I am a soon to me graduating high school senior. I got a really nice merit scholarship to Miami University. This college also has five year masters degree program for speech pathology and audiology. I could use my scholarship for my masters degree (graduating debt free, with some money left over) as long as I don’t file to get my status changed to a graduate student. I was also considering graduating in 3 years and going to medical school. I am heavily leaning towards the first option, but I want some more opinions.
***I would be happy with both of these careers. If I were a doctor I would want to be child neurologist. I currently work as a play therapist for an autistic child and I love it. I want to professionally continue to work with children with autism, which I can do in both of these fields.
You only live once. Shoot for the medical degree. Can you get the scholarship for four years? You want to have enough time to do well in all the chemistry, biology and physics classes you will need, as well as time to study for the MCAT. Congrats on the $$!
I doubt you know enough about both of these careers to decide. A neurologist does not see the same child weekly or several times a week the way a therapist does. You’d be equally happy either way?
But then I guess “child neurologist” is your latest choice in the medical field since in November you wrote
Lets be frank here. You seem to have have a definite interest in the medical field but to try and make decisions at this point seems both unnecessary and premature.
PurpleTitan is absolutely on target. There is no reason why you couldn’t complete the pre-med coursework while working on a speech path degree. You don’t need to decide about this just yet.
This I don’t understand, and I think you need to do more investigation into this. Typically speaking you don’t have to “file” to change your status from undergrad to grad student; the university will do it for you automatically depending on your degree seeking status. Often the financial aid depends on what program it is - if you are in a 5-year BA/MA program often you are considered an undergrad for financial aid purposes for all 5 years, because you technically don’t even finish the BA until year 5. But if you do a 4+1 program where you formally transition from BA to MA, and you finish the BA in 4 years, then it really isn’t about whether you file or not - it’s about the college/university’s designation.
So I would inquire and be sure that your scholarship would work for the master’s degree. You also want to make sure that your scholarship will cover more than four years; some scholarships won’t.
Either way, with that aside, I agree that you are making this decision too early. If you think you might want med school, you should begin the pre-med coursework your freshman year but keep an open mind and begin to explore the SLP path (and other pathways). Usually you apply to these 5 year programs in your junior year anyway, so you have some time.