<p>@jalfred
“But pre-med is a tough slog…”
Are you kidding me? Really? Major in something easy and take the pre-reqs for med school, where half the students drop out/switch majors/don’t care after some point? That is tough?
I’m not saying pre-med is easy, but you don’t slog in pre-med. Try majoring in something like engineering and then tell me what slogging is.</p>
<p>What, did you run out of fact-free opinions like “they tend to start their own practice”? There is no basis for this statement.<br>
So let’s see…you’re a newly-minted engineering grad already worried about matching retirement funds(good for you!) who may want to go into consulting and is considering an MBA. Clearly you are someone with a lot of valuable experience-and hence advice-about pre-med, medicine, and related issues. Such informed opinions are always welcome.</p>
<p>@anongrad2013
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<p>What exactly is your point? Last cycle (2012/13) over 58% of students who made it all the way through pre-med, jumped through all the hoops, took the MCAT, submitted the AMCAS, completed the secondaries, and attended interviews, were not accepted anywhere. The environment is becoming increasingly competitive every year. Just going through the motions as you describe doesn’t cut it anymore. So yes, if you are going to do it right, it’s a “tough slog”.</p>
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<p>The mind boggling complexity of the medical school admissions process is not necessarily an indication of the difficulty of the subject matter. Not taking anything away from a typical pre-med, I agree with the notion that the subject matter of the pre-requisite courses for the medical school is not the hardest. What an EE major has to go through, in my view, is much harder.</p>
<p>Agree with kal123. Getting into med school is not complex/difficult- there are tons of cop outs that can get you that legendary “MD” (or “DO”). One example of such is pursuing your medical degree in the Caribbeans, where student loan is $250k+, or you can pursue a DO (easier route to being a doctor). Being in any major where they grill you all 4 years is difficult. I’m not saying i’m an expert at medicine, but I have done my research and was one of the reasons that drew me away from healthcare/medicine. Also the quality of grads/doctors out there right now is just terrible IMO.</p>
<p>I do not agree. The presentation level in some premed class may not be that challenging but the professor can make it hard to get A’s consistently. As it is said, the premed class is hard just because the students in it. The fact that there are more capable students on the premed track than the number of seats in the US med schools makes this process not easy.</p>
<p>BTW, when many students drop out of a premed class, some students who might get As if not so many dropped out could not any more because the class is curved among the students who remain in the class. This is what I meant when I said the premed class is hard because of the students in it.</p>
<p>Is EE hard? The subject matter may be reasonably hard at the UG level as they do not have enough years to learn some subjects (esp., more applied math oriented ones) in a proper way. Many engineering math is done in a cookbook way (e.g., a hurried way to get through Laplace transform or DE in order to use it in circuit analysis, linear system or control theory classes as soon as possibly.) Many of my engineering coworkers told me that if a student really wants to pursue a PhD in some engineering field, they need to relearn their math more properly. what he is rushed through in many undergraduate program is really not enough. From this point of view, the presentation level in some engineering discipline at the UG level is not so in-depth either, just like many topics in a premed organic chemistry class can not be presented in the graduate school’s way.</p>
<p>It is not easy to excel in any field. A problem as I see it is that too many smart people in this country are no longer interested in going into the engineering field for whatever the reason it may be. I once read some where that, in Sunnyvale California, the heart of Silicon Valley, approaching 70-80% were not born and educated (at least K to 12) in this country.</p>
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The career prospect of an engineering grad a decade into their engineering career is just terrible if they have not got into the management by then, IMO.</p>
<p>It seems there is a trend here: An engineering student likes to put down students on the premed track. But parents who happen to be in this career path may try to steer their offsprings away from this career path, maybe more so than physician parents who may steer their sons/daughters away from the medicine career (considering the sheer number of med school students who have a physician parent , uncle or aunt at many med schools.)</p>
<p>If you want to be a doctor, then go into medicine. It’s been a great career for me and my wife. But our goal was always to be doctors, not to have a great career. We’ve been pleasantly surprised. I think the people who choose any line of work because of prestige, life-style or expected income often end up unhappy. The one thing I’ll say about medicine is that you can always find some work. If you’re an unemployed physician it’s pretty much because you want to be or because you’re a criminal.</p>
<p>Since debt is brought up, the good goal while going to medicine is NOT having any debt. The good plan to accomplish that is to attend UG of full tuition+ Merit award and negotiate with parents about funding (fully or partially) your Med. School because of your smart choice to attending a free UG. It may be possible depending on your family situation.
I love the point that starsky made about always having a job. When I was discussing the possible carreer choices for my D. in middle school, I have pointed out to her many times that most people completely overlook that fact that everybody, absolutely every single person outside of MD have to keep in mind that they may be unemployed at any point. We did not even bought a house until both of us were employed. I have lost my job 9 times. Starting over and over again in very different business environements is not for everybody. This requires certain skills and determination. For references, I am a computer programmer (or whatever they call it this days), I have been in IT for over 3 decades. My H. is an engineer. We both have an MBA, which was one of the reason why I was able to find another job over and over. Many in my situation in our city (very economically depressed) has given up. I know many many MD’s, neighbors, friends, parents of D’s friends. I do not know single unemployed MD, I have never heard them talking about having a job, while the first thing that our engineers friends would normally ask is “how is a job?”.</p>
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This summarizes the “desirability” of the engineering career path (likely with the exception of those that the large companies can not fill their openings with H1Bs.)</p>
<p>I heard of two cases:
One new college graduate with an EE degree from a flagship state university could come home at 2:30 pm at a large international company almost everyday, because there is really no work to do there on most days. His manager does not care.</p>
<p>The husband of one of my coworkers in my previous job said his job was essentially to train his replacement in a overseas branch. His manager pushed everyone very hard, essentially like being on calls anytime, often including weekend. The performance of his manager is evaluated by how smooth and how soon he could ramp up that overseas group and ramp down the group here in US. So if any overseas members had any question, his local group members need to answer the question in real time (thus need to be “on call”.)</p>
<p>I definitely have an appreciation for both sides as a previous EE and now an MD. Though I have to say that in the current transition to an employed model in medicine, many physicians will come to learn what being unemployed is all about. Especially the hospital based physicians. I have witnessed anesthesiologists, ER physicians, and radiologists lose their jobs recently. Fortunately they weren’t unemployed for long but it does happen in medicine and will probably occur a lot more in the future.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP makes it seem like the only way to never be unemployed is to be an MD. I understand engineers and others outside of “MD” have to worry about being unemployed, but I don’t think this is always the case.Dependent on job industry, company, and your skill set, you can be like an “MD” and not be worried about being unemployed. Also, in terms of getting your parents to fund your med school debt/loans/tuition, I think a good majority of med school students do not have that much parental support for that debt. If you are at that stage in your life (graduate school) and you are still being supported by your parents, it will be hard to learn some sort of responsibility growing up (such as paying bills,etc.). I could not imagine having my parents pay $20k+ for my med school , if I did decide to go into medicine.</p>
<p>Bottom line is that if you want to be an “MD” you must be passionate about it- not going for the name or salary.</p>
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Is there a typo here? If you mean the COA per year, the COA is like $70k a year for a private med school.</p>
<p>I think we as parents likely paid about that amount ($20k+) each year in the last 2.5 years. So the total that we pay upfront from assets and income will be about $100k before DS graduates. The rest is the loan and need-based “discount” from the school.</p>
<p>“If the best and brightest science minds no longer see medicine as a good career option, then healthcare is in major trouble.”</p>
<p>I am jaded/biased, but I think bright minds won’t matter and may even be a detriment. Otherwise, Sally will be fine.</p>
<p>BTW, I fancy studying anthropology when I “grow up”.</p>
<p>“or if self-employed, it is part of your overhead. It certainly does not come out of your income.”</p>
<p>My overhead comes out of my income.</p>
<p>“when it’s simply not true-especially in California, a state that is home to Kaiser Permanente, a medical group employing many, many physicians. The solo practitioner is getting rarer and rarer, with large and larger physician groups being more and more common.”</p>
<p>At least some docs are their because they can’t survive in private practice.</p>
<p>Some docs are there…</p>
<p>Not sure who has 100k to shell out for there children’s med school but to each there own…</p>
<p>If my memory serves me well, 16% to 20% of med school students have parents who pay all the cost for them. We do not consider ourselves as particularly financially resourcible and generous parents.</p>
<p>Actually, when DS was a freshman in college, the poorest two students in his suite ended up attending the med school. DS once mentioned that it appears to him that only those students who had gone to a public high school would choose to stay on the premed track and go to med school. Other students may tend to try a little bit and then opt out by choice. He also mentioned there appears to be more female premed students than male premed students in his year (at his school.) He knew a few couples: the male one went to the Wall Street but the female one went to med school. The former plays more while the latter studies more as college students, but the former earns big money sooner than the latter.</p>
<p>Many are spending 100k but the problem is it costs 300k in private schools.</p>
<p>If the parents happen to have multiple (say, just 2) kids who attend professional schools, they may be spending $200k on their children’s education after their college. It could be a big hit to their retirement account. (Or, their retirement account could be fatter.)</p>
<p>One of my previous coworkers (who happens to be an engineer) almost did not want his child to attend Stanford (as college) due to the concern that he needs to be fair to all of his children. That child did attend that hard-to-resist college in the end but I believe he chose a more (short-term-wise) moneyed career path than medicine in the end. (I think he is good at the poker game but I am not sure whether he is that kind of “drink well, dress well” person though. Being bookworm-ish or nerdy or like to think too deep about anything could be a minus for those heading that career path.)</p>
<p>I wish I had parents like that 16%-20% you are talking about…</p>