- #1
Hercuflea
- 596
- 49
Hey guys,
I'm a math major. I plan to go to graduate school (hopefully PhD) in nuclear engineering and I have ~3.8 GPA. However, my parents have been pushing me to go to med school, and I'm not completely opposed to it, but I am truly interested in nuclear science and its applications to power generation and propulsion systems. It seems that nuclear engineers max out at about $150,000; but If i were to become, say, an anesthesiologist or a neurosurgeon It's reasonable to believe I could pull 400k-500k per year. However, anesthesiology requires 4 years of med school and 4 years of residency, and neurosurgery requires about 4 years of med school and 7 years of residency.
I suppose a present value analysis is in order, but really I would not be very interested or intrigued by a career in medicine. If I did it, it would only be for the money. My question is, is it worth sacrificing 11 years of my life and roughly 20k-50k of potential salary per year to pursue medicine? I would probably be 40 years old (20 now) before I even broke even on the engineer salary vs salary lost by going to med school.
Would I be a "loser" if I didn't go all the way?
I'm a math major. I plan to go to graduate school (hopefully PhD) in nuclear engineering and I have ~3.8 GPA. However, my parents have been pushing me to go to med school, and I'm not completely opposed to it, but I am truly interested in nuclear science and its applications to power generation and propulsion systems. It seems that nuclear engineers max out at about $150,000; but If i were to become, say, an anesthesiologist or a neurosurgeon It's reasonable to believe I could pull 400k-500k per year. However, anesthesiology requires 4 years of med school and 4 years of residency, and neurosurgery requires about 4 years of med school and 7 years of residency.
I suppose a present value analysis is in order, but really I would not be very interested or intrigued by a career in medicine. If I did it, it would only be for the money. My question is, is it worth sacrificing 11 years of my life and roughly 20k-50k of potential salary per year to pursue medicine? I would probably be 40 years old (20 now) before I even broke even on the engineer salary vs salary lost by going to med school.
Would I be a "loser" if I didn't go all the way?