Med vs Law vs Dent

[charmanderp]

Wanting to help people isn't cliched, it's one of the best reasons for doing anything.

Just know that there are so many different options outside the three that you've listed which will allow you to help people AND allow you to make the money required to pursue your other dreams.

[thushan]

I'm with Nina on this though. Be careful of your motives for doing a particular course.

If I had completely my way, I would have gone into Chemistry and particular Organic Chem or Medicinal Chem, or even Physical Chem and build some kind of research career or academic post. However...my parents wanted me to do medicine. Unfortunately, I cowed in the end and respected their wishes. Having said that, I'm going to fulfil my research interests in doing a BMedSci...assuming I get the grades.

I'm not HATING med at the moment, but it does not suit my style of learning at all. I tend to learn concepts, ideas and solve problems and make theories. Med is, atm anyway, the complete opposite. It's just remembering as much as you can. Not my area of expertise unfortunately. Grades are kinda suffering a tad atm. But at least I'm doing alright...for now.

[ninwa]

thanks, guys
ninwa, i really have no idea of what i want to do. i guess i have other dreams, stuff that needs money to fund. but in terms of uni stuff, i like the idea of medicine because i wanna become an oncologist to really help people (how cliched), but hate the idea of studying so long. i like the idea of law because it's a commercial place, and thus i have heaps of people to talk to when i get bored, and then perhaps becoming a barrister and actually fighting in court, and the fact that you study less, but don't like the idea of reading so much, and not having things black/white. dentistry, i'll admit, is for the money to fund my other dreams, but that's pretty much out of the question now
so yeah, it sucks when your real passions lie outside any 'proper' or 'safe' career pathway.

Well, that's what I'm using my law degree for right now. It's nice to have money to pursue what I really enjoy, but I still have to do a job that bores me to sleep every week and go to classes to study things I couldn't care less about. Not really sure it's been worth it.

Quelle coïncidence, I also wanted to become an oncologist

With respect, "having heaps of people to talk to when I get bored" is a very silly reason to get into law. You want to spend 4+ years of your life in mind-numbing lectures reading 100+ page judgments written in extremely bad English and trying to wrap your head archaic and often contradictory concepts and then, when you finally graduate, only to find yourself working from 8am to 10pm 6 days a week because you're the lowly intern and therefore the partners unload all of their tedious, boring paperwork onto you... because you'll have people to talk to??

If you don't like reading, don't do law unless you're happy having a pass average (and most probably, your fair share of fails) throughout your degree (hint: 99.99% of law firms will not even consider you with those marks).

Also, the nature of our legal system means absolutely NOTHING is black and white. Do maths or sciences if you want that.

What are your passions, out of interest? I know what it's like facing a scary/unsafe preferred career path. Mine was (well, still is) music; probably one of the least secure degrees there is (your options are pretty much... research, or teaching). That's why I didn't go into music and I absolutely regret it now. I would rather have spent the last 5 years poor and happy.

[Truck]

thanks, guys
ninwa, i really have no idea of what i want to do. i guess i have other dreams, stuff that needs money to fund. but in terms of uni stuff, i like the idea of medicine because i wanna become an oncologist to really help people (how cliched), but hate the idea of studying so long. i like the idea of law because it's a commercial place, and thus i have heaps of people to talk to when i get bored, and then perhaps becoming a barrister and actually fighting in court, and the fact that you study less, but don't like the idea of reading so much, and not having things black/white. dentistry, i'll admit, is for the money to fund my other dreams, but that's pretty much out of the question now
so yeah, it sucks when your real passions lie outside any 'proper' or 'safe' career pathway.

Well, that's what I'm using my law degree for right now. It's nice to have money to pursue what I really enjoy, but I still have to do a job that bores me to sleep every week and go to classes to study things I couldn't care less about. Not really sure it's been worth it.

Quelle coïncidence, I also wanted to become an oncologist

With respect, "having heaps of people to talk to when I get bored" is a very silly reason to get into law. You want to spend 4+ years of your life in mind-numbing lectures reading 100+ page judgments written in extremely bad English and trying to wrap your head archaic and often contradictory concepts and then, when you finally graduate, only to find yourself working from 8am to 10pm 6 days a week because you're the lowly intern and therefore the partners unload all of their tedious, boring paperwork onto you... because you'll have people to talk to??

If you don't like reading, don't do law unless you're happy having a pass average (and most probably, your fair share of fails) throughout your degree (hint: 99.99% of law firms will not even consider you with those marks).

Also, the nature of our legal system means absolutely NOTHING is black and white. Do maths or sciences if you want that.

What are your passions, out of interest? I know what it's like facing a scary/unsafe preferred career path. Mine was (well, still is) music; probably one of the least secure degrees there is (your options are pretty much... research, or teaching). That's why I didn't go into music and I absolutely regret it now. I would rather have spent the last 5 years poor and happy.

This probably makes me some kind of freak, but the more I read your posts about Law the more I think it's perfect for me hahaha.

[ninwa]

Ah fuck me, a lawyer's supposed to be convincing... this is why I cannot be one

(however I am happy for you if it turns out you have a true passion for law, we need more of those in the industry)

[gibsonaxxxs]

oh man, ninwa, are u like an older me or something???
my main interest is music too (maybe my username makes more sense now, and less of an axe-murderer or something?!) also out of interest, what kind of music are you into? and oh boy do i know the instabilities of music as a career...
lemme guess - put med 1st preference, law after? (yeah i'm freaking sherlock)
can i ask, why did u decide to do law/arts anyway? if u wanted to pursue music? and what are you planning to do when you finish?
haha, no offence taken, it was a stupid reason anyways the truth is that it's a 'safe' option that, yeah, doesn't 'waste my atar' and all that shit, as well as gives me a stable income and, i guess, since i have no true passions in any 'proper' career, might as well be chosen... shit reasons, i know. but still, what can a muso do in this messed-up world???

thushan - YOU're doing bad in med??? mr 99.95+100%ile+50chem+..... oh shit. that's all i can say. oh oh oh shitttt.
but hey, good luck with getting the BMedSci - i'm sure u'll get the grades and yeah, parents and their 'safe' options

[pi]

Wanting to help people isn't cliched, it's one of the best reasons for doing anything.

It's cliched when it's not exactly true, and usually when it isn't exactly true, that seems to generally be the only reason people have because that's what they assume people want to hear. Deep down, the reason why a lot of the applicants (note "applicants", rather than "med/dent/etc. students") want to study med/dent:
1) Money (somewhat wrong take on reality)
2) Parents (worst reason)
3) It sounds "cool" (yeah, wtf)

And none of those reasons are the "right" reasons.

Also, "helping people" isn't really specific to medicine/dent either, could be used for nursing, working with troubled youth/homeless, teaching, and a variety of other courses.



On topic now:

This is nice from burbs:

Seriously: Law and med are fairly different, IMO. I'm doing CommLaw now and its great, but I've pretty much always been keen on law. I have a few friends who went the law path because they couldn't get into med. They aren't enjoying it. They thought doing law would be like TV when it seems to really just be reading.

I can vouch for the "They aren't enjoying it" part, the few that I know actually aren't enjoying it at all

[paulsterio]

It's cliched when it's not exactly true, and usually when it isn't exactly true, that seems to generally be the only reason people have because that's what they assume people want to hear. Deep down, the reason why a lot of the applicants (note "applicants", rather than "med/dent/etc. students") want to study med/dent:
1) Money (somewhat wrong take on reality)
2) Parents (worst reason)
3) It sounds "cool" (yeah, wtf)

And none of those reasons are the "right" reasons.

Also, "helping people" isn't really specific to medicine/dent either, could be used for nursing, working with troubled youth/homeless, teaching, and a variety of other courses.

Rather than helping people per se, I think it is much better to say that you care about people and their wellbeing and health. Otherwise, every single profession is helping people. This is because the reason why we do things is to, in some way or another, further society. Engineers help people by building safer structures, computer programmers help people by writing better and more efficient applications, a builder helps people by constructing houses.

So helping people isn't unique to medicine, but caring about people and their wellbeing and health is. You should also notice that medicine is one of the few careers where your life will be about interacting with others, if you're the type of person who likes a quiet office job, medicine isn't the job that you want, at all.

I agree with Rohit though, majority of people do medicine for those three reasons, as well as for power and chicks (thanks Russ).

Essentially, money isn't a bad thing, it's fairly common knowledge that doctors are well paid and very well off in society, they have stable employment on top of that as well. If money motivates you, I don't think that it will be too bad, but remember that you'll have to spend many years of being average before breaking through.

Parents, well, what can I say about parents. You have to think about whether you'll be happy being a doctor for the rest of your life because of your parents. Look, I know someone who wants to do medicine because of their parents and when I asked them this question, they said yes, they would be happy to be a doctor for the rest of their lives for their parents sake - so I guess that's fair enough then.

Well, it sounds "cool" - I can't say that it doesn't. But trust me, when you go out clubbing and you meet a nice girl and she asks you what course you do and you say, "Oh I do Medicine" - it's not the coolest sounding degree out there (trust me, I've tried it, positive response 60% of the time - but the other 40% of the time, you get the "you must be a nerd" response).

People say doctors get the girls, but if that's your motivation, well, I don't know, but personally, I would think twice about dating girls that are doing med (for personal reasons as well as wanting a bit of variety as well) - so I guess doctors aren't for everyone.

[ninwa]

oh man, ninwa, are u like an older me or something???
my main interest is music too (maybe my username makes more sense now, and less of an axe-murderer or something?!) also out of interest, what kind of music are you into? and oh boy do i know the instabilities of music as a career...
lemme guess - put med 1st preference, law after? (yeah i'm freaking sherlock)
can i ask, why did u decide to do law/arts anyway? if u wanted to pursue music? and what are you planning to do when you finish?
haha, no offence taken, it was a stupid reason anyways the truth is that it's a 'safe' option that, yeah, doesn't 'waste my atar' and all that shit, as well as gives me a stable income and, i guess, since i have no true passions in any 'proper' career, might as well be chosen... shit reasons, i know. but still, what can a muso do in this messed-up world???

I'm a classically trained pianist. There's like no jobs left for us out there unless you're amazingly good

Yep 1st two preferences med then arts/law because my parents wouldn't let me do straight arts. I wanted to do arts/music but only Monash offers it and my piano teacher is a lecturer at UoM and he banned me from doing music at Monash xD

I'm really only interested in the performance side so perhaps a music degree wouldn't have been right for me anyway. I was also interested in arts (languages) but my parents wouldn't let me "waste" my ATAR, so arts/law it was. And I still get to do concerts and competitions on the side, with the bonus that my (law-related) job can now fund my musical pursuits.

At this point I'm torn between being glad I have my job (which requires me to be a law student) so that I can pay for my music things, and being sad that I've chosen a career path I have zero interest in. I always wonder whether I couldn't have just taken up teaching or something instead, and been much happier with my life choices.

Go and have a read of the Law FAQ thread. It'll give you a rough idea of whether law is okay for you or not. None of us can tell you.

[paulsterio]

Well I guess you could always go back and do a degree in Music and follow whatever path you wanted somewhere down the track!