I am deciding to go full-time student or to go part-time student. Average 40-50 hours a week. I invested 3 years into the military (1 yr left), and I will strive for a 20 year career (ideally 30). I have less than 16 credits in college at the moment, nor had experience working in a medical job yet. I am already past the growing pains of the military.
The reasons to re-enlist for another 4-5 years is so I will have a stream of money coming in while I study part-time **28,000 a year minimum**, knowing I cannot get any lab work, and so I will take a 2-3 year break to maximize my GI bill afterward. I’m already non-traditional, so being even more non-traditional doesn’t bother me (age). I think this would be more productive, for my circumstance, since I am still adding years to my pension while building up college credits to make myself more secure when I do go hardcore at college (no different than non-traditional students working full-time). And the more years I add to my military career, the higher the pay when I do become an officer **which takes away the con of low pay in the immediate future**. In the long-run, I think I’ll have a better chance in succeeding pre-med if I do this, because I’ll have more savings to live as a frugal undergrad, and I will get a lot of the basics out the way (which I should had, but I didn’t).
The reasons to not to, is the time to become a doctor. I’ll be in my early 30s, doing medical school, but the military doesn’t have a strict age limit for doctors until around 36 at least for Uniform School of Medicine,. And the years I spend in the enlisted instead of making rank in the commission, although I could just toss that up to life-experience/pension-fluffing. I don’t plan on having kids.
I do not want my break in the military to last longer than 2 years and so I want to minimize the time I am away from the military to finish my degree.
Opinions?
The reasons to re-enlist for another 4-5 years is so I will have a stream of money coming in while I study part-time **28,000 a year minimum**, knowing I cannot get any lab work, and so I will take a 2-3 year break to maximize my GI bill afterward. I’m already non-traditional, so being even more non-traditional doesn’t bother me (age). I think this would be more productive, for my circumstance, since I am still adding years to my pension while building up college credits to make myself more secure when I do go hardcore at college (no different than non-traditional students working full-time). And the more years I add to my military career, the higher the pay when I do become an officer **which takes away the con of low pay in the immediate future**. In the long-run, I think I’ll have a better chance in succeeding pre-med if I do this, because I’ll have more savings to live as a frugal undergrad, and I will get a lot of the basics out the way (which I should had, but I didn’t).
The reasons to not to, is the time to become a doctor. I’ll be in my early 30s, doing medical school, but the military doesn’t have a strict age limit for doctors until around 36 at least for Uniform School of Medicine,. And the years I spend in the enlisted instead of making rank in the commission, although I could just toss that up to life-experience/pension-fluffing. I don’t plan on having kids.
I do not want my break in the military to last longer than 2 years and so I want to minimize the time I am away from the military to finish my degree.
Opinions?
