I currently study chemical engineering with Spanish minor, and was originally planning to directly go to medical school. However, due to financial reasons compounded with bleakly low international student acceptances rate, I have been thinking more and more about my alternate career route and going to graduate school to pursue masters degree, and if I end up really liking it, pursue Ph.D as well.
Besides studying medicine, I also want to study something biology related, but not entirely biology. I want to focus on human medicine side, i.e. studying the engineering of drug, medical tools(I guess these two are parts of bio-nanotechnology?), or maybe biomedical engineering too. I also would like to do researches in medicine.
I would like some advice in what discipline I should pursue masters to open up potential careers as much as possible. Chemistry? Biomedical engineering? bioengineering? Or just go into chemical engineering? Biochemical engineering?
Thanks…I feel so pressured to choose my future as soon as possible because I will at fastest graduate by next winter.
In my experience getting a master’s degree is not a good idea until you already know what field you want to get your master’s degree in. As such, you might want to take some time off from school and work for a year or two.
Can’t do. F1 students arent allowed to take a year off ;p. Meaning I should use this summer to plan my career.
Respectfully, I don’t think the inability to stay a year in the U.S. unless you’re studying is necessarily a good idea to rush into a master’s program if you don’t know what you want to study. When the above poster says “take a year off,” I’m pretty sure they mean by working in between while you figure out what you want to do for grad school. You could always attempt to find employment and sponsorship in the U.S. and work for a year or more until you decide whether you want an MS and PhD.
Oh, that! I am definitely doing OPT(optional practical training) or Co-op if I can . But visa sponsorship these days are so hard…
At the risk of asking a couple of dumb questions:
Eventually you are going to run out of school to attend in the US, and will have to do something else. At that point, do you hope that having an MD or a PhD will help you stay in the US, or do you intend to return to Korea and do your military service, or to go somewhere else? Also, why not attend university in a country where getting a degree also allows you to get a work permit?
To circle back and answer the question, from the perspective of an MS or a PhD, biomedical or chemical engineering will probably offer more job opportunities than a PhD in chemistry. Whether they are the KINDS of jobs you want is up to you.
Also, do you just want a career in medicine or do you specifically want to do research? Because there are lots of other careers in medicine besides physician and researcher.