<p>ALL of my friends that do something with computers have basically never been in the unemployment line or swamped with $500k debt from medical school. 9-5 job with very comfortable living standards, no weekends, and no overtime. Biggest mistake in my life was never learning how to program a computer.</p>
<p>I work in the IT field, and I have to say there is plenty of overtime and evening work. And many, many “programming” jobs have been sent offshore. I don’t see much slowdown in that trend, either… In addition, the offshore component often adds to those evening hours, as team meetings in a 24x7 international workplace do not always occur between 8 & 5 in US time zones.</p>
<p>I can attest to the fact that computers are becoming increasingly prevalent in the workplace. The main purpose of my co-op experience was to implement a graphic user interface to basically make numbers appear on a computer screen, instead of having to go to the machine itself or the control room to get the reading. In reality, it’s so easy to do, but the seasoned engineers couldn’t do it, because they’re used to the old conventions. And apparently, it’s harder to learn things when you pass 40… joy… I’ve done several things in Excel that my boss apparently had no idea was possible, and he has probably worked with excel since the beginning, while I just look everything up in google and learn from there…</p>
<p>My nephew graduated 6 years ago with a programming and communications degree. He still works afternoons/evenings (1-9 or 2-10) and sometimes Saturdays, even with a promotion. It is the same employer he started with right out of college, so he hasn’t started over with seniority, either.</p>
<p>I hope some smart kids out there choose to help humanity by becoming doctors or medical researchers, and not just for the money. They shouldn’t have to go into crazy debt to do it, however. I would hate to think that money is the driving force behind what young people decide to do with their good brains.</p>
<p>My daughters bf is majoring in microbio. I don’t know if he is thinking of med school, he certainly would be a fantastic Dr. if he is. Very compassionate & intelligent.
I can easily see him working with Doctors without Borders.</p>
<p>There is much more to life than paying off your school loans.</p>
<p>There are ways to pay them off… I have two cousins who worked in healthcare for the Indian Health Service to pay off loans (one a doc, one a nurse). One ended up making a career of it, and helped a lot of people who did not have great access to health care in the process. Our family is pretty proud of him… and he did not have to found a famous tech company to accomplish that. Nothing against Gates/Zuckerberg, but there are a lot of paths to success, and a lot of definitions of success as well. In fact, you will notice that Gates has shifted his attention to philanthropy in recent years. So his definition of success isn’t just learning to program/coming out of school without debt.</p>
<p>I was certainly not advocating people go into deep debt. However, some are arranging their debt so that it is managable, & they have much bigger goals than buying stuff.</p>
<p>" I would hate to think that money is the driving force behind what young people decide to do with their good brains."</p>
<p>For a lot of people it is. I still think that for most, money is important factor but not the most important factor. The smartest kid at my school wants to do academic research-level mathematics. I want to work in human rights. He could do whatever he wants, and I honestly think I could make it to BigLaw if I set my mind to it. If we were to chose paths based on money, we would chose differently</p>
<p>Doctor’s can get at least some, if not all, of their med school loans paid off if they agree to some conditions. The conditions vary by program, state, and specialty.</p>
<p>The program in the left column is clickable to give more info. So, doctor’s that want to serve lower income people, or want to work off their loans instead of paying them, have ways of doing so.</p>
<p>when I heard free breakfast, lunch and dinner, and saw people playing ping pong during their breaks, my eyes started welling up. These guys know how to keep their employees happy.</p>
<p>Having been in medicine for 30 years and taught many med students it seems that the idealist doctor changes to the realistic doctor right about graduation. They are looking at huge debt and trying to figure out the next least painful move they can make. Many choose more lucrative residencies and fields if they can get them. They forgo their dream of being a family doc. H and I were lucky enough to go to med school when it was actually reasonable (state supported) and were able to live below our means to pay them off in 10 years. That situation does not exist now and what I would do now is unclear.</p>
<p>The huge amount of debt that new MDs typically have puts pressure on them to choose the highest paying specialties, even if they would otherwise prefer to choose lower paying specialties like the primary care ones.</p>
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<p>Many pre-meds are lucky to get into one medical school, so they may not really have the choice to attend a lower cost one that will result in less debt.</p>
<p>Two physician parents here- we couldn’t MAKE our son- strong willed like his parents- do anything. He chose math and added computer science for practicality in college. Never took the premed classes to be eligible for medical school. </p>
<p>Everyone growing up today needs more computer skills than the last generation did, even physicians. Gates and Zuckerman were lucky to get in on the ground level of their aspects of computing. </p>
<p>The world still needs people of all kinds- humanities and STEM fields and trades and all of the others. Too many in any one area makes it harder to get work- think supply and demand.</p>
<p>Parents were foolish to try to make their smart child become a doctor generations ago as well as today- nothing new. Remember the movie The Graduate- plastics?</p>