<p>Hi everyone! Like many of you on here, I'm a good student. Top of my class, decent SATS, lots of APs, volunteering, and ECs. However, I don't know what I want to do. This is really stressing me out because as a high-achieving junior in high school, I feel like I need a plan. I've always thought I'd go to medical school and become some sort of doctor. Last year I was dead set on being an anesthesiologist. I job shadowed one and figured out it wasn't for me. It's good that I did that...but now what? My latest thought has been a pediatrician. But I've also had sneaking thoughts of going into business. BUSINESS. I've expressed my concerns with my guidance counselor and a few close friends and adults who all just tell me to do what I want...But I have no clue what that is! I'm terrified of going into the application process as undecided. I know I can switch majors, but I want to have an idea of where I'm going. Please help. I need advice.</p>
<p>Do you know what the most common major for incoming freshman is? Undeclared. That means that the largest fraction of students have no real idea what they want to study and take some time to figure it out during their college career. Even for those “certain” of their major, the overwhelming majority end up switching. One of my friends went from biomedical engineering to environmental science to geophysics and finally settled on a geophysics major with an english minor.</p>
<p>In college you’ll be exposed to subjects that you’ve never encountered in high school, things like anthropology, earth science, turf grass management (yes that’s a real major), and Islamic History. It’s perfectly fine to come in undecided unless you want to major in a subject that essentially require you to start as a freshman, and it sounds like you have no interest in those fields.</p>
<p>I realize my first post was vague. To dive a little deeper…
I’m a happy person. I find that I can make the best out of any situation and any job. Unfortunately, that makes finding what will make me happy very difficult.
I’m also a very good learner. There’s not really a subject that I want to avoid, although I do excel at and like maths and sciences.
I want to help people and work with them directly. Although I enjoy sciences, I don’t want to sit in a lab all day.
The most difficult thing I’m struggling with is timing and pay. I want to be financially stable after my schooling. I don’t want to sound shallow, but money is important. Especially if I will be happy almost anywhere. I also really want somewhat normal hours. I don’t mind going into a late night hospital shift once a week, but I would love to just have a “normal” workday. 9-5, longer than that, just something set where I can make plans and have a family.</p>
<p>As a side note, does anyone have advice/opinions on the time it takes to become a doctor? I know it will be worth it if I decide to go down that path. I worry about putting life on hold, waiting to have a family, etc… though</p>
<p>Fortunately CC has an entire subforum devoted to premed issues. Here’s a nice thread to get you started: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1486654-premed-resources-thread-start-here-first.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1486654-premed-resources-thread-start-here-first.html</a></p>
<p>Thanks for the advice 
I guess I’m stressing over nothing. It’s just a little unsettling to be looking into colleges without an idea of what I’ll be doing there</p>
<p>If you want normal hours, don’t become a doctor. If you do want that type of employment, consider dermatology or dentistry. Know that you are making a 10 year commitment to earning nothing out next to nothing while you attend college, med school, residencies. </p>
<p>Consider jobs like physicians assistant or nurse practitioner if you want less schooling, decent money, better hours and a career in health care.</p>
<p>Realize that, to make money in any field, you are looking at 80 hour weeks to start.</p>
<p>Good paying jobs require more than 9 to 5.</p>
<p>Shadow more people. Interview some. Take internships in varied fields in college. Money follows when you do what you love. Or it doesn’t, but you learn to make do. :-)</p>
<p>9 to 5 wasn’t a great example 
I can definitely and would definitely work more many more hours than that. The good thing is, I love working and being busy. I know it doesn’t compare exactly, but right now I go to school and have an after school job. For example, I worked last week everyday straight from school, and so I was “working” for over twelve hours. And I love that. I was reading online that some pediatricians have days where they check on newborns in hospitals first thing early in the morning and then go to their practice and then stay late for paperwork etc… that sounds great to me. Tiring at times, yes, but still good. It’s just that there are so many options and I’m willing to do so many things that I’m getting confused.</p>
<p>Anyone else?</p>
<p>Get a summer internship at a local hospital and feel out what you like and what you don’t. Research online as much as you possibly can.</p>
<p>you are setting yourself an unrealistic target, deciding what you want to do for work before you start college. It’s true there are a few fields where you need to do this: engineering and the arts for example because its difficult (or not possible) to get into those specialized programs once you start college. But for most students college is a time of exploration. It sounds like you’re already off to a good start. Your shadowing told you what you don’t want, and you probably saw some other things while you were doing it that may have given you some ideas. There are a number of books about choosing a career out there so you might want to read one or two. And once in college be sure to visit the Career center regularly, although that is something I bet you were already planning on doing. Choosing a career field involves a lot more than anyone is going to have time to post here.
The best way to do this is inherit a trust fund, second best might be to take over the lucrative family business. Since neither sounds applicable to you, then you ought to know that the price of a well-paying job is often long hours. Consulting, i-banking, doctor, to give a few examples – great pay relative to most jobs, and long hours.
Just my personal opinion, but I suspect medicine isn’t right for you. I get the sense that you like the high pay, perhaps the prestige, but it doesn’t sound like a calling for you. Put it this way: if it paid no more than teachers get, would you do it? Anyway, to answer your question, 4 years college, 4 years med school, 3 years residency as a base (and can stretch up to 8 or more for a specialty).
One last comment here. First an aphorism that holds a lot of truth: “Man plans, and the gods laugh”. The reason you get this non-advice from most people is that few people systematically explored what they wanted to do. They may have had an inkling, but if you ask these people how THEY got into their careers I bet in was a combination of preference to some degree coupled with a lot of chance/luck. I see that a bit with you, too; why the focus on being a doctor when there are so many jobs in the health-care area with combos of pay/stability/training-time other than being an MD?</p>
<p>Hey buddy! Same feeling man; I’m totally clueless on what I want to be in the future. But don’t let that bother you, since most students feel the same way at this point in time.</p>
<p>In my case, I try my best to keep my options open by taking as many subjects as I can, even though I can feel that I’m losing interest in some career paths already. But I don’t want to regret anything. I think you should continue to keep your options open too^^ so that you can be certain of the decision you make later on</p>
<p>Well, you answered your own question without knowing it. You thought you wanted to be a physician, and then you shadowed one and realized you didn’t want to do that.</p>
<p>That’s the way you figure out what you like - through experiences. You do things and see if you like them. If you don’t, you drop it; if you do, you go a little further. It’s perfectly fine to go into college undecided; it’s okay to stay undecided until your sophomore year (as long as you don’t want an engineering or hard sciences pathway) and it’s even fine to select a major without really knowing what you are going to do with it after college. I started out thinking I was going to be a political science major; then I switched to sociology and then to psychology. And I majored in psychology because I took Psychology 101 and really liked it; I had no idea what I was going to do after college with it at first. I used doing the things I liked to guide my decision (I’m getting a PhD now). If I could go back in time, I sometimes say I would double-major or minor in something else, but I would major in psychology all over again.</p>
<p>Word from a fairly recent college grad. You’ll get a lot of people telling you to just study what you love! And you’ll get a lot of people telling you to pick something practical and that you’ll never get a job with an English or philosophy major. They’re both right and they’re both wrong. You can certainly major in what you like and still get a job - I supervised college students for two years and all of them went on to do something productive after college, including the French major (she works for an organic food collective while studying to be a registered dietitian), the psychology major (she’s going to work at a marketing company), the English & music double major (she’s going work at Forbes magazine), the philosophy major (he’s going to manage a business before moving to law school) and the urban studies major (Teach for America before med school). What’s important are the kinds of experiences you have. All of these students did at least one, and usually two, summer internships. Some of them worked at these internships during the school year. The philosophy major was working at the company he’s going to manage as a part-time job delivering things and they just really liked him; he never intended to work there full-time after college.</p>
<p>So major in what you like and be practical at the same time. Take classes in skills - you can major in philosophy and still learn how to program or create statistical models. Do internships, work during the school year, spend your time learning about different careers and getting experience. You’ll make it easier to find a job.</p>
<p>You can combine business and medicine, you know. You can get an MD (or a nursing degree, or a PA degree) and go into health care consulting. I look at health care consulting jobs a lot because my PhD is in public health and I always see consulting firms wanting to hire nurses & doctors. Nursing is a very flexible field, too; if you get a master’s degree in that, you can not only work on the floor as a nurse (and the shifts are much more regular) but you can also go into a variety of specialties that don’t have you working the floor (telemetry, epidemiology, management, teaching). Or you can get an MSN in a specialty and practice primary care and STILL work a 9-5 by getting hired by a hospital. Nurse practitioners make, on average, around $80,000 a year. Physician Assistants make about the same.</p>
<p>And I would argue that there are many good paying jobs that don’t require an 80-hour workweek, although they do require more than 40 hours a week. It depends, however, on what you mean by “good paying” - I consider that to be jobs that average more than $70,000 a year. Some examples are accountants, actuaries, nurse practitioners, physicians assistants, engineers, epidemiologists, research analysts in certain fields like marketing, statisticians, industrial-organizational psychologists, software developers, health care administrators, economists, mathematicians, pharmacists…most of the people in those fields work probably 50-60 hours per week on average.</p>
<p>I really like the question that mikemac asked. If it paid no more than a teacher’s salary (which is about $40,000/year), would you do it?</p>
<p>My daughter is going thru the same thing as a junior. As I tell her, even the kids who like to talk about their goals as fixed stars may actually change their minds several times before they graduate, and their jobs/careers several times after they graduate. What you need to be doing now (and in your college years) is try to tune in to the kind of activities and learning that really excite you. What calls you to question and look deeper? How do you spend your free time? What school assignments inspire you to excel? Not everyone can do what they love for a living, but if you’re smart and flexible, you can plot a course that should give you a lot of satisfaction. </p>
<p>Fortunately for you, it sounds like you’ve done well enough in school that you should have plenty of great options when it comes to colleges. Try to find one that doesn’t require you to declare a major right away and that has strong advising for freshmen. You may even want a school that will let you design your own major. If you do decide you are called to medical school, you can make almost any major work as a pre-med program as long as it has sufficient flexibility for you to take the necessary science and math classes. But in the mean time, you will be able to explore some of your other interests (thru coursework, internships, study abroad, mentored research…) and perhaps identify a career path that really calls to you. You’re young, smart and seem to have a very upbeat attitude. Find a college that will allow you to grow and explore.</p>
<p>My own career has been an evolution, and as a student I never could have imagined some of the places it’s taken me. What you need to do with your education is to get the tools that will help you to be successful in almost anything you could eventually become - most importantly, effective communication skills and the ability to continue to learn independently. Yes, eventually you’ll need to declare a major and start building a specific skill set that will allow you to do surgery or teach or balance a spreadsheet. But you should always keep an open mind and stay flexible. Take the opportunity to get to know your professors well and to meet people in your field. If they offer you their contact info, take it and maintain the connection. A strong and diverse network of contacts will be very helpful in shaping and developing your career.</p>
<p>Wow, guess I’m feeling quite philosophical today - sorry! Bottom line is that this is the time for you to question and explore. Try not to stress out too much as you start to make decisions. Careers these days don’t necessarily have to be either/or… Goodness knows that doctors could use some business skills, and every investment banker should have some level of science literacy. Your job is to figure out what you’re good at, and what your passions are, and to begin to explore careers and future job prospects. If you can find an intersection where all of these meet, that will be the sweet spot that gives you a successful and fulfilling career.</p>
<p>I know it’s a long ways off but have you considered what kind of family life you would like to have eventually? Would you want to stay at home/have a nanny etc. Some career paths make having time to go to kid’s sporting events and school events more difficult. Consider travel as well as hours/path.</p>
<p>One easy thing you can do to learn more about various career options and whether they would be good for you is to read a good book or two on the topic. One book I really liked for high school kids is “10 Best College Majors for Your Personality Type”.
[10</a> Best College Majors for Your Personality: Laurence Shatkin: 9781593578633: Amazon.com: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Best-College-Majors-Your-Personality/dp/1593578636]10”>http://www.amazon.com/Best-College-Majors-Your-Personality/dp/1593578636)
You might be able to borrow it from you public library…</p>
<p>I am volunteering this summer at a hospital, and at a camp with kids. I had an opportunity to do research in Boston, but unfortunately the timing didn’t work out. Also, as far as the medical field being right for me, that’s what I’m trying to figure out. I love medicine, I love helping people, I love learning. But it scares me to be locked into anything, even something I love. It especially worried me about the length of schooling. I do want a family in the future, which is why I worry about “starting my life” late.
I think another problem is that I really don’t know what else is out there. I mean, I do. But there’s so many options and, just like in my college search, I want to make sure I cover them all. Another thing is that many adults I know are absolutely miserable with their jobs. I understand that circumstances and choice lead them to stay there, but I don’t want to be like them. I truly want to be happy. It’s just so difficult figuring out what I’d be happy in!</p>
<p>
On the one hand you can’t look into everything. There are over 3,000 colleges in the US and if you spent just an hour considering each one that would be about 1.5 years at 40 hours a week. So you take a top-down approach. Think about the types of colleges you might like (urban, rural, LAC, large U, region of the country) and you narrow it down. You consider other factors like selectivity, reputation, etc. </p>
<p>And you can do the same thing with a career search, although let me repeat I think you are making a mistake trying to figure it all out at 17. Its good to be thinking about broad areas and what types of things you might like or want to avoid, but there is no need for most fields to decide exactly how you want to spend your working life before college.</p>
<p>Which brings up a second, seemingly contradictory point. Even though you talk about “so many options” you seem to be ignoring many of them, at least in medicine. The question for you seems to be “what type of doctor do I want to be?” That is one approach, and pretty common on these boards, but in fact medicine is a large field with many jobs. Involvement in patient care varies, as does pay and training. Hospitals have doctors, yes, but they also have nurses, respiratory therapists, speech pathologists, physical therapists, etc. A step removed from direct patient care they also have administrators, accountants, purchasing managers, etc. Hospitals are not the only providers of heath care; there are clinics, convalescent hospitals, group practices, etc.</p>