I’m a gr.10 student in Toronto struggling to pick a career. I am good at English and language courses. I am not very good at math, and around average in science.
However, after visiting a relative in the hospital, I fell in love with the idea of going to work and saving people every day. Since then, it has been my dream to be a doctor. I also know that I want a prestigious job, and a doctor would fit that requirement.
So that’s my problem. Should I work a lot harder and see if I can get into med school, or should I forget that and pick courses that I am good at?
-Confused
?????????
hey there,
i’m gonna start with a disclaimer here. basically the two kinds of questions that are answered on this blog are 1) i’d like to find this specific information and i couldn’t find it on the #@!&* uoft website and 2) i’d like YOUR ADVICE on my PERSONAL LIFE. your question falls into category number 2, meaning i’m just going to answer with my opinion based on my experiences. ultimately though, i am not you, and it’s up to you to make the decision you think is best. so. hashtag don’t sue me.
this is the thing. being good at math and science are really important for the many,?many years you’re going to have to go to school before becoming a doctor. and being good/bad/average at math and science in high school is very different from at university. what i would do is take your average right now in your math/science courses, subtract 10% from them, and see if that meets the requirements for proceeding in a science-centric program in university, as well as the requirements for medical school.
at uoft, a GPA of 3.6 (that’s around an 83%) is required to be considered for admission, not to mention MCAT scores and extra-curriculars. consider if you could keep that average throughout school without making yourself completely miserable. more importantly, consider if you would ENJOY doing math and science for 7+ years. if you’re not having fun, it’s not worth it.?i’m sure you already know all this, but i just want to stress that this stuff is really only doable if you actually want to do it. otherwise, you start to resent the work, resulting in you not doing it, resulting in you ultimately not meeting the requirements for admission to med school.
that being said, if you love the idea of working in a hospital and helping people, being a doctor is not the only option. you could become a bioethicist, a nurse, a paramedic, a psychologist?(at uoft that program has a calculus prerequisite, but at lots of other schools it’s an arts program!) and a whole bunch of other jobs which haven’t crossed my mind because i am not a good person and have never worked at a hospital. there’s no reason to sacrifice things you like for things you’re good at.
what i’m getting at is that you have a lot of options. countless people in lots of different professions save lives. if the only reasons you want to become a doctor are to save lives and because it’s prestigious, i’d say you’re going in for the wrong reasons. there are lots of prestigious jobs out there, enough that there’s guaranteed to be one you’d love doing. it may just take a bit more time to find them.
i hope that helps. and if it didn’t, don’t worry, because you’ve still got two years to figure it out. that’s plenty of time, so don’t feel like you have to rush a decision. just take it step by step, and you’ll figure it out.
g’luck,
aska