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- Apr 8, 2008
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New to the forum ex-lurker, I hope I will be welcome.
I am a PhD student who, after 3.5 years of doing research, decided that I absolutely hate what I'm doing and need to change careers. So here's where things get tricky: with $70 in existing deferred student loan debt and already at age 28 I a truly loathe to incur more loan debt. A few collaborators around here that I've spoken to have actually advised me against going to school for my MD after I'm done with my PhD because of the financial difficulties I'll encounter when I'm in debt to my eyes and working my first real job at age 40 (lets assume I aim for Surgery). Obviously it would help me greatly if I could find a scholarship to knock out a sizable portion of my tuition. How can this be done? I've seen a few of you mention that you earned full tuition during your training but here in the financial aid forum there isn't much recent info on this.
Can anyone share with me how you went about getting your scholarships, where to look for them and honest assessments of how competitive they are? One route I'd actually been considering was the HPSP but after a few threads in there I'm definitely not as excited about the possibilities there.
To be honest, reading SDN (especially the MD/PhD and mil med forus) have left me extremely discouraged with regards to going to med school. My situation is more complicated because I'm a non-trad with a average (for us) GPA and apparently my awesome PhD in Bioengineering that focuses on congenital heart defects won't count for much in the applications process.
Any tips for aid that minimizes loans? Thanks.
I am a PhD student who, after 3.5 years of doing research, decided that I absolutely hate what I'm doing and need to change careers. So here's where things get tricky: with $70 in existing deferred student loan debt and already at age 28 I a truly loathe to incur more loan debt. A few collaborators around here that I've spoken to have actually advised me against going to school for my MD after I'm done with my PhD because of the financial difficulties I'll encounter when I'm in debt to my eyes and working my first real job at age 40 (lets assume I aim for Surgery). Obviously it would help me greatly if I could find a scholarship to knock out a sizable portion of my tuition. How can this be done? I've seen a few of you mention that you earned full tuition during your training but here in the financial aid forum there isn't much recent info on this.
Can anyone share with me how you went about getting your scholarships, where to look for them and honest assessments of how competitive they are? One route I'd actually been considering was the HPSP but after a few threads in there I'm definitely not as excited about the possibilities there.
To be honest, reading SDN (especially the MD/PhD and mil med forus) have left me extremely discouraged with regards to going to med school. My situation is more complicated because I'm a non-trad with a average (for us) GPA and apparently my awesome PhD in Bioengineering that focuses on congenital heart defects won't count for much in the applications process.
Any tips for aid that minimizes loans? Thanks.
