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- Dec 22, 2014
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- Dental Student
I have decided that I would enjoy doing either pharmacy or dentistry. Money and job outlook and now the deciding factors.
For pharmacy, is this career outlook great? There are a lot of pharmacists and pre-pharm students in the country right now, will this make it more difficult to get a job? And more difficult to to get paid as high as you want?
Dentistry looks like a great career on a lot of levels; flexibility and salary in particular. However, there is a lot of debt that you must pay before you even think about making money. First, most dental schools are longer and more expensive than most pharm schools. From what I've seen, after 4 years of undergrad, and 4 years of dental schools my debt could be as high as $300,000 in loans. While, a six-year pharmacy school looks like only about as high as $200,000 in loans (not to mention that I get out in the workforce two years earlier than I would if I would be a dentist, so I would be able to pay off some of debt with my salary those two years). Second, my plan is to start a practice with my brother (who's 5 years older than me) within 5 years out of dental school, this is another probably $300,000-500,000 in loans I must pay. In pharmacy my plan would be to just find a job, I wouldn't have to buy a practice, I wouldn't have that debt like in dentistry. Lastly, dentists have to buy their own health insurance (probably about $10-20,000 per year now). Pharmacists are most likely given benefits.
So, what is the better financial decision, pharmacist (less salary, less debt, questionable outlook) or dentist (higher salary, more debt, more financial responsibility)?
Also, since a lot of people saw how good of a job pharmacy was and then everyone started going into pharmacy (making too many pharmacists than needed), will the same thing happen to dentistry?
For pharmacy, is this career outlook great? There are a lot of pharmacists and pre-pharm students in the country right now, will this make it more difficult to get a job? And more difficult to to get paid as high as you want?
Dentistry looks like a great career on a lot of levels; flexibility and salary in particular. However, there is a lot of debt that you must pay before you even think about making money. First, most dental schools are longer and more expensive than most pharm schools. From what I've seen, after 4 years of undergrad, and 4 years of dental schools my debt could be as high as $300,000 in loans. While, a six-year pharmacy school looks like only about as high as $200,000 in loans (not to mention that I get out in the workforce two years earlier than I would if I would be a dentist, so I would be able to pay off some of debt with my salary those two years). Second, my plan is to start a practice with my brother (who's 5 years older than me) within 5 years out of dental school, this is another probably $300,000-500,000 in loans I must pay. In pharmacy my plan would be to just find a job, I wouldn't have to buy a practice, I wouldn't have that debt like in dentistry. Lastly, dentists have to buy their own health insurance (probably about $10-20,000 per year now). Pharmacists are most likely given benefits.
So, what is the better financial decision, pharmacist (less salary, less debt, questionable outlook) or dentist (higher salary, more debt, more financial responsibility)?
Also, since a lot of people saw how good of a job pharmacy was and then everyone started going into pharmacy (making too many pharmacists than needed), will the same thing happen to dentistry?
