<p>Hello. I'll just jump into this because I have no earthly idea what a decent preamble would be!</p>
<p>I'm a rising sophomore at a pretty decent public university in the states. I'm here thanks to very generous non-need-based scholarship, so I get my four years at a low, low cost and then it's all for astronomical out-of-state tuition that we frankly cannot comfortably afford. I'm telling you this to explain why I can't afford--literally and figuratively--to spend a lot of time waffling between majors. I'm currently a bio major (pre-health track, as most of us bio majors seem to be:)), and I've been prepping myself for a career in health care for years upon years, though I don't particularly fancy allopathic/osteopathic medical school and have looked into podiatry (DPM) schools instead. I also considered pharmacy for the great pay and high demand but ultimately determined that my interests lie more on the hands-on, direct care side of things, which may be in some ways contributing to this sticking point I'm currently dealing with. Namely, I'm not sure if I want to be a bio major anymore.</p>
<p>I'm not one of those people who were forced into biology/pre-health by overly demanding parents or anything like that. In fact, I absolutely adore certain parts of biology--genetics, neurosciene/neurology, and pathology chief among them. I'm doing research now in biomedical science lab on campus and absolutely love it, though I don't think it's something I would be compelled to do for life. I'm not quite as adoring of chemistry, however, but I guess it and biology are kind of package deal these days. </p>
<p>However, the more and more thought I put in on the subject, the less and less sure I am I want do pre-health. I've set up appointments to shadow some DPMs as soon as I get back home, and I still plan on following through, but the more I read about DPMs, the less sure I am that's what I truly want. First, there's the issue of practice. Most DPMs own their own practices, either alone or in paternships, and that's something I find very unappealing--I don't want to have to deal so directly with the business aspects of medicine. Then there's the debt load, about $160k for school with hefty loans during residency on top of that. I know DPMs make pretty good salaries, but that debt still unnerves me more than a little. Finally, there's the issue of location, and honestly, any job I'm going to take is going have a lot of weight put on location. I don't want to live in London or LA or NYC or any place that any sensible 19 year-old would want to live; no, as silly as it sounds, I want to live in semi-rural Alaska (not big cities but not "bush" Alaska either). There's no place like it, really, and it's been something that's been driving me for a long time. Had an Alaskan college been able to offer anything near what I needed in either academics or scholarships, I'd be there now. In fact, my choice of college was partially driven by the relative probability of making AK connections while I'm here, as I figured the relative probability of meeting Alaskans in Illinois was far lower.. In semi-rural Alaska, people tend not to have a lot of money, and I can't imagine the demands for DPMs would be high.</p>
<p>This brings me to my second point. Lately, I've been looking more and more into social work and liking what I see. I really think it would be a good, versatille degree to have in rural Alaska, as it would allow me to do a wide range of things for people. I like that there are opportunities for work in both counseling and hospital work. That way, even though it's not a "health field" in the traditional sense, it would still allow me to be involved in the medical field and interact with doctors and patients while doing other work as wanted or needed. Also, I really like the relatively short time it would take obtain the MSW: 2 years as opposed to 4 years of schooling and 2-3 years of residency for a DPM. Plus, it helps that the University of Alaska at Anchorage has an MSW program, which would allow me to hopefully make connects for jobs while doing practica and internships.</p>
<p>This is where my actual dilemia comes in; my apologies for the extensive back story-- most MSW programs have something referred to as "Advanced Standing," which allows certain applicants with a Bachelors of Social Work to get their MSW in one year. I realize that MSWs don't make much money at all--one of the few things that relly worries me about the field--and thus, an MSW student can't afford much in the way of debt. On top of that, my parents, knowing me to be the highly ambitious type, agreed if I went to school with costs under a certain amount per year, they would "bank" my education funding and pay out of their current salary for my undergraduate. It's a very generous offer I'm very grateful for, and it means, Lord-willing, that I could potentially come out of undergraduate school with around $25,000-$30,000 to put toward my graduate or professional education. This would probably cover just about one year of MSW school, meaning I would be more or less debt-free from an advanced standing program or have $20,000-$30,000 in debt from a full two year program. I don't particularly relish the thought of paying of $30,000 on a $35,000 salary, and while I don't necessarily need to live in gold and diamonds, I would like to live relatively comfortably if possible, and I think that graduating debt free would be a good step in that direction.</p>
<p>All this leads me to the issue of getting the BSW. I spent almost an entire day going back and forth between course schedules, degree requirements, and school requirements, and came up to the conclusion that it would be nearly impossibe to get a dual BSW/Biology degree in four years, and the only degree that would be even remotely possible would be a sort of hack-eyed, bare minimum Bio degree that is dependent on a lot of "what ifs" and would provided insufficient preparation to apply to any medical programs anyway and would actually make me feel worse about getting a Bio degree if I just did the bare bones of the program. However, I looked into it and fouund it would be very possible for me to get a BSW, a BA in Indigenous Studies (good because that's the population I want to work with), and a minor in Biology so that I could continue to take the courses that I'm really looking forward to and continue my biomedical research) within the next three years if I switched for this upcoming fall. It would also require an overload of credits nearly every semester, which I'm actually pleased with because I feel that otherwise I would really miss the intensity that comes with the hard science and because, due to my school's odd credit fee scheme, would actually mean I would be getting "more" for the same amount of money, as I would be taking more credits.</p>
<p>There are a couple of worries I have with this plan, however. I'm loath to give up the all-bio, all the time nature of my previous program because I really do enjoy biology and because, if I did decide to go the DPM route, this wouldn't give me all the necessary courses. Secondly, and I know this sounds silly, I'm worried about the loss of prestigue. People--including my friends-- are always impressed when I tell them I'm a biology/pre-health major, and I know that a "softer" degree would carry less of that. I don't want people to think I'm lazy, unintelligent, or incapable of doing high level work. I believe that I am, and I intend to do at least some of it in my upper division biology minor credits. My mother would probably be fine with it, as she as always pushed me to go into humanities and "be the writer she never was," but I'm worried about how my father will react. I doubt he'll say anything directly, but I can easily see the engineer in him thinking me a weed-out and failure, or at least as much as one can be with a 3.6+ GPA. I'm seeing an BSW/MSW as a different type of clinical degree than the one I orginally had in mind but as an applied science, "helping" degree nonetheless. If I go that route, I don't fee I'll be abandoning my goals, but rather finding another path to a similar destination. I'm I wrong?</p>
<p>I apologize for the lengthy post, but if anyone has any advice on my situation, or on social work, podiatry, or health care in general, I'd be thrilled. Right now, it feels as though I'm looking at two very good but very different paths, one having more prestige and a much larger salary but also carrying bigger debt and more time, and I need to chose my path in the next few weeks in order to be registered for all the right things, least four year graduation and my "bank" of money become but a pipe dream.</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>