What do you want to be in the future?

[luken93]

Want to get into Dentistry. But if that fails may just go and do pharmacy

what do you reckon atar wise and umat wise would i need to get in.. I can go interstate if its neccessary

if you don't mind me asking, why dent over the other health/UMAT required courses?

[Greatness]

Want to get into Dentistry. But if that fails may just go and do pharmacy

what do you reckon atar wise and umat wise would i need to get in.. I can go interstate if its neccessary

if you don't mind me asking, why dent over the other health/UMAT required courses?

I'd say almost everyone wanting to do dent is attracted by the massive salary - cmon dont deny it! But that's not the only thing, the lifestyle of a dentist seems pretty awesome as well. You work normal hours and have a lot of spare time for hobbies, family etc. You also have the patient interaction like all other health occupations. Those are my main reasons to doing it.

[jane1234]

I personally think half the fun is not knowing.
Come on, how boring would it be if we have every detail of our lives mapped out? We're still young, we can still change our minds and even if you do a course/part of a course that you don't get a job out of you still would have learnt so much from it. I'm excited about the future, not because I know what I'm going to do, but because for the first time in 12 years I'll have the freedom to chose.

I would quote the third Twilight movie here, but I think I'll spare you...

Personally, I think you should go into singing. "The Land is Mine" comes to mind for a possible chart topper

Hahahaha nah I think the funeral song would be better... Could show off my deep, sexy voice...

[BoredSatan]

well i want to do an undergraduate course.. and i dont wanna do med cause im bad with blood and cutting up people and even just looking a other peoples bodies

and yes i like the dent pay

[dinosaurs]

Want to get into Dentistry. But if that fails may just go and do pharmacy

what do you reckon atar wise and umat wise would i need to get in.. I can go interstate if its neccessary

if you don't mind me asking, why dent over the other health/UMAT required courses?

I'd say almost everyone wanting to do dent is attracted by the massive salary - cmon dont deny it! But that's not the only thing, the lifestyle of a dentist seems pretty awesome as well. You work normal hours and have a lot of spare time for hobbies, family etc. You also have the patient interaction like all other health occupations. Those are my main reasons to doing it.

I can imagine a lot of people that aspire to medicine being dissatisfied with it. It seems as though many people do medicine for some sort of prestige that accompanies the job.  ...and the salary, we Australians tax the rich very heavily.

[Rhea.bh.]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who's indecisive I'm considering Commerce/Arts are Monash, but I have no idea where that'll take me.

[Truck]

A variant of Commerce/Science/Engineering/Arts at Monash/Melb.

So yeh I got no idea lol.

[SamiJ]

Optometry is the plan Just a matter of where and how

[acinod]

I want to be an actuary.

My giant Asian family who have no idea what an actuary is and pretty much think any career that isn't Medicine/Law is bad are now giving me a lecture that my career path is inferior.

Their reasoning is that as an actuary I will have trouble finding employment and I will always have someone of higher position above me telling me what to do, which won't be the case if I become a doctor. I don't really care about this point but how do I convince my family that an actuary is the dream job? I won't even try to suggest to them that I'm good at it and I will enjoy it because my family doesn't care about job enjoyment since they think money will make any job happy. I tried telling them that actuaries make heaps and that I will make more than my parents combined as soon as I come out of uni. Unfortunately I regret saying this because now they think since I'm comparing actuary with my parents jobs, its going to be really bad because my parents have bad jobs. It also doesn't help that none of my family has been to uni so they don't really know anything besides what they see on TV. And since actuaries never appear on TV and all the doctors and lawyers you see on TV are rich, they obviously think that being an actuary is inferior to doctor/lawyer. So how do I sway my family into support my dream of being an actuary?

[Lasercookie]

I guess it'd be hard to change their views on job satisfaction, but you could try to show them material about actuaries.

http://www.aga.gov.au/about/default.asp - The Australian government hires actuaries, they have a nice page.
http://www.actuaries.asn.au/Sitefunctions/Aboutus/WhatdoesanActuarydo.aspx
or maybe the recent news on what Actuaries in Australia have been doing: http://www.actuaries.asn.au/PublicPolicyAndMedia/MediaReleases.aspx

Maybe show them the income comparison of a doctor or lawyer for actuary.
Here's the ABS Statistics for Actuaries (and Mathematicians and Statisticians) - not sure if there's any useful data there though: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/Product+Lookup/1220.0~2006~Chapter~UNIT+GROUP+2241+Actuaries,+Mathematicians+and+Statisticians

Or you could get all the information booklets from Monash, Melbourne etc and then get them to read the actuary stuff?
You can only do actuarial studies at a select few universities right? Maybe the "prestige" associated with those universities would convince them.

[acinod]

Wow thanks for the links I'll definitely show them that.

But their main argument is that actuaries have to find employment and that they will always be under someone of higher position unlike doctors and lawyers. I reckon if I can rebut this argument I will be much closer to persuading them.

[Lasercookie]

Wow thanks for the links I'll definitely show them that.

But their main argument is that actuaries have to find employment and that they will always be under someone of higher position unlike doctors and lawyers. I reckon if I can rebut this argument I will be much closer to persuading them.

I don't really know in detail what medicine is like, but I would have thought that most doctors would always be working under someone in a higher position? Like wouldn't GPs be working for their clinic? My knowledge of hospitals really just is from Scrubs... but they all work for the head guy, who would have worked for years to get to that elevated position. I guess for any job you could work hard for years and work your way to the top. I really don't understand what point they're trying to make. It seems a bit flawed to me and should hopefully be easy to rebut.

I'm sure you could find examples of programmers, mathematicians, artists, physicists who became head of a company. I'd imagine a lot of actuaries might go on to become CEO's or something like that.

Edit: As an actuary, couldn't you one day start your own actuarial consultancy firm? Like I don't think many doctors could split off from their employer and start their own business.

[Lasercookie]

In medicine many people tend to set up their own practices especially if they are specialists. Gp's etc are defined as "self - employed " they don't really have a boss as such

lol, fair enough, I never knew that.