Hi Kastalia! That's awesome that you managed to find a program that allows you to take pre-reqs part time while working, and that's neat that you work in public health (at least your fallback plan is in health, as well!). A public health career is something I may be interested in considering if the med school thing doesn't work out... not sure if it's hard to break in as a career changer, though. Do you like your work right now? I'm curious why you're thinking of leaving public health / sustainable development and going into clinical medicine.
I've been working as a corporate executive for the past 10 years, and doing full time work / part-time classes unfortunately isn't an option in my area
(all the science classes at nearby 4 yr universities are during the day). Part-time work isn't readily available in my line of work either, since there simply aren't very many part-time management positions (if at all). My plan is to test the waters this fall with 1-2 classes while trying to find a part-time position in my field (which may or may not exist) while volunteering / continuing to shadow. If I decide to move fwd with the pre-med school plan, though, I'd probably have to be a student full-time for around 2.5 - 3 years, since I haven't taken any of the science credits and am not getting any younger. I'd be 35-36 at best when applying to med school if I start now.
The problem with corporate / management jobs, though, is a 2-3 year gap on the resume may preclude me from being able to go back to my old career and get a job if I can't get into med school after 2-3 years out of Corporate America as a post bacc... I'm sure recruiters won't take too well to a candidate who took a few years out to take a bunch of random science classes, fail to get into med school, then attempt to get back into the former corporate career. Yikes! Looks like it's a pretty big risk in my case (with hopefully a light at the end of the tunnel at the end), and I'm still trying to figure out Plan B. I'm hoping I'm not too old to make a 180 degree change and start on this path, either - I'm almost 32.
Good luck with your pre-req classes, and looking forward to supporting each other on SDN during our journeys.
I'd love to hear about any other career changer pre-meds' "Backup Plans," as well!