Full-time vs Part-time for Fulfilling Reqs

[janman110]

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Hello,

I am a recent Comp Sci grad who wants to go to medical school. In terms of reqs, I still need to take Orgo II, Orgo Lab I+II, Bio II, Bio II Lab, Gen Chem II, and Gen Chem II Lab. I might also have to re-take Physics I, Physics Lab I+II, and 2 semesters of English since I only have AP credit/equivalent credit from my university in these courses.

Anyway, I am working full-time right now in a software engineering job because my family needs the money for my sister's college tuition, among other things. My plan is to enroll as a part-time student and take one class this semester to see how much I can handle with my job, and then sign up for more classes if I feel I can take it. However, after reading some of the other threads on this forum I am concerned that taking class part-time is not the way to go since it may end up taking a very long time to fulfill all my reqs and that schools might look badly on not taking a full courseload each semester. My family's financial situation is not desperate and my sister could get by on student loans, but I don't want to put my family in a worse financial situation because of my desire to go to medical school if I don't have to.

Basically, my question is, should I seriously consider quitting my new job and going back to school full-time and maybe doing part-time software work for income, or is my current plan of working full-time in software and fulfilling my reqs part-time feasible?

 

[Iwillhealyou]

hey janman,

I'm no adcom or anything but I have seen quite a few people mention that it looks better to take the classes while going full-time to show you can 'handle' a med school curriculum.

 

[janman110]

hey janman,

I'm no adcom or anything but I have seen quite a few people mention that it looks better to take the classes while going full-time to show you can 'handle' a med school curriculum.

Thanks for your response. Do you think it makes any difference that I took some of my reqs, like Chem I/Chem I Lab and Physics I as part of a full course load? That was freshman year though, and I have heard that med schools want to see recent evidence that you can handle a full courseload. I was planning on working full-time for at least a year (i.e. 2 semesters of part-time), and then going back to full-time to finish my reqs if it looks like it will be okay financially. I'm wondering if that will be okay.

 

[MaryGoRound]

I'm taking my classes 1-2 per semester. So far this hasn't been an issue with any of the schools I've applied to. I think they realize that working 40 hours a week and taking 5-7 hours of science coursework is challenging.

 

[janman110]

Thanks for the responses. I'm glad to hear that taking class part-time is not as much an issue as I feared. Anyone else in a similar situation/have an opinion on this?

 

[cantthink]

yea, I'm with ya. 1 class at a time for right now. also an engineer. married. twins on the way@13 weeks right now. very involved in local community, and run a small business on the side....... not much room to spare! I figure i'll look "diverse" enough in my experiences that they might over look the 1 class at a time. 🙂 Good Luck!!

 

[lsu hopeful]

In similar situation here. I'm working 40+ hours/week, plus being on-call 24/7 for one week of every month. I'm taking 8 hours (2 sciences and their labs) each semester. It's hella rough, at times, so there's definitely no basis for arguing that it's any less difficult than a full-time courseload. You will meet some people with a bias to that argument both ways, so be prepared to defend your choices in a positive manner. Good luck.

 

[jp6285]

I am also working and taking 3-4 hours per semester at night. One issue I am having is in the DFW area there are multiple decent 4 year schools, but none of them really offer any advanced science night classes. So, I'm stuck doing all my work at a community college. How bad does that hurt the way admin boards will look at my post bacc work?

 

[OBK]

in my opinion, its much better to take your time and do well than to rush through them in the hopes of proving 'you can do it' - though i sure as hell wouldnt pay for my siblings tuition (and i love them dearly), as you noted, there are loans for that.

 

[dmf2682]

Assuming you've a decent undergrad gpa you've already proven your ability to handle a heavy science courseload. I was worried about the same thing and mentioned it to my premed advisor and he told me that because I've engineering degrees I'm ok. He implied the heavy vs light postbac courseload issue was for the English majors among us.