I’m a junior in high school and am not entirely sure what I would like to go into a career or what I’d want to major in.
I like the medical field and would enjoy being a pediatrician since I like working with kids, but the length of education and costs of medical school throw me off a little.
I have a friend who is in software engineering now (and my dad is, too), and she loves it. I wouldn’t necessarily enjoy it as much as I would working as a pediatrician, but I think the education would be better fit for me. After hearing about it from her, I’ve gotten really interested in it. I think that the path to becoming one is more appealing than the stress of becoming a doctor.
Money-wise, I know that a doctor would most likely make more money, but I would also have more student debt as a doctor.
What are your opinions and which seems to be a better option for a career path?
I think that you have a lot of time before you need to make this decision. You can plan ahead by looking for colleges with both options available to you. If you find a college with engineering program, it will prob also have premed courses, since those are pretty standard. That being said, you can try engineering and then later do a postbac if you decide to become a doctor then. You can also do a postbac if you need to retake a premed requirement.
There are a few LACs with engineering, and most major universities have engineering. My personal preference is LAC for undergrad and university for grad, because you get more personal attention, but everyone is different.
LACs with engineering include: Sweet Briar, Smith, Union, Swarthmore, Harvey Mudd. There may be others. You may want to also consider Rose-Hulman, which is an engineering undergrad school with a lot of personalized attention.
^Agreed with the above. You have some time, especially as a junior. I’d encourage you to do some reading and maybe try to shadow someone with the jobs you are interested in. There are lots and lots of jobs other than software development and pediatrician. There are even other jobs you can do within the medical field that would allow you to work with kids - like nursing,* physical or occupational therapy, speech-language pathology, medical physics, physician assistant, dental hygienist, psychologist/counselor, and respiratory therapy. And there are lots of other careers in technology aside from engineering.
One thing I would say, though, is don’t let fear or apprehension drive you into a career. You want to pick your career on the basis of affirmative qualities - aka, things you actually like about the career - rather than running away from something else. In other words, you should be able to say “I want to be an X because I like W, Y, and Z things about the career,” and not “I want to be an X because the people around me were Xes and it made it easier to break into.”
*Nursing, I think, is a really good alternative career for someone who thinks they might like to be a doctor but isn’t sure about the time and expense of medical school. Nurses take on a lot more autonomy of care in hospitals and other settings than they used to, and there are advanced roles for nurses - like nurse practitioner, clinical nursing specialist and clinical nurse leader - that give nurses a much wider scope of practice than you might imagine. If you ever get tired of hospital or floor nursing, there are lots of other types of nursing - school nurse, research nurse, nurse epidemiologist/infection control, consultant nurses, even nurse informaticists, who blend software engineering and nursing together. Nurses make good salaries and have a lot of flexibility in their schedules, as well as geographic mobility. I wish more young people would consider nursing as a viable health related career!