How much do most pre-meds work?

[bananaz]

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I have worked 2 jobs for most of my undergraduate career and I am currently considering quitting the more demanding (but also substantially higher paying 🙁) job to reduce my stress level and give me more study time. This is kind of a scary leap of faith for me since I don't get any financial support from my parents or the government, but I know I need to make school my #1 priority now and this job is interfering with that.

This made me wonder how many "pre-meds" have jobs? And do you feel like it's had an impact on your academic performance?

 

[EpicBearMan]

Part time, only about 10 hrs / week for me.

 

[BJJ]

freshman year I worked part time 16hr/week (totally unrelated job) I quit to focus on grades a little now I'll probably try to be a phlebotomist soon if not in the summer.

 

[gravitywave]

as an undergrad i worked about 8 hours/wk and attained average grades (non-science major)

as a post-bac i carried 8 credits at a time which cost me about 20 hours/wk and worked 55 hours/wk at my job throughout the same period

it can be done

 

[Teneo]

Working as a restaurant server right now so my hours are inconsistent, but I consider myself part-time. Sometimes I hit around 30 hours though, depending on how busy things are. I still have plenty of study time.

 

[wristbandMD]

My first two years (while taking full time at a cc and high school classes) I worked anywhere from 45-60 hours per week. Received mostly As and some Bs. My first and recent quarter were rough, though, but that was due to other personal crises.

Now I'm only working about 35-40 hours.

 

[wolverinepwns]

6 days a week, 12 hrs a night at the hospital! you don't believe log in to SDN every night at anytime and I'll be online!

 

[WeAreNotRobots]

every semester. part-time. 12-20hrs.
every summer. full time.
plus all the volunteering stuff.

 

[jellybean13]

In undergrad I worked 40 hours a week on average for all four years of my of school, some weeks it was down to 30, some weeks 50+. It was extremely difficult with my school schedule and finding time to study, but I really had no other option to support myself through college.

It substantially hindered my GPA, as you can imagine, but I hope adcoms will take that into consideration when I apply this cycle...

Has anyone else has experience with this?

 

[StephBee]

5 days a week, between 6-8 hours a night. usually stayed up till at least 2 AM doing work.
I managed to keep steller grades but due to having a really tight schedule, my ECs aren't as stellar. (All the hospitals around here require a 4 hour chunk of time for volunteering. Only had that sophomore year).
During the summer, I worked 2 jobs, usually between 45-60 hr/s a week.

😛 Hopefully adcoms recognize that I didn't have all these hours to spend volunteering. I've got enough clinical exposure to know what being a doctor will really be like etc etc.

 

[1005bellw]

5 days a week, between 6-8 hours a night. usually stayed up till at least 2 AM doing work.
I managed to keep steller grades but due to having a really tight schedule, my ECs aren't as stellar. (All the hospitals around here require a 4 hour chunk of time for volunteering. Only had that sophomore year).
During the summer, I worked 2 jobs, usually between 45-60 hr/s a week.

😛 Hopefully adcoms recognize that I didn't have all these hours to spend volunteering. I've got enough clinical exposure to know what being a doctor will really be like etc etc.

I am the same way. Work as a phlebotomist in a trauma 1 ER doing 36 to 48 hours a week. I have been exposed to traumas, codes, strokes, etc.

My ECs aren't stellar but I'm working on it. I do think we have an advantage though.

 

[gravitywave]

In undergrad I worked 40 hours a week on average for all four years of my of school, some weeks it was down to 30, some weeks 50+. It was extremely difficult with my school schedule and finding time to study, but I really had no other option to support myself through college.

It substantially hindered my GPA, as you can imagine, but I hope adcoms will take that into consideration when I apply this cycle...

Has anyone else has experience with this?

i think they will consider your schedule when looking at your GPA, but only up to a point ie a fulltime job isn't going to make up for a 3.0. make sure you point it out on secondaries; it's among the few "good" excuses for subpar grades.

for those of you who are working fulltime and worried about EC's: don't stress too much. your job (esp. if it's in healthcare) is your EC. Remember it's about quality, not quantity. Having years of experience and thousands of hours of direct patient care through a paid position in healthcare is THE BEST way to demonstrate commitment to patients and knowledge of what you are in for. If you have this, and a few hours of shadowing and volunteering on the side, your EC section is already more compelling than most. add good grades/MCAT/LORs and you are going to be fine.

 

[glasshalfMD]

every semester. part-time. 12-20hrs.
every summer. full time.
plus all the volunteering stuff.

+1. Pretty much the same for me.

Although, summers were more like 60-70 hours per week instead of the standard 'full-time.'

 

[hiyaman]

Part time about 6-8 hrs a week, used to work 12 hrs a week.

 

[StephBee]

i think they will consider your schedule when looking at your GPA, but only up to a point ie a fulltime job isn't going to make up for a 3.0. make sure you point it out on secondaries; it's among the few "good" excuses for subpar grades.

for those of you who are working fulltime and worried about EC's: don't stress too much. your job (esp. if it's in healthcare) is your EC. Remember it's about quality, not quantity. Having years of experience and thousands of hours of direct patient care through a paid position in healthcare is THE BEST way to demonstrate commitment to patients and knowledge of what you are in for. If you have this, and a few hours of shadowing and volunteering on the side, your EC section is already more compelling than most. add good grades/MCAT/LORs and you are going to be fine.

I guess I'm lucky enough that my GPA never suffered (3.92 cGPA, 3.88 sGPA) but I've only got about 120 hrs of volunteering. You see the people on here who have like 1,000.
I wish I had that much time to do the things I enjoyed (my volunteering experience was awesome). 🙄

 

[circulus vitios]

I work Saturday and Sunday, 8 hour days each.

 

[PremedGunner]

6 days a week, 12 hrs a night at the hospital! you don't believe log in to SDN every night at anytime and I'll be online!

what do you do? how much do you make?

 

[Medwell]

Attention everyone: STOP saying that you "work X number of jobs." This is absolutely meaningless.

If somebody works two jobs for 1 hour/week each, and someone else works 5 hours/week at one job, the second person works more, completely regardless of the "number of jobs" that each one works.

If you want to give others an idea of how much you work, list the total hours. The number of jobs over which these hours are divided are, once again, 100% meaningless.

Thank you.

 

[gravitywave]

Attention everyone: STOP saying that you "work X number of jobs." This is absolutely meaningless.

If you want to give others an idea of how much you work, list the total hours. The number of jobs over which these hours are divided are, once again, 100% meaningless.

patently untrue, which you would know if you had ever tried to work multiple jobs at the same time that you were going to school. it's a lot more difficult to juggle three schedules and keep the people on the other end of each one happy than it is to do so with just two.

besides, no one in this thread did what what you are complaining about except the OP. chill out already.

 

[bananaz]

Attention everyone: STOP saying that you "work X number of jobs." This is absolutely meaningless.

If somebody works two jobs for 1 hour/week each, and someone else works 5 hours/week at one job, the second person works more, completely regardless of the "number of jobs" that each one works.

If you want to give others an idea of how much you work, list the total hours. The number of jobs over which these hours are divided are, once again, 100% meaningless.

Thank you.

If you're referring to my original post, I wasn't saying that to indicate how many hours I work, I was just discussing the situation I'm currently in that prompted me to ask the question.

In my particular case, 10-15 hours at my higher-stress, demanding job has had a much more detrimental effect on my academic performance than 20-30 hours at my more flexible job. In any case, I am now down to one 20/hr a week job (or I will be in a week).

 

[Pisiform]

12 to 16 hrs/ week baby

 

[spiderpete]

Undergrad about 15 hrs per week, full time summers.

Post bacc, 10-20 hours per week. Anticipating work during med school will be 5-10 hours per week. I own a business that feeds the family and employees and cannot be reasonably sold anytime in the near future.