Never had a job

[appthrowaway]

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In HS, didnt have a job.

Started college ,was busy with volunteering, research, getting good grades.

How bad will it look if I leave the past work experiences blank?

 

[Goro]

You're the the rule, not the exception.

This is so common nowadays that for many med school graduates, residency is their first actual job.

In HS, didnt have a job.

Started college ,was busy with volunteering, research, getting good grades.

How bad will it look if I leave the past work experiences blank?

 

[Catalystik]

Even for those who held a job, rather than using the Employment tag, they used Research, or Teaching, or Artistic Endeavor, etc. You won't stand out as being unusual.

 

[Monkey.King]

With research and volunteering, you did have a job. You just weren't paid to do it.

 

[Goro]

I think OP is asking about actual employment.

With research and volunteering, you did have a job. You just weren't paid to do it.

 

[starspells]

Even for those who held a job, rather than using the Employment tag, they used Research, or Teaching, or Artistic Endeavor, etc. You won't stand out as being unusual.

Is it important to highlight in the "Research" title if it was paid?

 

[Catalystik]

Is it important to highlight in the "Research" title if it was paid?

No, but you'd probably want to mention it in the description.

 

[binko]

...because iiiiiiii never wanted one...

 

[Crayola227]

You're the the rule, not the exception.

This is so common nowadays that for many med school graduates, residency is their first actual job.

😱

 

[caffeinemia]

Man, I worked customer service for a summer at this big factory warehouse. Essentially got yelled at to find and ship giant boxes of medical equipment. Makes the floors and unhappy patients a breeze... I am also an expert at hanging on annoying people in hospital.

 

[Lost In Transcription]

You're the the rule, not the exception.

This is so common nowadays that for many med school graduates, residency is their first actual job.

WHAT


HOW

 

[ProspectiveKidd]

The way I see it there are two possible answers.

a) Take a breath

Or

b) OP, I can't sugarcoat this. Your medical career is over.

and I think we know what the answer is.

 

[Goro]

People don't work during the summer anymore, or part time during the school year. For this generation, going to School is their job, so to speak.

PDS have noticed more and more that newly minted residents have poor job attitudes. For example, they expect to be able to go on vacation a week after starting.

WHAT


HOW

 

[Lawpy]

You're the the rule, not the exception.

This is so common nowadays that for many med school graduates, residency is their first actual job.

😱

WHAT


HOW

Now imagine if employment becomes a premed checkbox activity. What will happen?

 

[ProspectiveKidd]

It may be common, but I still fear for those who enter residency with no work experience. Has to make it 10x more difficult than it already is.

Being diplomatic and cordial in the face of a difficult boss, situation, a problematic co worker or family member(in clinical settings). Maintaining composure when you're being reprimanded(taking criticism), and working as a team cordially and efficiently; all the soft skills. These attributes are not learned over night and only come from years of maturity and real world experience. None of them are quantified by GPA. It is definitely one of the reasons ECs and volunteering are so beneficial.

 

[Chemist1985]

I can't say I am shocked that some folks haven't had a job until they start residency, but it must make that transition very difficult.

My mom forced me to get a job at 15. She drove me to the local restaurants to interview for bus boy jobs. I hated every second of it BUT I am so thankful she made me do it.

 

[Chemist1985]

People don't work during the summer anymore, or part time during the school year. For this generation, going to School is their job, so to speak.

PDS have noticed more and more that newly minted residents have poor job attitudes. For example, they expect to be able to go on vacation a week after starting.

I have worked very closely with a number of recent graduates and this is a similar attitude i have seen as well.

 

[Lost In Transcription]

Now imagine if employment becomes a premed checkbox activity. What will happen?

I AM SO READY. Haha.

 

[Lost In Transcription]

People don't work during the summer anymore, or part time during the school year. For this generation, going to School is their job, so to speak.

PDS have noticed more and more that newly minted residents have poor job attitudes. For example, they expect to be able to go on vacation a week after starting.

Oy.

 

[bananafish94]

It strikes me as weird that so few people have jobs...I have worked every summer since I started college and had several jobs in college. I thought that was more common!

 

[Lost In Transcription]

It strikes me as weird that so few people have jobs...I have worked every summer since I started college and had several jobs in college. I thought that was more common!

Same. It made my blood boil when people described their 36+ MCAT scores as "9-5 studying" during the summer or after college. 🙄

 

[bananafish94]

Same. It made my blood boil when people described their 36+ MCAT scores as "9-5 studying" during the summer or after college. 🙄

Yeah I just simply wouldn't be happy doing that. Having a job gives you a sense of purpose. Ironically, I also think it makes me a better student. It's obviously a significant time commitment, but having a bunch of shifts and non-academic obligations over the course of the day forces you to be extremely productive with your limited time.

 

[Goro]

If we and others keep getting the same feedback from PDs as we're hearing, then Adcoms may very well look more favorably on those who have actual work experience.

 

[Lost In Transcription]

Yeah I just simply wouldn't be happy doing that. Having a job gives you a sense of purpose. Ironically, I also think it makes me a better student. It's obviously a significant time commitment, but having a bunch of shifts and non-academic obligations over the course of the day forces you to be extremely productive with your limited time.

Yep, same. Then again, I don't work as a janitor so maybe that is why. But I have always felt depressed if I don't have a rich life in many ways (studying, arts, sciences, working).

 

[Lost In Transcription]

If we and others keep getting the same feedback from PDs as we're hearing, then Adcoms may very well look more favorably on those who have actual work experience.

It's always been so confusing that they don't. It seems very elitist to me, which has always irritated me. Someone who gets enough money from their parents to pay for rent, etc, will get obviously better scores. And people who don't have access to those resources seem worse...would have thought this would have been better thought through/considered.

 

[QuestionsAnswers]

I can't say I am shocked that some folks haven't had a job until they start residency, but it must make that transition very difficult.

My mom forced me to get a job at 15. She drove me to the local restaurants to interview for bus boy jobs. I hated every second of it BUT I am so thankful she made me do it.

My first job in high school was in fast food at a restaurant chain that makes fried chicken (as a cook at the deep fryer initially). It was actually kind of fun (at least, when I think back on it now) and I think also was a big factor in stimulating my interests in healthy eating/exercise which I started doing while working there, probably due to all that grease.

 

[kamakazi5]

If we and others keep getting the same feedback from PDs as we're hearing, then Adcoms may very well look more favorably on those who have actual work experience.

Good, it really should be this way. I used to help with the hiring process occasionally at my old job and we hired a lot of people out of college. I always thought people with actual work experience (whether it was related or not) was a huge plus.

 

[binko]

If you have student debt, doesn't getting a job sometimes (depending on the job) trigger them to start trying to collect on it?

 

[tessellations]

I'm surprised by this, but I honestly could have a skewed perspective because I go to a state school where most of my friends, like me, are in state students. None of us are exactly rolling in cash.

Working this summer and the past summer has given me so much insight into the real world and allows me to ask less of my family, which means a lot to me. Additionally, last summer I worked in a clinical setting (CNA at a nursing home) which I found to be a good way to kill two birds with one stone (clinical experience and earning money). I got like 300 hours out of that, and can't imagine getting that many hours as quickly as I did via a volunteer experience.

More importantly, it taught me to toughen up. The place I worked out was understaffed, run down, and filled with a lot of burned out older employees. Many people were cranky. But despite that, it made me realize that a) I can work through tough situations and tough people and b) that medicine continues to be the path I want to go down, despite all of the toughness. I just can't imagine not having that experience. And you don't need a clinical job to get some of those realizations - working any sort of retail/customer service job probably will give you some of them as well, I imagine.

I guess I'm just a bit disappointed by this trend. I've gained so much from working in undergrad.

 

[Crayola227]

If you have student debt, doesn't getting a job sometimes (depending on the job) trigger them to start trying to collect on it?

It will pretty much always go into repayment 6 mos after you stop attending full time, but with IBR and no job payments are zero. The real issue then is not only interest growth, but if you work than that money goes on your FAFSA and can reduce aid. Hopefully that would just mean more loans and not more out of pocket for attendence, sometimes you have to pay the whole first term out of pocket to be eligible for loans again, and then it will be on the next Fafsa that you can claim zero.

The major potential downside of getting a job before finishing school usually isn't in term of loan payments, but rather how difficult it can then be financially to go back to school depending on what you and your family make.

 

[Law2Doc]

Some med students who haven't ever worked have a very hard time adapting to the clinical years and residency. They still have the mindset that you only "learn" in lecture and that things are important only insofar as needing it for a test. The notion of being subjectively "evaluated" based on things like attitude and being a team player are foreign to them. In a way it's unfair -- we pick the people who are best and brightest under one system, and two years into med school, tell them the game has changed and your grades simply aren't that important anymore, it was all background, now it's about making more senior people like and value you.

This was the most helpful reason to have had a prior career -- some of us are already very facile working in a world with bosses, hierarchy and concepts like face time and office politics.

Years ago when I started friends who backed my transition sent me many articles where employers in medicine stated that they actually preferred hiring nontrad career changers because they had much more realistic expectations once they reached employment and tended to be more "let's just roll up our sleeves and get it done" kinds of people. (And these articles slammed the younger generation - and this was even before the current generation was termed "millennials"). 60 minutes did a piece on the unrealistic work expectations of that new generation as well (although not specific to medicine).

Work is hard, you often will have bosses judging you and you aren't ever paid what you are worth in an employment setting, and how you respond to those basic premises will impact how you behave and fare in the work setting. And it is a learned response, so almost unfair to have your first taste of it in the pressure cooker known as residency.

 

[Goro]

Moderators, please sticky!!!

Some med students who haven't ever worked have a very hard time adapting to the clinical years and residency. They still have the mindset that you only "learn" in lecture and that things are important only insofar as needing it for a test. The notion of being subjectively "evaluated" based on things like attitude and being a team player are foreign to them. In a way it's unfair -- we pick the people who are best and brightest under one system, and two years into med school, tell them the game has changed and your grades simply aren't that important anymore, it was all background, now it's about making more senior people like and value you.

This was the most helpful reason to have had a prior career -- some of us are already very facile working in a world with bosses, hierarchy and concepts like face time and office politics.

Years ago when I started friends who backed my transition sent me many articles where employers in medicine stated that they actually preferred hiring nontrad career changers because they had much more realistic expectations once they reached employment and tended to be more "let's just roll up our sleeves and get it done" kinds of people. (And these articles slammed the younger generation - and this was even before the current generation was termed "millennials"). 60 minutes did a piece on the unrealistic work expectations of that new generation as well (although not specific to medicine).

Work is hard, you often will have bosses judging you and you aren't ever paid what you are worth in an employment setting, and how you respond to those basic premises will impact how you behave and fare in the work setting. And it is a learned response, so almost unfair to have your first taste of it in the pressure cooker known as residency.

 

[binko]

Heaven forbid someone become productive with their time and start paying back money they spent.

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Well it's a big problem if you get a job just to fill a small gap in time/money and then the full weight of your student debt falls on your head. Sometimes it's better to not work (or work under the table) until you're in a stable employment situation and ready to start making payments regularly.

The point has been made that the payments themselves aren't always the problem so much as the difficulty of getting further loans/aid to resume school.

 

[binko]

1. You can work up to 30 hours a week and still receive the unemployed federal loan deferment.

2. If your loan payment is over 20% of your income, you can request a deferment.

3. working under the table is breaking the law. *edit: I deleted my rant on this. I'll just some it up by saying be a good American and have some integrity.

1. That is good information.

2. That is also good information.

3. Yes I know. I didn't recommend it, just listed it as possible. People do what they have to do.

 

[drcrispmd]

I was shocked when I got to residency and several had never had a job. My parents paid for my all of my undergrad and 100% of my living expenses. I wanted to have more spending money so I worked during college. During the normal year I would work about 15-20 hours a week as a pharmacy technician. I was allowed to study when it was slow and could be off around exams. During the summer I worked more (but still took a full load of classes too). I not only made my own money but also learned a lot of valuable info on the medications. Knowing the dosing as a 3rd year med student and all the brand-generic names and the approximate costs really impressed the attending and residents. You can find a job that you will learn too. You can definitely tell which residents have worked before and those who have not. I recommend part time job during undergrad. I even filled in at the pharmacy over breaks in med school and out did not affect my loans at all. If you are a full time student you do not have payments.


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