school & work questions

[solar3000]

Hello everyone.
I have a few questionst. I have just graduated with a bachelors in psych last year. I am now starting to take pre med classes in spring, about 3 classes.
prep for chem, bio foundations and trig. The problem is that I don't have any money to pay for tuition and one way would be by working either part or full time. BUT the problem is that part time jobs don't pay much.
What do you guys think about working 40 hours a week plus 3 classes from your personal experience. How did you guys make it?
I am just kinda sick of not having any money but I also realize I have to take as many classes as I can so I don't get to far behind.
I'd like to hear what you guys have to say. thanks!

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[YIC10]

I'm doing research as a graduate student full time (sometimes more than 40 hrs a week) and taking 2 classes a semester. I think that's the maximum I can handle and also what my advisor allows, considering other activities such as volunteering I need to do. I think you may give a shot to try three classes a semester if your full time job is not very stressful (emotionally and physically). But at the same time, you wanna good grades on those pre-med courses, right?

 

[solar3000]

I'm doing research as a graduate student full time (sometimes more than 40 hrs a week) and taking 2 classes a semester. I think that's the maximum I can handle and also what my advisor allows, considering other activities such as volunteering I need to do. I think you may give a shot to try three classes a semester if your full time job is not very stressful (emotionally and physically). But at the same time, you wanna good grades on those pre-med courses, right?

wow so you're a grad student? are you taking pre med classes?
well, the jobs im looking at are for a research coordinator, and a health educator.
by the way, how good are these jobs when it comes to experience?
on the health educator job (if hired) i'll be talking, making sure cancer patients get to their appts, talk about cancer etc. is this a good job?

 

[CultureDoc]

Hello everyone.
I have a few questionst. I have just graduated with a bachelors in psych last year. I am now starting to take pre med classes in spring, about 3 classes.
prep for chem, bio foundations and trig. The problem is that I don't have any money to pay for tuition and one way would be by working either part or full time. BUT the problem is that part time jobs don't pay much.
What do you guys think about working 40 hours a week plus 3 classes from your personal experience. How did you guys make it?
I am just kinda sick of not having any money but I also realize I have to take as many classes as I can so I don't get to far behind.
I'd like to hear what you guys have to say. thanks!

The jobs sound great! (sounds like you'd be getting lots of patient contact w/the health ed. job. Is the research coordinator job for clinical studies? if so, that'd be really good experience too.) However, I would strongly advise against taking three classes while working full time (unless you're superhuman ). I think it would be really hard to get good grades (and by good grades, I mean A's - don't aim for anything less).

It sounds like you have the same mindset that I did when I started this post-bacc process: "I'm behind! I need to do this as quickly as possible!" . . . and I want to scream : "NOOOOOOOO! It's not true!" This isn't a race. What's a couple of years when you'll be working for probably 30+ years? Lots of people decide on med school later in life, so you are in no sense behind (in fact, you'll be ahead of your younger med school counterparts in terms of work/life experience). Thinking I was "behind" was extremely detrimental in my case. I overloaded myself (FT work + 9 creds. at one pt.) and ended up having to do some GPA damage control and apply twice (and I'm only just now seeing a glimmer of hope in my application).

The work experience sounds great, and like you said, you'd like to be able to support yourself. I'd say go for that and start out just taking one class - see how it goes. It may take you an extra year or two to finish your pre-reqs (which seems like an eternity right now, but it actually goes by pretty quickly). In the long run, though, your app will likely be much better off for it. And in the meantime, you'll be working an interesting job, meeting great people who might be able to give you some insight into medicine, volunteering, etc. - in other words, this part of your life can be exciting, too, and not just something you have to get through as quickly as possible before you get to "the good stuff". That's the other big mistake I made: thinking of this part of my life as "transitional" or "temporary" . . . my advice is: plan for the future, but live in the now!!

Ok, enough of that! *steps off soapbox*

One other quick thing: your choice of classes sounds a little strange to me. "Prep for chem"? Why not Chem I? Same with the bio. Oh, and why trig? I'm assuming that with your bachelor's, you already had to take some college-level math. The math requirements are usually pretty minimal at most med schools, so I'd check that out - you may not have to take any more math.

 

[njbmd]

Hello everyone.
I have a few questionst. I have just graduated with a bachelors in psych last year. I am now starting to take pre med classes in spring, about 3 classes.
prep for chem, bio foundations and trig. The problem is that I don't have any money to pay for tuition and one way would be by working either part or full time. BUT the problem is that part time jobs don't pay much.
What do you guys think about working 40 hours a week plus 3 classes from your personal experience. How did you guys make it?
I am just kinda sick of not having any money but I also realize I have to take as many classes as I can so I don't get to far behind.
I'd like to hear what you guys have to say. thanks!

Taking three courses and working really depends on the demands of your job and your performance in your coursework. When many people work and attend school and things get out of hand, it's the coursework that suffers and not the job. Don't let this happen to you. It is far better to drop a course, take your time and do excellent work than to let your grades suffer. It's also not great to load up, get overwhelmed and then do a series of withdrawals because you are in danger of failure (or a grade lower than B+).

If your job is flexible and you know that you have plenty of time to thoroughly master your three courses without going insane, then your schedule will work. It would be better to start with one or two classes (if you work full time) and then add others if you find that you have the time than to not have enough time to do well. Burnout has been a huge problem when folks get overwhelmed with both demanding coursework and a demanding job.

Take your time, do excellent work and have success in the long run. Medical school will be there regardless of when you finish. Trying to speed through without high quality scholarship invites disaster.

 

[NTF]

Don't do it. Try two classes with full time work. Only if you can get A's while taking two would I even consider trying for three. And even then I wouldn't recommend it.

Remember you're commiting to a career. A 30+ year endeavor.

 

[banksmd]

Hello,
I also have started taking pre-med classes and I am working as a Full time Registered Nurse, mother and wife. I have 3 kids 16,10,and 6 who need me, but not as much now that they are older. I think they need me more financially. I too have concerns regarding course load and the possible grades I will receive in these classes. My advice to you is to take it one step at a time. And capitalize on your down time/study time. Working fulltime is surely a doable situation. You have to have the money...so what are your options?....Try getting a job in the hospital, at least there you have some flexibility, most hospitals are on 12 hour shifts, so you can work fulltime and work 3 days a week.

 

[dragonfly99]

The job(s) sound good and clinically relevant.
I would not recommend taking 3 classes at once plus working full time, especially if it's a new job you are starting.

Your choice of classes sounds quite strange. I recommend you talk with a premed advisor. Trigonometry is not on the list of required classes for any medical school I know of. Some require statistics and calculus. I recommend probability/statistics at any rate because it will help you in medicine. Trigonometry won't be very helpful and I think is a waste of time. You need to take introductory biology (with lab) ...skip preparation to biology as that doesn't even sound like any real college class I have heard of. Take general biology (the course for biology majors would be best) and/or zoology or whatever the 100-level biology major biology class is.

 

[samrawet]

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