<p>tl;dr: Which career path is better?
Background info: I'm a student at University of Miami. I'm looking for majors that are interesting but also lucrative. I'm still open to other options, but right now I'm thinking either CS or going pre-med. I suppose I could do both, but I'm worried that I would pile up too difficult a course load and end up lowering my GPA.</p>
<p>CS
Pro's:
-easier (I think...)
-I like math, which is similar
-enjoy the puzzle-like nature of the course work
-get a job w/ only a bachelor's
Con's:
-less pay
-less self-satisfaction
-going to college w/ no experience or pre-knowledge of the subject, which sets me back against all the computer geeks who have a genuine interest in the material</p>
<p>Medicine
Pro's:
-exciting/interesting work environment
-more $$$
-get more satisfaction from the job (I'd be saving lives and helping people or doing beneficial research-considering pathology)
Con's:
-longer school/training
-course work not as interesting (biology doesn't do much for me)</p>
<p>Remember that most pre-meds do not get into any medical school, so if you do pre-med, you need to have a backup plan. If you major in biology, your backup plan seems to be a rather poor one, since you say you are not interested in it, and it has poor job and career prospects at the bachelor’s level. Your backup plan if you do pre-med may well be majoring in CS anyway.</p>
<p>Academically speaking, CS and medicine are incredibly different. First off, CS is going to be at least as hard as, and probably harder than, most popular pre-med majors. On the job, medicine is definitely more demanding and stressful and, in that sense, harder… in terms of how intellectually demanding each is, however, I think the distinction is much less pronounced.</p>
<p>Doctors do make more money, but they typically do about twice as much school as CS people, and begin their professional careers later and with more debt. On the other hand, medicine is much less volatile and requires less lifelong learning than does the typical CS career path.</p>
<p>Honestly, it’s a little troubling to me that you seem fixated on money. To make lots of money, you are usually going to need to stand out or rise to the top… regardless of what you do. Some CS majors are thrilled to get starting offers of $60k; others expect (and are offered) around $100k, plus stocks and bonus. Many doctors make less than that.</p>
<p>If interest or passion, not money or prestige, were your only criteria, what would you do with your life? Is that really so financially unviable?</p>
<p>Well, I’ve considered every now and then of going into film and trying to become a screenwriter, but the competition in that business is ridiculous, and I don’t think I’d be able to make it.
Honestly, I don’t have a passionate interest in any major. The ones that do intrigue me, though, (e.g. philosophy or psychology) don’t have many good job prospects.
Honestly, I think I’d like becoming a doctor, and they do live comfortably.</p>
The no-experience bit is no problem at all. The playing field gets leveled out during the first semester. (I started CS with no programming background whatsoever. Three months later, I wrote a jump-and-run game complete with sound and graphics effects.) </p>
<p>What concerns me about that paragraph is the “genuine interest in the material” bit. If you have no genuine interest in computer science, you’ll be miserable in the major.</p>
<p>Speaking of financial incentives: there was an article discussed on CC recently that compared the life-long “net income” of a few different professionals. At the end of the day, doctors pocketed about the same amount of money as secondary school teachers.</p>
<p>Why? Doctors have fewer productive years because they spend more time in school. They have to repay huge med school loans (with interest!) and pay for malpractice insurance. And once you do actually earn big bugs, you get to keep proportionally less of it because you are in a higher tax bracket.</p>