Having been diagnosed with health issues I am giving up medical school path. Considering that I have a biology degree with poor GPA mainly because of health reasons, what other careers I can pursue. I have seen my buddies with econ or business degrees making decent money. Going over to those major will be a second degree for me? Anyone with thoughts? With Bio degree I can barely find a decent paying job besides I really do not want to work in a lab.
Alternate careers
- Thread starter doc99999
- Start date
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2012
- Messages
- 2,418
- Reaction score
- 957
Are you giving up your dreams to be a doctor or do you just not want to be one anymore?
If you are giving up, I say don't. No matter how bad the GPA (Unless you're sub 2.0), grade replacement with DO will always give you the chance to be a physician.
Now, if you just don't want to be a physician anymore, theres always other programs such as nursing, maybe work as a nurse tech and look into PA school? There's a lot of health science programs you can look for.
I always wanted to be a doctor, but now I think with my health conditions it may not be possible. I need to chose a career that is easy and I can succeed in. I know tons of my friends who did easy majors and now work in private industry and make good money. For me, anything like nursing, medicine is going to be hard as I need to take care of myself, these jobs can be 24*7. I am finding my bio degree is worthless when comes to finding a good paying job. I wish I was diagnosed with these conditions when I started school I would have chosen a different path.
Maybe a post bac in finance or something, if you can't find anything you like with the bio degree.
You might not need any more college to enter the financial field. You will need more school to advance.
What criteria would you like your career to meet? (What are your best talents? What sorts of careers interest you? Did you believe your myer briggs score, if you got one? What would you be miserable doing for a career (to rule out)? What would you NOT good at at all (to rule out)? Location? Salary requirements? Anything else?)
Why did you want to be a doctor in the first place? (Maybe that will apply to some other careers.)
Last edited:
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2004
- Messages
- 30,872
- Reaction score
- 10,062
Without knowing your health limitations, I doubt you can get useful suggestions for other jobs. Are you saying you need specific hours? What do you mean by need a career that is "easy"?
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2010
- Messages
- 154
- Reaction score
- 55
We can't give you effective advice without knowing more. Is it a progressive illness, such as MS? Something that makes you likely to miss days of work, like fibromyalgia? Cancer? Depression? Chlamydia? Many of these can be worked around. Goodness knows there are plenty of people in med school whose lives are complex.
- Joined
- Jun 11, 2010
- Messages
- 74,870
- Reaction score
- 120,113
Google "jobs most in demand" and point yourself in that direction.
English and art history majors tend to be and stay unemployed.
English and art history majors tend to be and stay unemployed.
Let me open up to get some meaningful advice here. I am diagnosed with mood disorder at the age of 24. I had an encounter with law and order. Unfortunately, the disease of this nature only gets diagnosed when one runs into problem with law - before that one says he/she is FINE always. Anyway, court cases will be dropped in couple of years if I keep stable and move on with my life - all they want to make sure I get treated, that I am now after a year. So all this be past in a couple of years,I am not concerned with the law part of it - there is nothing I can do about that ugly chapter of my life except accept it. My treatment needs me to have a stable life style and a good sleep. I wish I/my parents knew this when I was ten/fifteen, then none of you would have happened. But as I stated some health conditions are hard to diagnose. Anyway, now I am here with a bio degree with a poor GPA and I know medicine is a big load for me so I want to branch off and have a fresh life with my baggage.
I am sure what I am writing may be hard for some to understand. But what can I do now if all I did for last 9 years just science. My instincts are to do a master in financial management or some other meaningful degree, assuming some school will take me with 2.7 gpa in undergrad with bio.
With my conditions I have lost confidence in life and all I care is if I can get a decent job so that I am not dependent on welfare or anything. I am an educated person with a science from a good state school. it was only that I was not born with some issues that I was unaware.
I am open to doing a second undergrad degree also if it can make my career - I thought of doing BS in econ or a master in finance.
I am sure what I am writing may be hard for some to understand. But what can I do now if all I did for last 9 years just science. My instincts are to do a master in financial management or some other meaningful degree, assuming some school will take me with 2.7 gpa in undergrad with bio.
With my conditions I have lost confidence in life and all I care is if I can get a decent job so that I am not dependent on welfare or anything. I am an educated person with a science from a good state school. it was only that I was not born with some issues that I was unaware.
I am open to doing a second undergrad degree also if it can make my career - I thought of doing BS in econ or a master in finance.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2004
- Messages
- 30,872
- Reaction score
- 10,062
Maybe get a Masters and do public health/epidemiology type stuff? Or just get a job with some corporate or government agency and work your way up the ranks. I know quite a few people who worked their way up from entry level jobs to middle management and are reasonable comfortable. Being a doctor is hardly the only job out there and there is no law that says a biology degree is any more useless than any other liberal arts degree. Figure out what you want to do (within reason) and figure out if you can get there. Don't feel locked in by your science degree or that you have to use it in any meaningful way.
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2009
- Messages
- 8,908
- Reaction score
- 8,343
Look into a post bacc or 4+1 programs for clinical lab science/medical lab science, see if you can shadow some people at different places. Pay is good, it's in health care, you won't need to start over completely from scratch. Can be 24/7 with night shifts or a clinic gig 8-4. Can be high stress in a hospital stat lab or blood bank at a level one trauma center or pretty chill in a reference lab or heavy metals lab or other speciality lab where stat turn around with results isn't expected. Depending on what your GPA is you might have trouble getting into it.
It isn't an "easy" career but it's one where you can transition into it with your bio degree without starting a whole new degree path and the subsequent tuition costs, it's medical so it would probably interest you, you'll generally have good benefits for your health issues, and the pay pretty good in most places. You'll need to pass a background check for hospital employment so depending on what your legal issue was, that's a consideration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_laboratory_scientist
http://www.ascp.org/PDF/Membership-Communications/MLS-Lee-Career-Sheet-with-Salary.pdf (the new ASCP career poster has a bit of a flare for the dramatic 🙄 )
As a grad student in epidemiology, I'm going to say your GPA probably isn't high enough for most reputable programs depending on GPA trends and course breakdowns. If you have a strong upward trend and solid background in quantitative courses and you like statistics and study design, it's a pretty awesome field. You need a pretty strong background and good GPA in math and statistics coursework especially. Other public health focus areas might be an option, but you should have a plan for what you want to do and what job prospects are for those areas. Your goal is to get employed and settled, so adding another degree without job prospects in sight wouldn't be the best plan.
Anyway, those are just a couple options to look into. good luck.
It isn't an "easy" career but it's one where you can transition into it with your bio degree without starting a whole new degree path and the subsequent tuition costs, it's medical so it would probably interest you, you'll generally have good benefits for your health issues, and the pay pretty good in most places. You'll need to pass a background check for hospital employment so depending on what your legal issue was, that's a consideration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_laboratory_scientist
http://www.ascp.org/PDF/Membership-Communications/MLS-Lee-Career-Sheet-with-Salary.pdf (the new ASCP career poster has a bit of a flare for the dramatic 🙄 )
As a grad student in epidemiology, I'm going to say your GPA probably isn't high enough for most reputable programs depending on GPA trends and course breakdowns. If you have a strong upward trend and solid background in quantitative courses and you like statistics and study design, it's a pretty awesome field. You need a pretty strong background and good GPA in math and statistics coursework especially. Other public health focus areas might be an option, but you should have a plan for what you want to do and what job prospects are for those areas. Your goal is to get employed and settled, so adding another degree without job prospects in sight wouldn't be the best plan.
Anyway, those are just a couple options to look into. good luck.
D
deleted307836
This seems like a very good alternative. I don't know much about the career but I've heard good things about it. I'd definitely look into this, OP!
