The little thing you neglect to mention is that unless you have the mentality of an autistic person, coding is incredibly miserable.
Spoken like someone who has either never written a line of code in their lives, or you have but you suck balls it it. It is actually a very creative black art if done correctly; in my career I worked with a ton of great engineers who were also great musicians, etc. You have no clue; frankly, the kind of personality you mention is an absolute impediment to success in software. You need to be able to communicate with analysts and product owners, and if you're at the application architect or dev lead leven you need to be able to communicate with other devs.
When you speak of coders who are "great musicians," 95% of the time those people have a great deal of technical instrumental skill, but are extremely lacking in actual creativity
My best friend from High School is a cardiovascular profusionist (botched spelling). He works from 6 AM to 11 AM 4 days a week and brings home 400K. Basically a heart anesthesiologist. I work in the IT dept for a large roadbuiding company and bring home 200K, work 40 - mostly from home and live in the Colorado MTNs.
Im the better runner but he's the better golfer!!
These salaries are mind-boggling. In the UK a "good" wage is £30,000 - about $36,000.
My best friend from High School is a cardiovascular profusionist (botched spelling). He works from 6 AM to 11 AM 4 days a week and brings home 400K. Basically a heart anesthesiologist. I work in the IT dept for a large roadbuiding company and bring home 200K, work 40 - mostly from home and live in the Colorado MTNs.
Im the better runner but he's the better golfer!!
Never sure what people mean when they say “bring home” but there’s no way a perfusionist is making $400k a year. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great field and doesn’t take forever to get there, but it’s a good living not a great living. And I doubt his hours are that pleasant. That’s a normal, run of the mill scheduled CABG. How often is he called in for emergencies. Does he have to do ECMO? How many perfusionists are at his hospital? There are two at mine. When there’s an ECMO patient the two of them are splitting round the clock care.
I can't see myself as an actual software engineer. I've never been particuarly interested in programming itself and I've never practiced it. I was looking at jobs which utilise computational work to some extent - for example nuclear engineering, metrology, cyber security. Stuff that isn't purely about programming. I've used software like matlab and mncp which aren't strictly programming but more like a modelling tool. I know someone who went into cyber security (albeit in Germany not the UK) and it seems like an interesting fusion of computing and logical work but not pure programming... but I admit I don't know a lot about the field.
To be honest, if medicine was a shorter course with some further training on top I'd just take the chance and do it, but the long training pathway is what is putting me off to a large extent. I will finish medical school at 38, foundation training at 40 and then specialise. My student debt will be £70,000. In the UK student debt it different but it still isn't nice. Some people will say if you aren't 100% sure about medical school then don't go but I am having a hard time walking away from my offer. I'm tempted to just go and see what happens, but if I leave I'm told I won't be allowed to apply to medical school ever again (not sure how they can check up on this though).
I figured you’d been excepted to a foreign med school based on the initial post. Now that I see you’re in the UK, I’d lean against mrs school. You’ll make little money and the chance to move somewhere to make better money (specifically the US) will be difficult. Not to say the reason to become a doctor is to make money, but it would be a nice perk.
I have an offer for medical school, but I am also somewhat interested in cyber security, technology and energy (my degree was in physics).
I am having a really hard time deciding. On one hand I would like a work-life balance so I'm not working all the time and working remotely a day or two would be good. It would allow me to see family, start a family (I am currently single) and pursue hobbies. On the other hand I feel a strange duty to help people in need, but I'm aware being a doctor isn't all like that.
I am in my early 30s so training length is somewhat of an issue as well plus lost earnings.
What's the sensible thing to do here?
Dude, what the eff??? This is at least your third post on this. If you’re not trolling, I can tell you unequivocally that you’ll not do well in med school. You need to be all in.
Software/Engineering job security is too unpredictable. What will the job market look like 5-20yrs from now? MD will guarantee 200K+ til you no longer want to work, even if you suck at being a Dr. Do you want to constantly compete with 25yr olds for a job in engineering?
Uhh. I think you don’t work in any kind of software engineering type role if you think 25 year old engineers are the same as that same engineer but with 20 or 30 years more experience.
Medical school is tough and so is residency. I wouldnt want to go through it again. However I work in a surgical subspecialty and make >400k/year working generally 9-3 or 4. I do have late nights once a week sometimes twice but I also can take off whenever I want even with only 2 weeks notice.
This poster is correct. I don't think many of the posters on here understand just how tough medical school and residency is.
If you're not super smart, you won't get in and if you do, you may fail the first year as I know about 2 dozen in my class that had to do it over or look for another career---and they were/are very smart people. I'm in my 3rd and last year of Residency. I'm 25 and knew that is what I wanted to do. I'm in the hole financially but in the long run, I'll be okay and enjoy what I'm doing. I missed several birthday parties and holidays, but it's the life I chose.
I'm glad I did it, but I too wouldn't want to go through it again;)
It all depends how appealing being a doctor is to you and if you’re passionate about it. To me seems terrible given all the time you have to spend in school + residency before you make it. I imagine your day-to-day gets really redundant, but I haven’t lived it myself and don’t have that passion.
Software Engineering is a great combo of WLB, pay, job stability, and interesting work. You can also find avenues to help people through engineering
Depends on circumstance. On average, a doctor if you're optimizing for $. Most SWEs outside of FAANG and a few other see income cap out at around $250k - again, this is very few SWEs outside a few select big COs.
Im a SWE at Google. 26 YO making $300k a year with a stock grant that will most likely appreciate massively over the coming decade. On top of that I will stack refreshers, and I work no more than 30 hours a week. It's great to be making so much at my age - you cant beat the time value of money.
I'd rather be a SWE making $350-450K at G living a low stress life than a doctor making similar salary but working long and stressful hours. However, on average, a doctor probably wins if it comes to money.
Should also mention I get free food 5 days a week for 2 meals a day and sometimes bring home food, Ive reduced my grocery bill significantly. So that 300K might be closer to 310K-315 if u factor that in, and if GOOG stock keeps apprecaiting, I can hit 350-400 in next year or two. I also get 85-95K stock refesher (vests over 4 years) every year.
Surprised at the amount of people that are saying doctor. Who wants to have money in your mid 30's when your life is probably going to revolve around your kids rather than yourself. I'm a software engineer at FAANG and am in my early to mid 20's and already have $100k+ saved. I rarely work more than 40 hours a week as well and can even work remotely.
If you want a better lifestyle, definitely go the S/E route. you will also make more money in the long run.
I’m a pulm-Crit doctor, finished IM residency at age 30 (typical), worked for govt in a rural area for 3-4 yrs to pay off loans (got paid about 150k a year) then did a fellowship (another 4 yrs making 60k a year + moonlighting). by the time I started making and saving real money, I was almost 38. now make about 300k a year. No stock options. I enjoy what I do and I feel most days that I helped someone (even if they were dying). work anywhere from 50-60 hrs a week, two nights a month, and a weekend every month in average. I’m in academia so if I was in private practice I’d work about the same or more and could make 400-500K a year. don’t have fancy tastes and I live in the Midwest, so I’m fine financially.
Really love my work. it’s rewarding. but it’s draining and not for everyone. would have more time and probably more money had I become a chemical engineer (my undergrad degree).
I have an offer for medical school, but I am also somewhat interested in cyber security, technology and energy (my degree was in physics).
I am having a really hard time deciding. On one hand I would like a work-life balance so I'm not working all the time and working remotely a day or two would be good. It would allow me to see family, start a family (I am currently single) and pursue hobbies. On the other hand I feel a strange duty to help people in need, but I'm aware being a doctor isn't all like that.
I am in my early 30s so training length is somewhat of an issue as well plus lost earnings.
What's the sensible thing to do here?
if you're a extrovert, doctor. You'd probably find software engineering boring and you wouldn't get that good, because it requires sitting alone in front of a screen for a lot of hours.
if you're an introvert, be a software engineer. Being a doctor involves interacting with people all day, which would be totally exhausting. probably mostly smelly, fat stupid people too.
I have an offer for medical school, but I am also somewhat interested in cyber security, technology and energy (my degree was in physics).
I am having a really hard time deciding. On one hand I would like a work-life balance so I'm not working all the time and working remotely a day or two would be good. It would allow me to see family, start a family (I am currently single) and pursue hobbies. On the other hand I feel a strange duty to help people in need, but I'm aware being a doctor isn't all like that.
I am in my early 30s so training length is somewhat of an issue as well plus lost earnings.
What's the sensible thing to do here?
if you're a extrovert, doctor. You'd probably find software engineering boring and you wouldn't get that good, because it requires sitting alone in front of a screen for a lot of hours.
if you're an introvert, be a software engineer. Being a doctor involves interacting with people all day, which would be totally exhausting. probably mostly smelly, fat stupid people too.
Not necessarily true on SWE’s. Many have very collaborative jobs while others are code monkeys. Again, you have a lot of flexibility on this
I'm a doctor. I have family who are software engineers. I make much more money, but also work twice as much each week. They average 25 hours a week while I'm doing 50. I have limited free time and vacation to actually enjoy my money. They have unlimited pto and make enough money to travel and enjoy their lives. They never have to deal with bad patients or the stress of healthcare. If I had to do it all over again I would go into tech. Also they have way less debt.
Simply put, they make a little over 100k, work 25 hours a week, work remote so they are constantly traveling (different country every month). I make 300k, work 50 hours a week, stuck in the same building everyday, and have daily stress that makes me want to pull my hair out.
My best friend from High School is a cardiovascular profusionist (botched spelling). He works from 6 AM to 11 AM 4 days a week and brings home 400K. Basically a heart anesthesiologist. I work in the IT dept for a large roadbuiding company and bring home 200K, work 40 - mostly from home and live in the Colorado MTNs.
Im the better runner but he's the better golfer!!
These salaries are mind-boggling. In the UK a "good" wage is £30,000 - about $36,000.
People in europe are poor. This is known. 36k is like a shift supervisor at mcdonalds here in the states. But take the tech salaries posted here with a grain of salt. I know a lot of software engineers. Very few make over 200k. Most are in the mid 100s. Starting out they're usually around 90k. Doctor salaries are pretty accurate though