<p>Thereisnosecret, oh I don’t care if you r overly competitive. Read my post again. I am annoyed by this behavior in classes like Gen Chem while you are majoring in the easiest degree somewhat med related so you can get a high GPA. And then a lot wont even make it through that.</p>
<p>Why are you guys quoting Machiavelli? His principles are directed towards rulers and people who have to make decisions that affect the people of a state. And when that’s the case, you have to make decisions that make some people worse while allowing the majority or others to prosper. Most of us will never be in that kind of position to even be in need of applying Machiavellian principles. Of course, you can apply them, but you’re just putting more stress on yourself than necessary. He wrote it in hopes of turning a principality into an effective one, because during his time Florence was so weak a city-state he was really worried—Machiavelli loved Florence probabily more than anybody.</p>
<p>Anyway, if you want to follow Machiavelli’s principles to the letter in order to get ahead of everyone else, go ahead. Who’s going to stop you? Might as well throw in Sun-tzu, Metternich, von Clausewitz and Nietzche in the basket as well.</p>
<p>Just know that a lot of us don’t live by or follow those principles and are still be able to live a happy and prosperous life. I’d rather follow the teachings of Jesus and Buddah than Machiavelli. But, of course, because there will always be power-hungry people who follow Machiavelli, the rest of us have no choice but to read his book and develop defensive strategies.</p>
<p>Secret, Just because you are pre-med does not make you the “strongest.” There are way harder courses and majors than the pre-med track.</p>
<p>And like others have pointed out, many pre meds are so cut throat that they try to beat the game, and lose the passion for medicine. Being pre-med is not about killing everyone else to get to the top.</p>
<p>I agree with biologynerd. If you are passionate about science and medicine, you don’t even need to be cutthroat in order to get good grades and get into medical school.</p>
<p>There’s a reason medical schools conduct interviews and reject “qualified” students. They are qualified on paper but are jerks in person. In other words, they aren’t fit to be doctors.</p>
<p>They’re always the ones who interpret “The Prince” by Machiavelli improperly, for example, and instead read it as “The Jerk.”</p>
<p>^I’m not misinterpreting Machiavelli. It’s simple Game Theory, boys.</p>
<p>Fact is, other people are trying to get ahead of the curve. One way to do this is to prevent other “players” from doing so. It would be a strategic failure to give others the means to get ahead of you unnecessarily. </p>
<p>In regards to pre meds who take easy classes to boost their GPAs, they pay for it in tests. Which majors generally score the highest on the MCAT? Engineers, physicists and mathematicians.</p>
<p>Do you wanna know why they score the highest? Its because they’re studying and not plotting ways to tear other people down.</p>
<p>It’s people like you who ruin the field of medicine because you go into for stupid, selfish reasons. Being a doctor is not about prestige or money. Its about using your skills and knowledge to help others heal themselves, its about interacting with people and building trust, its about being a leader and a spokesperson for people with debilitating illnesses.</p>
<p>Actually, they get the highest scores because they get the harder math courses and thus score better on the math portion of the MCAT, but whatever…</p>
<p>I’m not a doctor. I’d prefer not to become one, although medicine intrigues me. I’m interested in people, and I like to think that from my personal experience, I know how people tick. The topic was why pre meds are friends. Off the court, Kobe Bryant and LeBron could be the best of friends for all I know, but during the game they play to win it for their respective teams. Pre med is also a game. If medical school is your goal, you’d better be prepared to play it.</p>
<p>I really honestly think its because they’re taught problem solving from the ground up, so they know how to set up and work problems intuitively and have a good sense of reason, but the higher level math makes sense too.</p>
<p>Pre med is a stupid game and you won’t win by stomping on people.</p>
<p>I think you have an overly idealistic and naive view of medicine. You will be an easy target to a more ambitious doctor or big pharma company to mold into shape and do their underling work. Assuming your legs don’t get cut from underneath you first. </p>
<p>We don’t become doctors to “heal the world and make it a better place.” If so, millions would not die of preventable/easily curable diseases and of starvation.</p>
<p>We become doctors to turn a profit, if not for ourselves, than for others. As a doctor, we are a small cog in the political/business machine. </p>
<p>Our research designs and methodologies are constantly twisted and pressured by research funding and the main paradigm of the day. </p>
<p>I say this not to make anyone feel guilty, as I long ago accepted that this is how the world works. I am getting ahead. </p>
<p>I am getting my own piece of the pie. I want to become “too big to fail.” You better not turn your back on me if you are ever in any of my group projects and we are graded individually, and don’t get in the way of my political/business dealings. Even if we are graded as a group I will get intell on you to screw you over in another semester. If you are into partying and drinking, I will take pictures, put them in a portfolio, and post them online and to medical schools that you say you are applying to. </p>
<p>I learned the hard way that money talks, and when you have lawyers, private investigators, and state prosecutors on your payroll, you can do things that others cannot.</p>
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<p>This has to be a ■■■■■ thread. Yes you’re right, you can’t heal the entire world…it doesn’t mean the whole profession is a load of crap and everyone is in it for the money. If you want to make a lot of money there’s a TON of professions you can go into that make 10x what doctor’s pay. Go into one of those. But you defeat your own argument then by going into medicine.</p>
<p>And trust me, if you’re not just posting to get a rise out of CC then others will be able to tell from a mile away you’re a jerk who is out to throw everyone under the bus. Good luck with your med school interviews. Unless you have one hell of a Machiavelli complex you’re screwed because you can’t hide this otherwise.</p>
<p>Secret’s going off on tangents. Look at what I said on the previous page to see a more condensed and realistic version.</p>
<p>I challenge you to name five jobs that someone from a middle-class background can do (not including entrepreneur or investor) and expect to make more than the average doctor’s salary.</p>
<p>Petroleum engineers with PhD’s and 20 years experience can pull down $500k a year. Other engineering majors peak at around $150k a year but engineers don’t have the massive student loans that doctor’s get saddled with or malpractice insurance premiums. Engineers also don’t have to worry about getting sued for $20mil.</p>
<p>A hotshot computer science major can probably get into the $200’s if they’re working for the right company and are coding gods.</p>
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<p>The problem for the doctor is that s/he would have spend several years at medical school (with massive debt along the way) followed by more years in lower paid residency, while someone in some other line of work would have had a multi-year head start in earning money.</p>
<p>[A</a> Novel Look at Physician Income: Why a medical career is the wrong career if money is one of your primary motives](<a href=“http://www.er-doctor.com/doctor_income.html]A”>A Novel Look at Physician Income: Why a medical career is the wrong career if money is one of your primary motives)</p>
<p>I’m not pre med anymore. I don’t want to go to medical school because medicine is no longer about helping people. Its about insurance and pharmaceutical companies and idiots who get into medical school for all the wrong reasons. Secret, I can’t wait until you get into your med school interview and they see right through you. You can have the best stats in the world, but if you don’t know how to interact with others appropriately then you’re screwed.</p>
<p>I agree with queenthethird, medical school is too big of an investment for someone who is just in it for the money. Try computer science or engineering if you want to be that big and make a ton of money. A computer scientist can make wayyy more than a doctor. If you were smart, you would figure out the investment to cost to income ratio and realize medicine is low on that list.</p>
<p>Good luck with being “too big to fail.” Hitler and Stalin both thought they were “too big to fail” too.</p>
<p>I think medicine still is about helping people otherwise doctor’s would just say enough with the bullshiznit, and do something else for a career. But in a way us engineers are the ultimate helpers of the world because at some point we design/fabricate all the tools everyone uses and the buildings they are used in too :)</p>
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<p>Are you admitting that medicine is a business? Since when were you the spokesperson for medicine trying to overturn thousands of years of human civilization? No matter what else you decide to pursue, it will always be a business. </p>
<p>Efficiency is the end all be all of existence. That’s literally all life is about-- cutting costs, eliminating redundancies, raising productivity, etc. Leftist ideas like “freedom” and “democracy” and “rights” only serve to hinder the pursuit of these objectives. The only freedom that matters is economic freedom. Everything else is subservient. If one can’t prove his worth by being economically useful, then he’s on his own. Free markets. Private enterprise. We are the prime movers, sent by the gods to usher in paradise. Divine, entrepreneurial blood runs through our veins. Ours is the most perverse sense of entitlement!</p>
<p>And you didn’t answer my question, do you think medicine should be each according to ability, each according to need? Are you communist? </p>
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<p>Godwin’s law. </p>
<p>And when I say “too big to fail”, I mean I want to get into the top 1% of Americans. </p>
<p>If I am ever in any real danger, I will just hold the economy hostage and demand a bailout and it will be handed to me.</p>
<p>I want to do more than have a 6 figure salary or live comfortably.</p>
<p>I literally want to be “too big to fail.”</p>
<p>That way I will receive special treatment from state, federal, and even international governing bodies.</p>
<p>You know? Like the companies that got bailouts in 2008 for being too big to fail even though they made some pretty big mistakes and screwed up by themselves. </p>
<p>The world will become stronger under my leadership! </p>
<p>For some reason, some people seem to think in this country that they should never have to struggle, that they should just be either provided everything they need because they need it and there are people who can provide, or because they feel like they shouldn’t have to struggle while others prosper. But what they don’t understand is that those who struggle are usually stronger people because of their struggle, and they are more likely, not just to survive, but to thrive and prosper as well, given that they don’t succumb to their struggle. In order to be successful, you can’t think you can make it, you have to KNOW you can make it.</p>
<p>Supply and demand is an absolute law of nature. As real and irrefutable as gravity, newton’s three laws of motion, classic mechanics, and general relativity.</p>
<p>The free market is the logical extension of the laws of nature, like supply and demand; just like Darwinian evolution is the logical extension of natural selection and other observable data.</p>
<p>The free market will always be the most efficient engine of progress and motor of history.</p>
<p>The free market is based on mathematical proofs derived from what David Hume called a relation of ideas. It is demonstrably certain.</p>
<p>Just like a triangle having 3 sides is demonstrably certain.</p>
<p>Support your country! </p>
<p>Whose side are you on?</p>
<p>I have every right to be in the field of biology. Being too big to fail requires selling your soul to the devil. Once you do that, good luck leading a fulfilling life. You will have everything and nothing all at once.</p>
<p>I have struggled for everything I have. I have worked full time and gone to school full time and took care of my mom who was extremely ill. I worked in the ER and would get out at 7am only to go to class by 8am. Don’t frigging tell me that everything is a struggle because you have no idea what it means to struggle.</p>
<p>This type of trolling makes me uncomfortable…</p>
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<p>This is the kind of guy who shows up to class one day with a twelve-gauge.</p>
<p>e: Anybody ever play the Command & Conquer games? He sounds like a less religious version of Kane.</p>
<p>e2: 600 posts \o/</p>
<p>There are two ways to get ahead in life. One to work hard and do your best, the other is to try to pull down others around you. While this may sound pollyannaish, the one that lets you sleep at night and to have a long and satisfying career is to do your best. In the short term the attack of others (or lying etc) may have short term benefits, but in the long term not so much. The question is do you do the right thing even when no one else is looking is between you and your conscience. </p>
<p>As an aside I tell the residents that if there are two choices and one is personally inconvenient, that one is probably the right choice. If the easy thing to do is right there is no struggle.</p>