No idea why anyone would go to med school. get into software dev or similar and make $300k right out of a grad program, basically write your own ticket. Graduate with some tiny amount of debt. Don't start your actually career after like 10 extra years of training. Insane
Are you a software developer? Where are you coming up with this number of making $300k right out of a grad program? I didn't get a graduate degree, just bachelors. I've got several years experience and I'm making about $100k. But even with a graduate degree I'm pretty sure similar people to ma wouldn't be making much over $130k. Who the heck do you think is making $300k right out of a grad program? Only people making that money are doing very challenging stuff for major tech companies. No typical software developer at a corporate job is making $300k.
I graduated from college in 2015, a classmate got a job at Microsoft (without graduate degree) for $100k first year out of college and $25k signing bonus. That is still a far cry from $300k and that's for Microsoft, one of the top software jobs out there.
levels.fyi does a good job of showing compensation for top tech companies. At microsoft, you have to be a principal engineer to receive 300k total comp, and that's still just 195k base. It does look like other FAANG companies might pay higher. Even then, salaries seem to be capped at like 200-300k base even for the genius level people. Equities end up taking over at some point, which requires a vesting period.
Hope you turn out to be a good doctor if you go that route. Most doctors are arrogant $hitheads that are complicit in this COVID scam and collecting their bonuses each time they dispense this bio weapon. Hope they all go to jail. You sound smart so keep up to date and read medical journals. Most CA MDs are complete $hitheads and only scan the abstracts as they can’t read a journal and they say they are too busy. And don’t be a pharmacist. Dispensing pills for a living that cure nothing, only keeping people sick? Yeah, real noble career. I work with drug induced sick people all day and they are total zombies, thanks to the Ortho MDs and PAs who pump them full of Fibromyalgia and pain meds. Don’t be an a$&hole doctor. Too many of those already.
Don’t pursue an MD unless it’s the only career that will satisfy you. Otherwise you will be a bad doctor and a miserable human being. I’m a little removed from it at this point in time but it seemed pretty easy to make decent money with some mathematical and/or software skills even with a decided lack of motivation.
In the UK, the degree is a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery, MBBS or similar. the MD is a research oriented, postgraduate degree. Most UK physicians do not have an MD.
As a numerate graduate, you'll have lots of options. Actuary, accountancy, teaching, civil service (eg ONS, DSTL, Met Office...). How's your coding? If you have an aptitude for that then there are a few options. Also consider random graduate programmes (aldi, tesco...). Sounds like you have the medicine option, too. If you want something completely different, law is only a two year gig from where you are now.
Actuary requires at least 3-4 years of pretty difficult exams. You can start as an analyst while you take the exams, but you’ll only be making $65K US or so to start. It’s also pretty boring for most people unless you love math and spreadsheets.
Accountants also don’t make much until you get real experience and even then, usually not as much as a doctor, unless you start your own firm or become a CFO, which doesn’t happen overnight.
I think you’ll regret not going to med school. Once you “make it”, it seems to be a great career. If you specialize in derm or radiology, you don’t typically have to deal with dying people, at least not directly.
That said, there are plenty of options for having a well paid fulfilling job if you put in the effort. Figure out what you would enjoy doing and go all in.
1) He is in the UK.
2) medicine degree will involve 3-4 years of hard exams
3) he'd be earning immediately as a trainee actuary and have a higher ceiling in the long run.
As a numerate graduate, you'll have lots of options. Actuary, accountancy, teaching, civil service (eg ONS, DSTL, Met Office...). How's your coding? If you have an aptitude for that then there are a few options. Also consider random graduate programmes (aldi, tesco...). Sounds like you have the medicine option, too. If you want something completely different, law is only a two year gig from where you are now.
What training options in law do I have?
I tried graduate schemes in the past but I always got rejected. I honestly have no faith that I would get hired in actuary, civil service etc. Not because I can't work at that level, but other applicants have more experience and are just more competitive than me on paper. I have been rejected so many times I gave up. Teaching is an exception. I could walk into teacher training because the standards are very low, but most schools are terrible with behavioral issues and micro management.
Applying to medical school was relatively straightforward. I wrote a personal statement, scored well on an admissions test and got some interviews. I have basically fallen into this because I don't know what else to do. In comparison, when I applied to other jobs / graduate schemes, I had to do multiple rounds of assessment before I even got an interview. Usually I didn't get that far.
I'm sort of having an existential crisis and I don't know what I want. I am also tremendously cynical, which isn't helping.
A huge number of UK lawyers are not LLB graduates. Lots of places offer GDL courses
Postgraduate Diploma in Law (PGDL) course for non-law graduates includes SQE1, LLM Legal Practice to become a solicitor or BPC to qualify as a barrister.
Actuary requires at least 3-4 years of pretty difficult exams. You can start as an analyst while you take the exams, but you’ll only be making $65K US or so to start. It’s also pretty boring for most people unless you love math and spreadsheets.
Accountants also don’t make much until you get real experience and even then, usually not as much as a doctor, unless you start your own firm or become a CFO, which doesn’t happen overnight.
I think you’ll regret not going to med school. Once you “make it”, it seems to be a great career. If you specialize in derm or radiology, you don’t typically have to deal with dying people, at least not directly.
That said, there are plenty of options for having a well paid fulfilling job if you put in the effort. Figure out what you would enjoy doing and go all in.
1) He is in the UK.
2) medicine degree will involve 3-4 years of hard exams
3) he'd be earning immediately as a trainee actuary and have a higher ceiling in the long run.
I know he’s in the UK. I’m giving the US equivalent because that’s what I know.
Of course medical degree requires years of exams.
Higher ceiling as an actuary? Maybe at the extreme top 2% if you get to senior management, which is unlikely if you’re starting from scratch in your mid 30s. Don’t get me wrong, actuary is a good job with good pay, but I see way more doctors driving Bentleys and Porsches. Radiology, Dermatology, Ophthalmology all pay big $$$ in the US.
I’m in the actuarial field and I’ve worked my way up to senior management after 15 years. I probably make more than most general practitioners at this point, but not the kind of money specialist physicians make.
UK physicians salaries are for the most part dictated by NHS pay scales. They're not poor by any means, and quite a few supplement their income by taking private lists, but by and large actuaries make more at equivalent levels of seniority. Not many doctors make as much as £150k here.
You don't sound like you are into it and only want to so it for the money and perceived career stability. Neither of these is a certainty.
Most of your happiness in life will come from things you do outside your career, and the medical field makes that harder, because it is demanding. Don't go. Find a job that pays your bills and work hard at building the life you want and can afford outside of the career path that you are tepid on.