT.
Right now i'm trying to narrow down from my choices what the best school is that i'm going to be able to maintain an excelent GPA in as i've learned from this thread. I'm serroiusly considering Trinity University as it seems like it is going to push me yet still provide plenty of support in my pursuit. While Emory and Vanderbilt might be options for me, i'm definitely thinking about the smaller, possibly less competitive schools now. Anyway thanks for the advice everyone and i just wanted to share what my perspective on this was so far.</p>

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<p>First, flashback, your information is apparently at least mildly incomplete. Residencies run as much as seven years, not five, and that does not even include fellowships, which often run another two to five years!</p>

<p>There are careers out there which no high school student - heck, no college freshman - is equipped to understand.</p>

<p>Can you tell me why you don't want to be an oral surgeon? A physical therapist? A paramedic? If it's sick people you want, why does it need to be medicine specifically? If you want to help people, why not become a trial lawyer and defend the wrongly accused? Speaking of law, can you yet delineate between intellectual property law, constitutional law, criminal law, litigation, or arbitration? And if you think business is all about money, have you considered the differences between finance, marketing (advertising vs. branding), management, consulting, leveraged buyouts, venture capital, and oversight? Have you explored teaching at the college level - as a professor of the practice or a tenure-track professor? Or becoming a scientist and trying to change the world by halting the spread of disease? Among scientists, you have the physical sciences, the life sciences, the social sciences... each of which has dozens and dozens of subfields! Can you really promise me you won't like any of them? Or what about a career as an economist, who helps guarantee people's financial security an entire nation at a time?</p>

<p>And, can I make a confession? I want to be every single last one of these things. I honestly do. My decision to pursue medicine isn't a default.</p>

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I'm going to med school whatever it takes.

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<p>It is statements like this that bother me - because you shouldn't be willing to do whatever it takes to guarantee your own future as a doctor. You should be willing to do whatever it takes to make sure sick people in this country get the best care possible.</p>

<p>That requires teams of people, a whole ton of health care professionals. You might be called to be one of them, eventually. You might be called to help people in some other way.</p>

<p>To say that you are going to become a doctor no matter what is not only going to destroy your life should you somehow be meant for something else, it is also going to harm society as a whole.</p>

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<p>yea my misunderstanding is the CORE issue here, hahaha...nice way to pull me back in...</p>

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<p>bluedevil what makes u think that people haven't thought about medicine and that they are just jumping into it??? I know its the case for some people but it's not for a lot of others....</p>

<p>I'm pretty sure people like flashback have at least THOUGHT about other stuff except medicine. Yea maybe in a year into college he/she may change his mind and decide to go into business, but what is the problem with someone having the dream right now???</p>

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<p>umardarr, please, for our sanity please cut back on the lol's....those shouldn't be used beyond IM....seriously</p>

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<p>where is there an "lol" in my last statement???</p>

<p>LOL (hahahahahaha) chill out</p>

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<p>umar, I don't object to anybody who has a career goal of being a premedical student.</p>

<p>What I do object to is two things.</p>

<p>First, I object to any student who, before entering college, claims to be sure. Most students back off this claim when pressed, but it shouldn't take pressing.</p>

<p>Second, I object to the students who are willing to do anything to get into medical school - even compromise their own education. The world needs to know that its doctors are being chosen and trained through a process that screens for drivenness, compassion, and competence - and while a high school student who is studying for the MCAT is demonstrating drivenness towards his own career goals, he is demonstrating that he believes he is incompetent as well as breeding traits in himself which will not lend themselves towards compassionate, humanitarian physicians.</p>

<p>I am concerned that people who lock themselves into the premed track at age 18 and are determined to become doctors will be driving themselves towards a goal they are not qualified for. A student who gets a 30 on the MCAT has a 50/50 shot of entering medical school - but I do not want doctors who had to spend four years studying for a test only to hit the average of what the other doctors hit!</p>

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<p>ok i gotcha...finally</p>

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<p>I think one of the ideas that is always in the back of my head is this:</p>

<p>There are 13,300 doctors that graduate from medical school every year. Whether I am premed or not will not change that number - the only thing I can change is - if I get in - the quality of the pool. Resorting to gamesmanship to get myself into medical school will weaken the pool; getting the best education I can and letting medical schools decide whether I'm a good fit or not improves the pool. That's how society will end up with the best group of doctors it can get.</p>

<p>My own career goals may need to be flexible, but at the end of the day, I want to be able to promise patients that I've done everything I can to make sure they get the best care possible. This is my small way of doing that.</p>