Pharmacist vs Engineer 20 years after graduation

[PharmtoCS]

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Med school sets you back $200-400k in student loans and 7-10 years in lost earning opportunity cost while in school and residency. You have to be a top student to be able to get in.

A top software engineer can earn a high salary starting at age 22-24 and increase that to over $200k/year without the astronomical student loans and years of lost earning. It involves far less liability, stress, and hours worked.

Compound interest from years of saving goes a long way. Compound interest from student debt sets you back a long way.

 

[redfish955]

Do NOT pursue medical school if you are in it for the money. Not only will you be miserable working long hours at something you do not enjoy, it is not worth the risk if you don't do well on your STEPs and end up in a lower paying specialty compared to your loans.

You shouldn't go into engineering unless your willing to work as a technician earnin

Med school sets you back $200-400k in student loans and 7-10 years in lost earning opportunity cost while in school and residency. You have to be a top student to be able to get in.

A top software engineer can earn a high salary starting at age 22-24 and increase that to over $200k/year without the astronomical student loans and years of lost earning. It involves far less liability, stress, and hours worked.

Compound interest from years of saving goes a long way. Compound interest from student debt sets you back a long way.

Who wants to sit in a cube coding for 14 hour days 6 days a week while dropping $4500 a month in rent? Not me, sounds miserable. If you liked your chemistry than why not stick to that and go into chemical engineering or some other form of engineering that actually lines up with your hobbies. Even if software engineering is where you want to be I would take the 85k a year job working in a low cost of living area working 40 hours a week. Pick out the city you want to live in. Pick out your dream job in the city. Work until your qualified for that job and go get it. Your right about compounding interest. An average joe who saves $15k a year from age 24 to 35 should be worth around $300k. Even if they only earn $85k a year the rest of their life and save $10k a year it will be hard for most pharmacists, dentists, and physicians to surpass them in wealth. If I had a full ride i would be hard pressed not to finish undergrad. If I wasn't on scholarship I would find the 2+4 much more enticing.

 

[Jbrl]

My experience is that GPA matters as well. Obviously in most industries, your GPA doesn't matter after your first job .. but your first job has a huge impact on your trajectory

Would echo this statement. It would be misleading to say that GPA doesn’t matter. To what extent is debatable, but for your first job it is weighed more heavily and pharmacy students reading should get out of the C = degree mindset as it limits non-retail options

There are soft cut-offs for internships and on-campus recruitment. For pharma and major engineering firms (eg Lockheed Martin) that’s ~3.0 and can go up to ~3.5 for certain industries e.g. investment banking. Grad school too.

For tech it matters less, but may still play a factor. E.g. FAANG does look at GPA as part of holistic eval criteria, but weighs it less since coding proficiency and project portfolio are more tangible markers.

You shouldn't go into engineering unless your willing to work as a technician earnin

The difference is that physicians give up a lot more - dedicating anywhere between 10-15 years of their lives before completing education, including 3+ years of what could be 80h weeks of residency and fellowship at nominal pay. It’s not a lifestyle and salary choice. In contrast, as an engineer you can easily pivot to something else, move to product or climb to management with little to no opportunity cost.

 

[Sleepingdoc]

Would echo this statement. It would be misleading to say that GPA doesn’t matter. To what extent is debatable, but for your first job it is weighed more heavily and pharmacy students reading should get out of the C = degree mindset as it limits non-retail options

There are soft cut-offs for internships and on-campus recruitment. For pharma and major engineering firms (eg Lockheed Martin) that’s ~3.0 and can go up to ~3.5 for certain industries e.g. investment banking. Grad school too.

For tech it matters less, but may still play a factor. E.g. FAANG does look at GPA as part of holistic eval criteria, but weighs it less since coding proficiency and project portfolio are more tangible markers.
The difference is that physicians give up a lot more - dedicating anywhere between 10-15 years of their lives before completing education, including 3+ years of what could be 80h weeks of residency and fellowship at nominal pay. It’s not a lifestyle and salary choice. In contrast, as an engineer you can easily pivot to something else, move to product or climb to management with little to no opportunity cost.

Engineering is hard. Not everyone is cut out to be one. Med school is just a bunch of memorization, routine busy work... Engineering is not- its problem solving. For some reason, when everyone wants to compare salaries, they just say that every one can be trained into one... This is not true.

 

[mentos]

Engineering is hard. Not everyone is cut out to be one. Med school is just a bunch of memorization, routine busy work... Engineering is not- its problem solving. For some reason, when everyone wants to compare salaries, they just say that every one can be trained into one... This is not true.

Very true. I would say the majority of pharmacists cannot pass comp sci 101, but almost all engineers can become pharmacists.

 

[redfish955]

I know of engineers who started with college algebra and turned out really well. You just have to make sure you get the right building blocks and practice solving problems. The key to math is practicing it even if you know all the equations.

 

[Jbrl]

Engineering is hard. Not everyone is cut out to be one. Med school is just a bunch of memorization, routine busy work... Engineering is not- its problem solving. For some reason, when everyone wants to compare salaries, they just say that every one can be trained into one... This is not true.

You could very well pose this from either perspective - not every engineer can be trained into a doctor - so I don't think it's relevant. For most people it's a matter of interest, not aptitude. Majority of engineers will be using algebra and trig 95% of the time. Point is if you're looking at lifetime earnings and lifestyle, being a doctor is not it.

 

[Sabril]

I got accepted into architecture undergrad program but went to pre pharm instead. I guess just like engineering, I was ok with sleepless nights, traveling, low starting wages etc. with architecture but chose pharmacy because it was "easier" to get a job. Boy was I a good decision maker.

 

[alpha12]

You shouldn't go into engineering unless your willing to work as a technician earnin

Who wants to sit in a cube coding for 14 hour days 6 days a week while dropping $4500 a month in rent? Not me, sounds miserable.

14 hours a day and 6 days a week? lol. this is so not true. And $4500 a month on rent? You do realize there are jobs outside of silicon valley?

 

[redfish955]

14 hours a day and 6 days a week? lol. this is so not true. And $4500 a month on rent? You do realize there are jobs outside of silicon valley?

Salaries drastically drop off for software engineers outside of silicone valley. The mean salary for senior engineers and engineering managers is about the same across the board per hour worked.

 

[alpha12]

Salaries drastically drop off for software engineers outside of silicone valley. The mean salary for senior engineers and engineering managers is about the same across the board per hour worked.

Senior engineers make more than pharmacy managers. In chicago it's 150k minimum.

 

[redfish955]

Senior engineers make more than pharmacy managers. In chicago it's 150k minimum.

Not according to this. Senior Software Engineer Salary in Chicago, IL (October 2019)

 

[Lubeckd]

Senior engineers make more than pharmacy managers. In chicago it's 150k minimum.

What about specialization

 

[Lubeckd]

I hear software engineering is going down hill. It's ux and data science as hot

 

[redfish955]

I hear software engineering is going down hill. It's ux and data science as hot

It mostly depends on the city you want to live in. Pick out your dream company. Pick out the dream job. Then work until you have your dream job. One thing no one is mentioning is that it is easy to go from stem to medicine but hard to go from medicine to stem because of debt.

 

[alpha12]

Not according to this. Senior Software Engineer Salary in Chicago, IL (October 2019)

glassdoor is very poor for salaries. You really have to look for a job to find out what the market is.

 

[alpha12]

I hear software engineering is going down hill. It's ux and data science as hot

Data science is pretty hot too.

 

[redfish955]

Your in a circle of friends working at the really good employers in Chicago. The range is like 85-150.

 

[alpha12]

Your in a circle of friends working at the really good employers in Chicago. The range is like 85-150.

85-100 is what jr devs straight out of school make at my company. No kidding. I think you are relying on salary sites too much. Unfortunately you would never know if you never tested the market. I invite you to try it.

 

[Argentium]

My brother is an engineer and started off around what you mentioned but upward mobility is not as easy as it seems.

Your experience isn’t reflective of “the average/median” which I would argue BLS is the best dataset since it’s based on hard data from a pretty robust quantitative survey. For software developers, “the lowest 10 percent earned less than $61,660, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $161,290” which doesn’t include year-end bonuses or long term incentives.

The grass is always greener and FWIW speaking for myself and my pharmacy friend group, we are all pretty happy that we chose this field. Most of us paid off all of our loans within 2-3 years and make anywhere between 1-3x what a retail pharmacist would make. Again, not representative of the “average/median” but you can be successful as a pharmacist ..

 

[redfish955]

When you pick your career it should be something you're going to be passionate about for the rest of your life because there may be downs. It should be something your willing to move for, fight to do, and love doing. The cool thing about engineering is that there are a ton of nerdy hobbies for people to get into. Rocket kits, cars, programming, chemistry, and etc. It's always going to have nerds and they will normally be the best engineers. Math and econ is the degree you want for data science. Industrial engineer can work as a data scientist too and is pretty cool because you could spend your first fifteen years in operations and then move to data late career.

 

[Sleepingdoc]

You could very well pose this from either perspective - not every engineer can be trained into a doctor - so I don't think it's relevant. For most people it's a matter of interest, not aptitude. Majority of engineers will be using algebra and trig 95% of the time. Point is if you're looking at lifetime earnings and lifestyle, being a doctor is not it.

Maybe not every engineer can be doctors,... but I would bet on an engineer who did ok in school to be trained into a doctor. I dont think i can bet on doctors or pharmacist could go back to school to become an engineer and hold a job there.
Well anyway, I do not wish to create this issue, but for some reason I feel like everyone is pushing for, hey do Engineering so you can make a lot of money while working 20 hours a week... lets say the grass is greener on the other side.

 

[Lubeckd]

 

[BidingMyTime]

I got accepted into architecture undergrad program but went to pre pharm instead. I guess just like engineering, I was ok with sleepless nights, traveling, low starting wages etc. with architecture but chose pharmacy because it was "easier" to get a job. Boy was I a good decision maker.

It is, depending on what local area of the country you are looking at. Most people really aren't willing to move "anywhere", so you need to look at the jobs available in the area you actually want to live in. If for instance, you did want to live in BFE, you will more easily find a pharmacist job, than an architecture job. On the other hand, if you want to live in Chicago, then yes, you will more easily get an architecture job, than a pharmacist job.

Maybe not every engineer can be doctors,... but I would bet on an engineer who did ok in school to be trained into a doctor. I dont think i can bet on doctors or pharmacist could go back to school to become an engineer and hold a job there.
Well anyway, I do not wish to create this issue, but for some reason I feel like everyone is pushing for, hey do Engineering so you can make a lot of money while working 20 hours a week... lets say the grass is greener on the other side.

Agree. People need to 1st look at their natural abilities, and then figure out a career that will make the most use of those natural abilities. Just looking at the money, will doom people to failure. As we are seeing with the threads here from pharmacy students who flunked out or can't pass the NAPLEX, they went into pharmacy for the money, but they don't have the natural ability. Ability to memorize is a far different skill than problem solving at the level that engineers do. I'm not as convinced that it would be that easy for engineers to memorize the vast quantity of info needed to be a doctor, but certainly someone who is good at that type of memorization and puzzle solving of medical problems (as opposed to problem solving), is also probably not going to have the ability to do engineering work. It's two different skill sets, and extremely few people are blessed to have both.

 

[redfish955]

If your interested in both I would say start with engineering and then do a 3 year pharmacy program like an mba if you don't like it. I'm surprised more people don't go from silicon valley to pharmacy and then move out of the valley into a lcol area.

 

[alpha12]

It is, depending on what local area of the country you are looking at. Most people really aren't willing to move "anywhere", so you need to look at the jobs available in the area you actually want to live in. If for instance, you did want to live in BFE, you will more easily find a pharmacist job, than an architecture job. On the other hand, if you want to live in Chicago, then yes, you will more easily get an architecture job, than a pharmacist job.



Agree. People need to 1st look at their natural abilities, and then figure out a career that will make the most use of those natural abilities. Just looking at the money, will doom people to failure. As we are seeing with the threads here from pharmacy students who flunked out or can't pass the NAPLEX, they went into pharmacy for the money, but they don't have the natural ability. Ability to memorize is a far different skill than problem solving at the level that engineers do. I'm not as convinced that it would be that easy for engineers to memorize the vast quantity of info needed to be a doctor, but certainly someone who is good at that type of memorization and puzzle solving of medical problems (as opposed to problem solving), is also probably not going to have the ability to do engineering work. It's two different skill sets, and extremely few people are blessed to have both.

You can be a software engineer and still live in bfe if you wanted. There are 100% remote positions.

 

[Lubeckd]

perhaps in all these high level jobs, they require 60 hours a week. From Investment bankers 80-100 to doctors being on 60-100. Software engineers and data scientist have to be on call and work workout pay for 2 hours afterwards and in amazon they make you stay over.

 

[pharmBear]

Right now i need the service of a engineer to build stuff more than pharmacy drug service if that is any indicator

 

[BidingMyTime]

You can be a software engineer and still live in bfe if you wanted. There are 100% remote positions.

I didn't say anything about software engineering, I told the person to look at the jobs available in the area that s/he wanted to work in. Since architecture was mentioned, I used that as an example of jobs that would be hard to find in BFE.

 

[redfish955]

You can be a software engineer and still live in bfe if you wanted. There are 100% remote positions.

Remote workers are normally the 1st ones cut during a down cycle. Imagine an automated pharmacy where one pharmacists supervises a tech and has 4 different pharmacies under their supervision.