<p>Hi, I am new to this forum and I think it's a better option than having to share my concerns at the student doctor network.
Right now, I am majoring in chemistry and I will graduate in a couple of years. I plan to get a job after graduation and work for 1-2 years (depending on how long my mcat score will remain applicable). The thing is that I have heard that getting a job short after graduation could be daunting for a science major like me. I would like to transfer over to a different local school for engineering since my current undergrad is liberal. I think that major will get me a faster job (even despite the fact that I will have to catch up to my classmates). Do you guys think this is a wise decision? I just know that I'll be needing a break before I head to med school because my major is quite tough and I think it's a much better perspective to enter the job world before I go into school again. I plan to apply during the gap year(s) so that I get to enjoy my time and learn deeply about my med school options. I think that the fact that I feel I have no safety net because of my science degree is making me uninterested in my education. I know that by switching to a field that promises successful transfer to job could be the encouragement I need since I really want to experience a stable income before I head to debt.
Can anyone with a background in the sciences/engineering help me out here?</p>
<p>MCAT scores are typically good for 3 years. However, each med school makes its own determination of just how old an exam they will accept. Some will only accept scores that are not more than 2 years old. Some say not more than 3 years at the time of application. Some say not more than 3 years at the time of matriculation. The burden will be on you to check all this out.</p>
<p>It’s not at all unusual today for an applicant to take time off between graduation and application. Some med school admissions officers strongly encourage this. A break gives an applicant time to mature and gain valuable insight into the real life problems their patients may face. It also provides a breather before diving back into the intense academics of med school. (For the record, both my children took gaps. One is now in med school; the other will apply next cycle.)</p>
<p>So no issues there so long as you keep up your medical volunteering and community service while working. (You need to demonstrate that it’s medicine that your passion–not whatever you’re doing for $$$.) Working full time and volunteering is a tough balance, but it’s less demanding that what your life will be like in med school. (Where you’ll be doing community outreach AND volunteering at clinics AND studying 60+ hours AND doing still more physician shadowing.)</p>
<p>While the employment outlook for engineers is statistically better than those for chem and other science majors, an engineering degree is NOT a guarantee of a job after graduation. There are jobs for chem and other science majors. The onus is on you to be pro-active in the job hunt. (One data point: my younger child graduated with a degree in bio & math this spring. She had no fewer than 3 job offers in hand months before graduation. She developed a job hunt strategy and began looking early her senior year.) A willingness to relocate will help in landing a job.</p>
<p>A switch this late in your college career (in majors but also among schools) will likely set back your anticipated graduation date by at least a year, if not 2 or more. (Not all of your credits will transfer…)</p>
<p>Will this place an undue financial burden on you?</p>
<p>Might it be better option to complete your current degree, find a slightly lower paying job after graduation than to delay graduation (with its increased costs) and land a slightly higher-paying job?</p>
<p>No judgments–just pointing out options…</p>
<p>More thoughts----</p>
<p>Do you have an aptitude for engineering? How are your math and physics grades? Top of the class? Top 20%? Somewhere in the middle? I ask because many people find an engineering major to be tough on their GPA. A lower GPA will come back to bite you when you apply for medical school.</p>
<p>Do you have a engineering field in mind? Do you actually know what an engineer’s job is like? (HINT: not all of them are cushy office jobs. Old roomie of DH spent his first 7 years as ChemE climbing smoke stacks at coal-fired at manufacturing plants making sure that the scrubbers were being installed properly. My sister’s second ChemE job was doing QC at a major oil refinery. Both jobs were noisy, dirty and in higly polluted environments. ChemE, CivE, MechE and EnviroE may all require fieldwork in industrial environments.)</p>
<p>One other option I want to point out:</p>
<p>You could graduated with your chem degree, then while working make up your missing engineering coursework (statics/dynamics, thermo, heat transfer, circuits, engineering processes, fluid dynamics, modern physics, computer programming. Possibly 1-2 additional math classes.) You may be able to do these online or at night. Depending on your job–you might even be able to get your employer to pay for them. Then if your med school plans don’t work out, you can go for MS in engineering.</p>
<p>So time for a cost-benefit analysis…not recommending any particular course of action. Just pointing out options.</p>
<p>OTOH, if you unequivocably hate your current school and major–by all means change.</p>
<p>@Wayoutwestmom: thank you for taking the time to help this fellow future graduate.
I don’t mind relocating at all. In fact, I think I would absolutely love that opportunity only to come back and do med school at my state of residency where I have grown up and will be an easier candidate of.
In actuality, I think my chem major is way tougher than the engineering degree because almost every chem class has only a 10% A scale. For this reason, I am leaning more towards the engineering path since I have no idea that my hard work and stress will pay off in the end. I haven’t taken physics yet, but both my chem and engineering options require me to take only 2 semesters of it, which I am hoping to clean away this coming summer. However, considering that your daughter was able to receive a job with two good mix of majors (both science related), it has given me hope that I might end up receiving near 30k or so per year as either an engineer or chemist. I don’t mind my pay actually, just so that I am receiving some form of cash. As long as I am able to save half of the amount and stow it in my bank account for future support.
Just a question: Did your daughter have prior work experience? I don’t have any which makes me nervous since that is a huge red flag for recruiters.
What is the real income bracket that most science graduates should expect?
By the way, I have mixed feeling about my undergrad cause I don’t really care for it. I primarily entered it for the program they offered…which I am now becoming disenchanted with and would rather go elsewhere to see various other job options.
I think finances could be a problem, but I am thinking that if my experience stays pact full of excitement and less stress, it could be all worth it…especially if I would have to take an extra semester to graduate.</p>
<p>Both my kids started working at age 15/16. They both worked in a variety of hourly slob jobs (waitperson, day camp counselor, lifeguard, babysitter, sales clerk/cashier), but were also TAs and RAs. D2 developed a specialized expertise while working as a volunteer and paid RA (same lab–she started as volunteer and worked her way up to a paid position) during undergrad. She parlayed that expertise into a full time research asst job that straddles psychiatry and biomedical engineering at a top med school. (She just finished a graduate biophysics/BME class that her employer paid for.)</p>
<p>A full time RA makes around $24-30K. (Same as a funded science PhD or engineering MS or PhD student, btw.) Enough to live on and start paying back your undergrad loans, esp if you have a roommate to share rent/utilities. (You have to remember that as a single adult you will pay out approx 25-33% of your gross income in various federal, state and local taxes. Big shocker to many new grads…)</p>
<p>Lab techs make about the same. So do office workers. Professional sales will pay more and some other types of jobs (finance, banking, analyst, etc) will pay even more, depending on job responsibilties and COL.</p>
<p>As far as getting work experience–it’s not too late to starting getting some. Even engineers will be expected to have hands-on work experience when hired. </p>
<p>Paid or unpaid internships–start looking now because many have early application deadlines. Like in January. </p>
<p>And I hear you about the school…my younger felt very restless at her school by the beginning of her junior year. It felt small and confining instead of cozy and supportive. She was ready to move on. It’s a normal feeling. Just remember that college is a transitional stage. It’s not the be-all end-all in life. It’s a stage. Get through it and move on.</p>
<p>And one last word–if you have trouble with stress—medicine is the wrong career for you. Being a physician is a very high stress profession.</p>
<p>10% As–that sounds like the curve in every engineering class I’ve ever heard of. Don’t assume engineering classes will have a more lenient curve than chem classes. (Or bio or math classes, btw. D2 had a number of bio classes with a 10% As curve.)</p>
<p>How well you do at physics is probably the best indicator at how well you’ll succeed in engineering. Engineering = applied physics. </p>
<p>How do you like math? Engineering will required calc 1, 2, 3, linear algebra and diff eq (ODEs) at the very minimum.</p>
<p>If you will be taking physics at your college this year, make sure to enroll in the calc-based modern physics for physics majors. (Which is what an engineer would be taking if engineering were offered at your college.)</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>Engineering has a very lock-step curriculum with rigid sets of pre-reqs. Are you sure it will only add one semester to your planned graduation date? If you’re currently a sophomore and won’t be switching until the end of the year, it seem unlikely it will only delay you a semester. Two seems more likely. (And remember when you transfer not all of your current credits will be accepted by your new college.)</p>
<p>~~~~~</p>
<p>BTW, if you move away from home for a job after graduation, you will lose your home state residency since you will no longer be able to use your parents’ address as your actual permanent legal address. (The med school will ask for substantial documentation, including your tax returns, as proof of residency.)</p>
<p>I am required, even for my major, to have taken all the maths that an engineer take, as well as the calc based physics. I think that a majority of my classes will transfer since the school is well regarded but I will still have to take freshman lvl engineering courses to match up. I could actually complete the degree, as I spoke to a person over at the program, on time. Weirdly enough, I have heard from students at the engineering place that although classes are hard, they are not as tough as the classes offered in my major. I’ve looked at the grade distributions at the courses I have to take for the engineering degree and I feel confident enough to say that they may be worth the look. </p>
<p>But anyways, you are right. I don’t really handle well when I stress, which is not what medicine is looking for. However, I have personal reasons that I cannot forgo and dismiss. Maybe for that reason, I am trying to sway myself over to a good major so that it can act as a fallback and I won’t feel like med is the end all be all since my science major will need a masters/phd and relevant work to make a stable and family supporting income. </p>
<p>Oh and about the residency. Places like Texas (not sure but using as example) require that I buy a house or something to be a resident. If I don’t do that and instead stay there without recognition as resident, would I still retain my home residency? As much as I would like to get a Texas residency to apply to all those schools they have, I think I like my own state better and would love to settle down there instead.</p>
<p>State residency is complicated issue and every SCHOOL has its own rules. Texas residency policy is actually pretty forgiving compared to most. Places like CA, WA, OR or MI are very strict about their state residency requirements.</p>
<p>D2 contacted the med school admissions director in our state to ask if she would be in-state for the med school if she was working full time OOS for a year or so after graduation–the answer: no. (Only exceptions: military service, missionary work overseas, Peace Corp, Americorp or TFA.)</p>
<p>And that’s how most states look at it. You will asked to provide your STATE and federal income tax to returns to see in which state your are working and living in the year before your matriculation. It doesn’t matter where you own property or where you list as your permanent address. It actually even doesn’t matter much if your parent declares you dependent on their taxes. (Only works if you haven’t yet graduated from college.)</p>
<p>Oh, BTW, my comment about credits not transferring has nothig to do with how well respected your undergrad is. It has to do with how well your course descriptions match up at both schools. For example, older D transferred from a name CA public U to our state uni–she lost nearly 1/3 of her credits** since both course descripttions didn’t match up exactly and course weights were different. ( 4 cr vs 5 cr for a lecture & lab class). </p>
<p>She didn’t actually lose them–she still had them but they didn’t count towards graduation in her major and she had to retake classes. Losing credits upon transfer is pretty common.</p>
<p>Engineering is the hardest major in UG and many times reguire longer than 4 years. It has a great potential to lower your GPA, one of the most importatn factors when applying to Med. School. Another factor, are you sure you will like it? Job prospects is one thing and enjoying your field is another. I would consider these 2 the most. As a reference, my D. is second year Med. student and I have been previously in engineering. After working for 11 years and still not able to make myself to like it, I switched and very happy that I did. However, I know many engineers, one of them is my H. who are relly enoying their job. One more consideration, I believe that engineering and medicine require very different personalities and academic abilities, although again, some people posses it all. It is very personal question.</p>
<p>Sorry if this was said because I didn want to read all the engineering talk but you can maintain residency with your parents even with a job in another state. I don’t know exactly how but my family did it. It is possible that it only worked because I only worked for 1 year between undergrad and med school such that the minority of each calendar year was spent in employment.</p>
<p>Thank you guys. At the moment, I’ll try to see if I can tour the engineering department and see if I fit. I need my recommendations pretty fast though cause I will have to apply early… I’ll take into consideration what Miami and WayoutWestmom conveyed about the major.
Also, I’ll try to find out about the residency deal near junior year. I’m very interested in working at a company for my summer internship no matter whether I end up liberal or as an engineering major. Hopefully, if I work in the area with the companies present, I’d have a much better time at promotion to a full time job by graduation. I’ll also try to seek other programs within my uni. What would be recommended best for a chem major? I think I can go in various directions right now since I am not confined to many requirements. I practically started out as a engineer basically when I think about it with my comp class and all. But yea, I’ll get more info if possible.</p>
<p>Oh and miami, did your daughter change majors or did she just transfer? Also, how was the experience and atmosphere for her when she changed institutions because I am in a similar situation?</p>
<p>^My D. did not change majors, nor she transferred, sorry for misunderstanding. I reffer to her to let you know that I am a bit familiar with Med. School requirements. D. started with one major and 2 minors and dropped on minor later on when one of Med. Schools that she has already applied, added to its’ requirements. My D. was “regular” applicant, no significant differences from most others.</p>