mental perseverance

[thehockeykid]

I recently found out so many of my highschool friends are just taking the easy way out, pursuing a less challenging and competitive career. How come so many pre-med student or even people in highschool are quitting on their dreams?

 

What keeps you going to pursue medicine?

[Mithril]

A lot of pre-meds during the early years talk about how they want to go to medical school, but just don't have the work habits, intelligence, or social skills needed for becoming a physician. You'll notice as you move up during your undergrad years that fewer and fewer people have a very strong urge for medicine and wind up doing something different (like research) instead. At least, that's the pattern I've seen in my program. Some people just have a stronger drive and determination than others.

[osteon]

A lot of pre-meds during the early years talk about how they want to go to medical school, but just don't have the work habits, intelligence, or social skills needed for becoming a physician. You'll notice as you move up during your undergrad years that fewer and fewer people have a very strong urge for medicine and wind up doing something different (like research) instead. At least, that's the pattern I've seen in my program. Some people just have a stronger drive and determination than others.

 

I disagree with all of this. You make it seem as though if you're not a physician, you're not smart, sociable or motivated. Certainly you need these qualities to get into med school, but not going to med school doesn't necessitate that you lack them. There are many other professions that require these skills and there's a lot of brilliant, determined and sociable people out there to fill those jobs who don't care one bit for practicing medicine - they'd rather do something else. Give those qualities to a researcher/scientist and you've got a future Nobel Laureate. Give them to a Harvard MBA grad and you've got yourself a mill/billionaire. Those that did want to go to med school originally probably just found something that they might enjoy equally but without requiring 12 years of school. Some probably don't want the lifestyle either. Many would prefer to start a family early, start working early and then retire early.

[astrogirl]

I think a lot of people simply change their minds about what they want to do. Sometimes people think they want to do one thing when they're in high school, but then they go to university and find something else that they haven't even considered. I don't think that those people are necessarily taking the easy way out, it's just that when you're only 17 or 18 years old, you might not have had the time or exposure to different careers to be 100% certain about what you want to do with your life.

[psychoswim]

I think a lot of people simply change their minds about what they want to do. Sometimes people think they want to do one thing when they're in high school, but then they go to university and find something else that they haven't even considered. I don't think that those people are necessarily taking the easy way out, it's just that when you're only 17 or 18 years old, you might not have had the time or exposure to different careers to be 100% certain about what you want to do with your life.

 

^^ This 100%! For almost 10 years I was convinced computer science was where I wanted to be, what I wanted to do until I was forced to reevaluate my life last year and realized that medicine (which I'd thought about a loooong time ago) was really the choice for me. Sometimes it takes a lot longer to decided what you want to do with your life. You also learn things about yourself as you grow older that you didn't know before, and those things might make you choose another career. You don't fail because you don't go into med school.

[ArchEnemy]

A lot of pre-meds during the early years talk about how they want to go to medical school, but just don't have the work habits, intelligence, or social skills needed for becoming a physician. You'll notice as you move up during your undergrad years that fewer and fewer people have a very strong urge for medicine and wind up doing something different (like research) instead. At least, that's the pattern I've seen in my program. Some people just have a stronger drive and determination than others.

 

I actually agree with this. A couple of my friends have given up on medicine because they lack the GPA in Undergrad and they are not mentally prepared or financially capable to take the long and tedious path of doing a Masters/PhD.

[FinalShowtime]

I've been juggling between Computers & Health Sciences myself. I have completed two internship in Software Engineering and let me tell you that I miss my experience as a Porter in a big hospital in Montreal. I am convinced that I do not want to spend my life resolving problems behind a computer but that I want to solve people's problems. I keep reading this forum and it makes me even more excited to apply into medicine.

[Curi0user]

I recently found out so many of my highschool friends are just taking the easy way out, pursuing a less challenging and competitive career. How come so many pre-med student or even people in highschool are quitting on their dreams?

 

What keeps you going to pursue medicine?

 

People think it's easy in the beginning, but the more you actually experience it and the more you realize all the little things you need to work on, the more people call it quits. Plus, a lot of people tend to give up easily.

 

What keeps me going is serious determination, and confidence in my abilities.

[Jochi1543]

Sometimes I feel like *I* am taking the easy way out by going to med school, to be honest. I'm on my way to visit old friends from undergrad right now. The friend I'm staying with graduated a year after me. 4 years later, she's still plugging away working for the city on a contract, making barely minimum wage. They keep promising her a full-time job, but the only way that will happen is if someone dies or retires. She's still riding a bike to work and living with a roommate waiting for that dream job to come through. Now THAT is perseverance. Just a different way to think about it.

[rock33y]

Finding a passion and working towards it seems ideal. Some that continue to pursue medicine may have personal reasons, while others find the human body fascinating. Keep the mystery torch burning and you'll find the hope to keep learning. (that was a bit cheesy...).

[DOC_Ma]

Sometimes I feel like *I* am taking the easy way out by going to med school, to be honest. I'm on my way to visit old friends from undergrad right now. The friend I'm staying with graduated a year after me. 4 years later, she's still plugging away working for the city on a contract, making barely minimum wage. They keep promising her a full-time job, but the only way that will happen is if someone dies or retires. She's still riding a bike to work and living with a roommate waiting for that dream job to come through. Now THAT is perseverance. Just a different way to think about it.

 

That's more like bad luck

[medigeek]

That's more like bad luck

 

Or making 35k a year and being forced to marry someone making 35k so you can afford to buy a house and live pay check to pay check... but you're one divorce away from being put back into an apartment.

[thehumanmacbook]

^be, very very very careful when you get married.

[MD2015]

feeding the troll

[apache]

the amount of money i owe the bank and the relatively good pay ratio to the work and how much i enjoy it.

 

I recently found out so many of my highschool friends are just taking the easy way out, pursuing a less challenging and competitive career. How come so many pre-med student or even people in highschool are quitting on their dreams?

 

What keeps you going to pursue medicine?

[osteon]

That's more like bad luck

 

Actually, that's more like real life.

 

Or making 35k a year and being forced to marry someone making 35k so you can afford to buy a house and live pay check to pay check... but you're one divorce away from being put back into an apartment.

 

None of this makes any sense.

[apache]

I don't want to play devil's advocate but from growing up on welfare a lot of the time I can sort of understand what he means when he says he doesn't want to live pay check to pay check.

 

None of this makes any sense.

[ArchEnemy]

Or making 35k a year and being forced to marry someone making 35k so you can afford to buy a house and live pay check to pay check... but you're one divorce away from being put back into an apartment.

 

do you mean Masters/PhD students getting married while still finishing up their degrees?

[aaronjw]

I don't want to play devil's advocate but from growing up on welfare a lot of the time I can sort of understand what he means when he says he doesn't want to live pay check to pay check.

 

I managed two guys who were making about $100K/yr. They lived pay cheque to pay cheque.

 

Often, it's the management of finances which determine how a person lives than the actual amount they make.

[geneticism]

But the two guys who made $100K/yr didn't *have* to live paycheck to paycheck, whereas when you make $35K/yr, you pretty much do. I agree that mismanagement of funds is a significant contributor to how close the edge a person lives, but there's pressure on the $35K-making person that will exist regardless of how well-managed their lives are. This is a pressure that can't be relieved by lifestyle changes.

 

Consider that a fellow making $100K/yr who lives a $35K/yr life is under less bill-shaped duress than a person making $35K/yr who lives a $35K/yr life. Proportionally, in order for a person making $35K/yr to make as many lifestyle changes, they would have to live a $12K/yr life. That's below the poverty line for a single person, let alone a family.

[aaronjw]

But the two guys who made $100K/yr didn't *have* to live paycheck to paycheck, whereas when you make $35K/yr, you pretty much do. I agree that mismanagement of funds is a significant contributor to how close the edge a person lives, but there's pressure on the $35K-making person that will exist regardless of how well-managed their lives are. This is a pressure that can't be relieved by lifestyle changes.

 

Consider that a fellow making $100K/yr who lives a $35K/yr life is under less bill-shaped duress than a person making $35K/yr who lives a $35K/yr life. Proportionally, in order for a person making $35K/yr to make as many lifestyle changes, they would have to live a $12K/yr life. That's below the poverty line for a single person, let alone a family.

 

I'm not disagreeing. I was simply providing an alternative look into how the income of a person can still lead them to live pay to pay through poor personal choices.

 

I grew up dirt poor and my mom didn't make much money and any extra she did have went to support her smoking and bingo habits which also caused her to go into debt, blah blah blah. We still would have been broke without those vices of hers but at least we wouldn't have been AS broke! lol