<p>I'm deciding whether or not to go pre-med, I'm a freshman taking no science courses, but I've taken BC Calc, and AP Bio, so I have a few pre-reqs filled out.</p>
<p>Basically, I'm deciding whether I want to go into finance or medicine after college.
I'm not in it for the money, but rather I just want to have a steady secure job with a decent pay. I know the hours for both will be terrible, but I've accepted that knowing it can get better later.</p>
<p>The reason I'm attracted to medicine is because it seems like a far nobler job than IB, and also because its more secure, and in hard economic times like these, I really want a secure job.
However, I would have to go into debt for medical school and work my butt off for the next 7-8 years. The same can be said for IB, except there's less schooling, and less debt, but it feels sort of like empty money.</p>
<p>So I guess I want to know which option would realistically make me more happier. </p>
<p>Also, please refrain from flaming me in case I said anything ignorant. I'm just a freshman in college, worried about adapting to the hard times of the real world.</p>
<p>About the only thing really ignorant is assuming that IB is secure employment. While it does pay extremely well, it is extremely competitive and layoffs/cutbacks occur all of the time. But yes, not much debt to go that route. An Econ degree from Dartmouth, for example, opens a lot of doors on The Street.</p>
<p>Um… actually you haven’t fulfilled any of your pre-reqs since most medical schools will not allow the use of AP credits to meet entrance requirements. SOME schools may allow you to use the AP credit for calc (which only counts as one of your two semesters of math requirements), but that’s not universal. And AP bio will NOT count towards any of your pre med requirements UNLESS you take at least 2 additional semesters of higher level bio WITH labs.</p>
<p>Med school is very hard work. It’s hard work preparing for med school, it’s hard work going thru the application process; it’s hard work being successful in med school, followed another 1-7 years of hard work for residency training. (IOW, you’re underestimating how long it will take you to get out and start practicing medicine. It won’t be 7 or 8 years–it’ll be more like 9-15 years. Or longer.) </p>
<p>If you’re leaning towards medicine because you’re looking for a financial windfall–keep looking. Young doctors graduate with staggering debt that often takes them two or three decades to repay.</p>
<p>Yes, you’ll have a secure job, but your job will require very long hours for your entire career, a half decade of not terribly well paid training post med school and leave you with a boatload of debt. </p>
<p>Now that I’ve said a discouraging word or six—I have a D in med school and she is simply thrilled to be there. She loves it and I’ve never seen her so happy–despite the 12+ hour days. This what she’s meant to do. Yeah, some day in the indefinite future she might make some bucks–but that wasn’t even a consideration for her. There are far easier ways to make a living–and almost all of them don’t require a decade of education and training first.</p>
<p>BTW, there are many, many career besides physician and IB. Some of them even pay well AND let you help people.</p>
<p>If you think you might be interested in medicine as a career, you should try doing some volunteer work in a healthcare setting and see if you like it. If you don’t–well then, you have your answer.</p>
<p>“What’s tougher? Breaking into medical school, Ivy League, or investment banking?”</p>
<p>-there is no answer to it. The only person who can answer it would be the one who has tried all three. And even his answer is not valid. Everybody is different. For some science classes are easier than biusiness, for most it is the other way around and there are many who do not care to go to Ivy, so trying to get accepted while internally rejecting it with all your heart would be very difficult. I believe that person should go where his heart is leading him. Seeking advice from others will steer you in wrong direction (for you), there is no right or wrong choice, there is right choice for certain individual and there is a wrong choice for the same person. There is nobody in a world who can tell you “which option would realistically make you more happy”. Not possible.
From personal experience, my D. is at Medical school, at one of her own choice, she had good choices. It is very doable if you have good work ethic. She has never applied to Ivy (was not aspired) and she does not have any business background either (outside of her interest).</p>
<p>They are all hard, but investment banking is definitely the easiest of the three. </p>
<p>To get to the ivies, you have to do amazingly in high school, join clubs, and crush your SAT. To get into med school you have to work your ass off in college, study for orgo exams instead of drinking and hooking up, and then, you have to study like a lunatic for the MCAT. To get into investment banking, you have to have a 3.5gpa+ in whatever major you want - preferable business, which is a really easy major compared to say, chemistry or engineering, and then you have to network and read a bunch of interview guides. Also, you get paid better as a banker than any other profession (that is, until the banks all go bankrupt, which come to think of it, should be happening any day now)</p>
<p>Note that you do not have to major in biology to do pre-med.</p>
<p>Theoretically, you can work toward both pre-med and finance careers by majoring in finance/economics/math/statistics while taking the pre-med courses alongside. However, you want to reassess how well you are doing and how much you like each subject each semester – if you do poorly in or dislike one of these paths, you probably want to drop that path.</p>
<p>honestly, both career paths sound pretty miserable for someone who just wants job security. Maybe go into something that’s more likely to never completely die out like UPS or FedEx (people will always have to ship things), fast food service (let’s be real, this isn’t going anywhere) or public transit bus driver (will definitely exist until cheap teleportation is invented)? The other benefit to those career paths is that you could drop out now and start working ASAP.</p>
<p>jgerson,
You seem to have all 3 experiences. However, they are yours. My D. experience getting into Med. School does not support "To get into med school you have to work your ass off in college, study for orgo exams instead of drinking and hooking up, and then, you have to study like a lunatic for the MCAT. " All is basically thrue, but there is no “instead”. Pre-meds have great fun in UG, participate in Greek (heavily, not just paying dues like some others), going to bars on a weekends, going abroad, not having summer classes and just hanging out with friends for whole summer, having art/music and other minors in the area of their interests, includign business if they want, participate in various college events, one example - being extra in one of the best movines of this year because filming was happenning on their campus (that was time consuming)…being hermit locked in for exams prep. was not even supported by Med. Schools adcoms on my D’s list. Nope, they want to see social engaging person, nobody care for hermits. I wonder which Med. Schools you applied to get such a negative imression of UG pre-med’s lives.</p>
<p>I-banking puts a lot of emphasis on something other than your academic merit. Likely the three most important factors are: A veryLrelevant EC, the fit of personality and being smart (but not necessarily academically smart – actually bookworm smart other than mathematics capability tends to be a minus rather than a plus here.). Oh, I forgot to mention that the prestige of your school matters a lot. Some may claim the connection also carries a lot of weight.</p>
<p>Considering the fact that only about 20% of applicants with 800 SAT critical reading get into a specific top Ivy, it is likely that the academic merit (e.g., MCAT score) carries a little bit more weight in medical school admission than the admission to ivies. For both medical school and ivy admissions, merely having the academic credential is not enough. Also, medical school adcoms appear to really dislike academic nerds, as they seem to value the people skills and other passions a lot as well. After all, practicing medicine is being in the service industry where the people skills count A LOT (in a sense, a doctor needs the people’s skill like a pastor does, as both of them need to “lead” people, but in a different way.)</p>
<p>BTW, breaking into politics is all about the people skills, as Rick Perry claims. His academic record may be even worse than many other recent presidential candidates, with mostly C and D from Texas A&M. But it does not affect his competitiveness as a president candidate at all, maybe because his people skill has always been very good. Who knows – he may be our next president, considering the fact that Obama is struggling but Romney appears to suffer from his “wrong” religion since childhood again like in last election.</p>
<p>I mention this example because I think that, to be successful on different things, you need to have a different set of capabilities and credentials. So, to break into a medical school, an ivy or the i-banking requires different things.</p>