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Which route is best suited for me?
- Thread starter MedSchool28
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Not gonna try to help you choose a career, but with respect to this scenario:
2. From a 2.8 with little/poor science, you're unlikely to succeed if you jump back into the graveyard of dreams which is premed science. You'd want to get some A's in warmup science/math before you dive in all the way. Think training wheels. Seriously.
3. You don't need to look for a "program" to address your premed gaps. You can do a 2nd bachelors, which you should definitely consider, as it would give you enough additional coursework to potentially improve your cumulative undergrad GPAs. You can also take classes through programs like Berkeley Extension or Harvard Extension or less famous extension enrollment. You can also look at the masters programs at DO schools after you're done with the prerereqs. The point of all this is to be prepared for the work in med school and forever in medical practice, not to just get accepted somewhere.
4. Lots and lots of ways to get more classes done, but there's no point in it if you can't pull straight A's. You need to take the hardest classes you've ever seen, with the most aggressive competition you've faced, and every grade you get that isn't an A is a step away from med school. And even if you 4.0 it, you still have no guarantee of getting into med school, nor getting the residency you want.
5. Under no circumstances should you be considering offshore schools. 50% failout rate is their biz plan. You are the ideal marketing victim for these schools.
Best of luck to you.
1. Your MPH grades aren't an important factor in med school admissions. Grad & undergrad are apples & oranges. Cumulative undergrad grades, with an emphasis on science, are extremely important.
2. From a 2.8 with little/poor science, you're unlikely to succeed if you jump back into the graveyard of dreams which is premed science. You'd want to get some A's in warmup science/math before you dive in all the way. Think training wheels. Seriously.
3. You don't need to look for a "program" to address your premed gaps. You can do a 2nd bachelors, which you should definitely consider, as it would give you enough additional coursework to potentially improve your cumulative undergrad GPAs. You can also take classes through programs like Berkeley Extension or Harvard Extension or less famous extension enrollment. You can also look at the masters programs at DO schools after you're done with the prerereqs. The point of all this is to be prepared for the work in med school and forever in medical practice, not to just get accepted somewhere.
4. Lots and lots of ways to get more classes done, but there's no point in it if you can't pull straight A's. You need to take the hardest classes you've ever seen, with the most aggressive competition you've faced, and every grade you get that isn't an A is a step away from med school. And even if you 4.0 it, you still have no guarantee of getting into med school, nor getting the residency you want.
5. Under no circumstances should you be considering offshore schools. 50% failout rate is their biz plan. You are the ideal marketing victim for these schools.
Best of luck to you.
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My advice: take some time and learn about and spend time in each of the scenarios you laid out above in order to determine which one is the best fit. All three options are incredibly different (research is very different than medicine, which is very different than the law). All of the options will entail a great deal of time, effort, and money, and will require a lot of effort as your numbers are not very competitive. Don't be tempted to rush the process.
As a side note, just to echo Dr.Midlife, under no circumstances should you ever consider an offshore medical school if your goal is to practice medicine in the US. They are for-profit, dollar driven organizations that will leave you indebt and likely unmatched to a residency spot.
As a side note, just to echo Dr.Midlife, under no circumstances should you ever consider an offshore medical school if your goal is to practice medicine in the US. They are for-profit, dollar driven organizations that will leave you indebt and likely unmatched to a residency spot.
These are three totally different career paths in health science that each requires different time commitment. IMH, I think first thing first, you'll need to take a look at:
1) Do you really want to become a doctor and why? Do you want to be a policy maker or a practitioner? My advice would be to start doing some clinical volunteer to see if you feel comfortable being around sick people and if you can deal with blood and tragic situations.
2) How's your finance situation? Looks like you went straight from college to grad school without ever having a full time job. How do you think about adding yet another load of debt into the existing ones? I'm just being practical here.
I asked the above 2 things because these will impact a lot with your pre-req performance. Once you find out what you really want to do, you'll do well in preparing for that, otherwise you'll be miserable studying something you don't like while being in stress due to the debt hanging above your head.
1) Do you really want to become a doctor and why? Do you want to be a policy maker or a practitioner? My advice would be to start doing some clinical volunteer to see if you feel comfortable being around sick people and if you can deal with blood and tragic situations.
2) How's your finance situation? Looks like you went straight from college to grad school without ever having a full time job. How do you think about adding yet another load of debt into the existing ones? I'm just being practical here.
I asked the above 2 things because these will impact a lot with your pre-req performance. Once you find out what you really want to do, you'll do well in preparing for that, otherwise you'll be miserable studying something you don't like while being in stress due to the debt hanging above your head.
