Is quitting work to do pre-reqs a risky move?

[southpawcannon]

First, I want to thank you guys who responded to my message on 'feeling like a failure' because I dropped my classes. With my particular job, the spring is extremely busy and often tiring with all of sports taking place, taking care of injuries, covering games several nights a week, etc. There is no other person at this school to do my job. I was only taking two courses, but with my commitment to my job, it was more than I could handle this semester, especially being I just wasn't getting Genetics and the professor just sucked(that's the consensus). I think I've matured from my undergrad days of 1o years ago, where I was the overachiever, doing too much and having it come back to bite me in the ass.

Now, having said that, I had spoken to my boss about cutting back my work hours this fall from full-time to somewhere around 24-32. This is mainly due to the fact that Ochem is only offered in the afternoons. Part of me wants to take the risk and drop work altogether for the next year so I can focus on my classes. The other thought would be to stay with the hospital(I've been with them for 2.5 yrs now) but go back to ER as a tech(spent 6 mths there, left that dept on good terms) meaning almost cutting my pay in half, but will give me the chance to work more on the weekends, leaving the week free to take more than 8 hrs-maybe 12 or so, have more time to study, volunteer, etc. I know there are people who happen to work almost full-time(sometimes more) take a full-load and make As with a B maybe. I would love to be able to do that, yet, I know my limitations. Would I be penalized for cutting back my work significantly, or altogether even? Or would it be viewed as 'this guy is committed in his pursuit of becoming a physician?' A friend told me 'getting into med school is a full-time job. Treat it as such.' I'm believing it.

I enjoy my current job and because I've been working with the high school kids as well as spent time sub-teaching in the past(high school all the way down to kindergarten), it has redirected me in how I want to serve when I become a physician. I love sports medicine, I love orthopedics, working with the pediatric population, and would love to find a way to someday be able to teach them about math, the sciences and medicine. I have built good working relationships with my coaches, athletes, parents, administrators, co-workers, bosses and physicians(with whom I refer athletes to and presides as sports medicine providers for my school). I sorta fear burning bridges with any of the latter groups, in leaving this position and school altogether or in any capacity, and that I might have trouble getting good LOCs from said people when I apply to medical school. I especially would like to know your thoughts on this.

I will add that I will not have time to prepare for the MCAT this year, due to not finishing the pre-reqs in time. So, I'm seriously eyeing 2012 for my year to get in somewhere. I will finish my pre-reqs during spring 2011/summer 2011. I have considered the SMP program(any advice on what steps to take for 2011, I'd appreciate it much) as well as going for a 1 year Masters in Nutrition. Columbia U has this. I visited the school recently, I know someone in the program, and he spoke highly of it. I spoke to my pre-med advisor on the latter, how I would like to learn more on the subject as I want to better guide the pediatric population in regards to, and he felt that would be a great way to go, being his understanding is that medical school curriculum's, on the whole, lack quality education in Nutrition and Prevention.

Anyhow, I know this is a lot of my thoughts I've just spilled out(I promise this was meant to be much shorter in the beginning). Any advice, suggestions, whathaveyou, on anything, I'd be open to hear, uh, I mean, see.
Thanks!

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[gman33]

I'll try to take on a few questions.

It would be easier to advise if I knew more about your stats.
If you can afford to cut back on working, you could take on more coursework and/or get better grades. Both are a plus for getting into med school. I came to a point where I was having difficulty managing both. I had a pretty demanding job at the time. I knew my heart was set on going into medicine, so I quit my job and went back full-time for a year to finish everything up. It required a ton of sacrifice, but it got me to my goal.
Whether you should do that, probably no one can answer.

SMPs are good if you are a halfway decent applicant, but need something to push you over the top. A MS in Nutrition is great if you have an interest, but it will do next to nothing to help you get into med school. Personally, I wouldn't bother with it. If by the time you are done med school, residency etc, and you still want to do it, you could always go back. You could maybe even take a break after M2, and do the degree.

 

[ArkansasRanger]

It's tough. When I re-started this path I was vehemently opposed to quitting work and going back to school full-time. There are too many benefits with the job I have.

That said, I've been given time to come to terms with giving it all up. It sucks, but there is absolutely no way (none) for me to continue working and take the few classes I need so this summer I'm quitting. Believe me I've spent the last year searching.

Hopefully, I'll find some part-time employment. I'm also hoping I can find a weekend job for now just to save more. I don't need it at all now, but I may later. In fact, I don't have any debt or anything to deal with right now so I'm ok in that respect. My concern is with going back to school to take a handful of classes, applying to my chosen professional schools, and then not getting accepted. Then what? All that work and sacrafice for nothing. I'd be starting all over again which infuriates me actually, but at this point I think I'm ready to make the move toward reaching my old goal rather than looking back at it wishing I'd done things differently.

 

[mooshika]

Anyhow, I know this is a lot of my thoughts I've just spilled out(I promise this was meant to be much shorter in the beginning). Any advice, suggestions, whathaveyou, on anything, I'd be open to hear, uh, I mean, see.
Thanks!

OK - the hardest part for a post-bac who is working even part time is all the juggling the schedules in order to get the courses, the labs and stuff in in less than two years. I even had to take classes at separate schools in my area due to the limited offerings and semester schedules. It takes a lot of planning and scheduling to get the schedule to work out. The way around this is to enroll as a full-time student in one of those post-bac pre-med programs. You can get loans for them, but I didn't do it because I found that I could get all my courses done sooner than two years or four semesters.

Everyone will have a different solution to working out your situation, so I am going to tell you what are priorities based on my experience -

-whatever you decide to do, you MUST get A's and have the time you need to get those grades, so if it takes you an extra year or two, it is worth it cause with a post-bac GPA below 3.5 you will have very little interest from many schools.

-make sure you can dedicate at least two to three months to study for the MCAT and spend at least 4-6 hours, 6 days a week, or take a prep course. Score above or at 30 if you can. And that's not too easy. It's the 70th percentile. That means you have to do better than more then 2/3 of the other pre-meds, and as a group we are pretty swift. ;+)

-it is more important that you get these GREAT stats than making better money, in my opinion. I actually moved in with my mom so I didn't have to pay rent while I did the deal. (I was also in a fast-track nursing program in the beginning so it was crazy - decided to go for the med school thing)

-in the long run, if you have to take out some loans, it is worth it in the end, because you are ding a job that you love and you won't feel like you are "struggling" to pay off loans.

****PLUS just an added note about loans - there are very good programs right now that either entirely forgive all govt. student loans if you work in what is considered an "underserved" population. You can even get on an income-based repayment program and no matter what you have paid you only have to pay for ten years. So money does not have to be as much of an issue as it was in undergrad...

Good luck!

ps I haven't heard back yet from my schools, so I'm still waiting.

 

[J ROD]

yes if you need the money, no if you dont....

 

[Dave_D]

yes if you need the money, no if you dont....

I'll second that. I did that since I couldn't figure any other way to take all the course work quickly enough to actually apply. I guess you know that some schools want recent course work. (Actually one admissions officer gave us some clap trap that it had to be recent due to all the advances in the sciences. Too bad ugrad gen chem and physics hasn't changed in decades. I'm guessing Orgo hasn't changed much either.) Wished it worked out for me so that's another risk. (You forgo so much money and just not get in.)

 

[ChE04]

I just quit my job in the beginning of January, and am now enrolled as a full time student. It sucks not having an income, but I figure if I'm going to do it I might as well go all in. Also for me I don't think I could have juggled work and school, and all the extra stuff at the same and still get the grades I need.

 

[DrSmooth]

Quitting your job to do a postbacc is a risk. The question you'll have to answer is whether it is an acceptable level of risk considering the likelihood that you will succeed and the level of debt you are comfortable with. Lots of us have quit jobs and it has worked out well. I also saw maybe 25% of the postbaccs in my program drop out at some point inthe process so it didn't work out for them. Not quitting your job is also a risk, in terms of focus and academic success. So U've got to weight the risks and benefits and decide what's best for u.

 

[alienwares]

Yes it's risky, but I am probably going to do it at some point. I don't feel like I could juggle FT work AND volunteering AND night classes. On the other hand, I know myself pretty well and am pretty confident that I can do well in the classes and MCAT if I have some breathing room.

Some people say that if you can't handle work + med school prep at the same time, you won't be able to handle medical school itself, but I don't know if that's necessarily the best way to look at it. I am sure medical school itself is on balance more work/time etc than taking pre-reqs/volunteering/working/etc, but at the same time applying as a nontrad requires you to juggle a lot of balls in the air at once. There doesn't seem to me to be any compelling reason to make that process tougher than it has to be.

 

[DocHomer]

I quit a great full-time job to go back to school for my pre-reqs. My wife worked, so I still had a source of income. However, I really screwed up during undergrad (a ton of C's, F's, and W's), so I was pretty nervous about how things would turn out. I don't think I could have aced my courses and worked FT. Thankfully, everything did work out. I'm starting med school in August!

There's no doubt that it's risky. But sometimes the best of who you are comes out when it's sink or swim.

 

[mspeedwagon]

Is it risky? Yes. Would I do it? No. Should you do it in your circumstance? Yes.

I personally wouldn't leave my job because pay in my field of work increases dramatically after the first few years and if medicine doesn't work out I would not want to leave my line of work (so I wouldn't want to leave and come back and not have those few years count [the increase in pay is nice]). If this were not the case, I'd definitely quit and focus on classes.

I think it's much easier to not juggle things at once. I hate the fact that I work full-time, part-time and am currently enrolled in organic chemistry II with my girlfriend across the country pursuing medical school. But, no one ever said this was going to be easy.

 

[MacVA]

Is it risky? Yes. Would I do it? No. Should you do it in your circumstance? Yes.

I personally wouldn't leave my job because pay in my field of work increases dramatically after the first few years and if medicine doesn't work out I would not want to leave my line of work (so I wouldn't want to leave and come back and not have those few years count [the increase in pay is nice]). If this were not the case, I'd definitely quit and focus on classes.

I think it's much easier to not juggle things at once. I hate the fact that I work full-time, part-time and am currently enrolled in organic chemistry II with my girlfriend across the country pursuing medical school. But, no one ever said this was going to be easy.

Dude, you are my SDN twin. Your story seriously mimics my own.

OP - I personally wouldn't quit work but you have to know your limits. If you cannot work full time and make A/A-'s in two classes each semester (8 credit hours) I would suggest quitting work or going part time.

 

[samuraiR]

I had to make the decision whether to quit or not as well.
Background:
I was working 50-55 hours a week at a Fortune 150 company. I hated every aspect of my job. I was also taking 8 credits (phys 2 and chem 2) at two different places, one was an hour away from me. Both were night. I also was volunteering, shadowing, etc...

How'd I do? ended u with an A in both of my classes... but I was on the verge of getting fired at work (from lack of effort as well as shear exhaustion). I took it as a sign for the next semester to not be so cocky, and to perhaps tone down my work.

I quit that job I had and found another job that was closer to home for a little paycut. Moved back in with my parents. And now only work 40 hours a week!
I am now taking organic chemistry 2, studying for the mcats in may, still volunteering/shadowing and I find it much more bearable (still tiring as ****).

Its def. doable to keep your job but you have to see your limits, I'm glad I was able to find my early and also find an awesome job which I love, that gives me flexibility.

My current job lets me work 80 hours over 9 days, meaning every other friday I am off...those are my shadowing days

Good luck OP, and def. good luck to all you non-trads its tough but I'm sure it'll be worth it.

 

[Sailing Girl]

Dear Southpawcannon - If you have built good relationships with your work, I would hope that they would encourage your dream and work with you to have you work part time. I would hope they would not give you poor letters of recommendations just because you wanted to go back to school. If so, wow- what a bunch of selfish folks that you work with. I quit my administrative job and stayed with my company as a "paid" volunteer so I wouldn't lose my health benefits for the first 2 years of getting through pre-med pre-reqs. As it got closer to applying, I worked less and less but still kept in touch. Everyone at work was extremely excited for me when I was accepted into medical school. They are still excited to hear back from me and hope that I return as a doctor when I graduate. Good luck to you. Go for your dreams and don't live a life of regret. If it doesn't work out, how can you regret trying? That's just my opinion. Some days I still think I'm crazy turning down a great career to take on a ton of debt and be treated like a nobody med student but it's what I was called to do so well worth the sacrifice.