The Student Room Group

medicine vs cs

This is a quite silly question, but it’s something i’ve been contemplating for months now- medicine or cs.

After finishing my GCSES, and checking my marks on leaked papers i’m expecting a 9999999887 and i nedd to pick my a levels soon and this will determine my future career especially for medicine.

Throughout education i’ve been passionate about medicine and tech, both equally however i’m struggling to see what i want to go into. I’m either chosing maths, physics, cs or maths,biology,chemistry; one combination opening me up to finance/cs and another opening me up to medicine. I would love to take all of these A levels if i could.

I’m only interested in money and worklife balance- people always say you should never be a medic for the money but that’s just silly. If I’m rewarded with status and money i’ll do my job to the best of my ability and still strive to help others. worklife balance is crucial to me as i want as much time as i can get with my family, as i am quite family oriented and it means a lot to me, explaining my desire to have a high income.

with careers in finance/cs i feel like it’s harder to get into, please correct me if i’m wrong. there’s more skills to learn, networking is important and it requires luck to ‘know people’. i feel like its harder to break into while for medicine all you need to do is get good a levels, a good ucat and ur degree. to me, medicine is more linear and before i hear people say it’s hard, personally it looks much easier to me. i’ve done mock ucat tests and scored quite well considering i’m only 16, but i’m not here to flaunt and i’m aware that there’s many people smarter than me. again, everything i’m saying could be wrong, so please correct me. also i feel like medicine pays more- i’m looking to go into GP or dentistry, GP because its been my dream job as a child and because i’m amazed about how much knowledge one person can have about the human body, the latter being purely for the salary, as if someone asked me ‘why do you want to be a dentist’ i genuinely would not know. however i’m aware of all the debts and its something i want to avoid as much as possible since i’m a muslim and interest is forbidden. however i’ve read that doctors have higher lifetime earnings compared to those in tech. however it’ll take 10-12 years to break into an actual decent salary. also, you need to do A level chemistry and i’m not particularly passionate about chemistry compared to physics and cs. now with careers in finance and cs, i feel like there’s less earning potential and to land a high paying job simmilar to those in medicine, you need to be in quant finance or investment banking etc, which requires immense mathematical skills. while mathematics is a great passion of mine, i wouldn’t take it to a degree level thus i wouldn’t deem myself suitable to those highly mathematical jobs. I’ve heard that work hours are very long in finance which puts me off since i need a good work life balance, however with cs you can work from home. also its worth noting that another reason i want a good work life balance is because i want to go into entrepreneurship and one day own a startup; being in finance or cs equips me with great transferable skills. however i should also mention that cs is getting very oversaturated; whats your opinion on that? one of my friends is an extremely smart guy, landing around the same gcse results as me except he’s much more better than me at maths. he’s doing maths further maths and physics and wants to go into software engineering/artificial intelligence. in his opinion, medicine is way harder to him however to me its the opposite. i feel like medicine is much easier as i excel highly in scientific subjects relative to maths however both are strong for me.

what do you guys think will be the best career choice for me to go into? I’m literally only focused on money and time. being as nice as possible, please don’t give me a philosophical reason why i shouldn’t do something for the money; i’m from a deprived backround and financial freedom is my ultimate goal.

Reply 1

if you wanna have a start up, why do you want to be a doctor? why do you not work on your startup idea over the summer? Working in CS/having physics and tech background will be more useful in my opinion if that's what you wanna do. And if your start up works ( maybe not the first or the second one but ultimately one should) then you would end up with way more money than a doctor. There is a difference between having your own business/being entrepreneur and the security of a salary though. So taking up CS is a good idea because you will probably find a job that you can quit easily when your start up works whereas a doctor it's more difficult because you are studying towards something (even as an F1/F2 S1 S2 S3) and you feel a bit silly not working as a doctor after all these years studying. Also, wait till A Levels to make a decision about how much you like maths and physics etc. You might decide on your first day that it is not for you and change your options.

Reply 2

"I’m literally only focused on money and time"

Then forget anything to do with Medicine.

Look at course like this 4-year degree at Bristol - MEng Computer Science with Innovation | Study at Bristol | University of Bristol or any CS degree course that includes AI - that is where the future money is.

Reply 3

Original post by fallxcy
This is a quite silly question, but it’s something i’ve been contemplating for months now- medicine or cs.
After finishing my GCSES, and checking my marks on leaked papers i’m expecting a 9999999887 and i nedd to pick my a levels soon and this will determine my future career especially for medicine.
Throughout education i’ve been passionate about medicine and tech, both equally however i’m struggling to see what i want to go into. I’m either chosing maths, physics, cs or maths,biology,chemistry; one combination opening me up to finance/cs and another opening me up to medicine. I would love to take all of these A levels if i could.
I’m only interested in money and worklife balance- people always say you should never be a medic for the money but that’s just silly. If I’m rewarded with status and money i’ll do my job to the best of my ability and still strive to help others. worklife balance is crucial to me as i want as much time as i can get with my family, as i am quite family oriented and it means a lot to me, explaining my desire to have a high income.
with careers in finance/cs i feel like it’s harder to get into, please correct me if i’m wrong. there’s more skills to learn, networking is important and it requires luck to ‘know people’. i feel like its harder to break into while for medicine all you need to do is get good a levels, a good ucat and ur degree. to me, medicine is more linear and before i hear people say it’s hard, personally it looks much easier to me. i’ve done mock ucat tests and scored quite well considering i’m only 16, but i’m not here to flaunt and i’m aware that there’s many people smarter than me. again, everything i’m saying could be wrong, so please correct me. also i feel like medicine pays more- i’m looking to go into GP or dentistry, GP because its been my dream job as a child and because i’m amazed about how much knowledge one person can have about the human body, the latter being purely for the salary, as if someone asked me ‘why do you want to be a dentist’ i genuinely would not know. however i’m aware of all the debts and its something i want to avoid as much as possible since i’m a muslim and interest is forbidden. however i’ve read that doctors have higher lifetime earnings compared to those in tech. however it’ll take 10-12 years to break into an actual decent salary. also, you need to do A level chemistry and i’m not particularly passionate about chemistry compared to physics and cs. now with careers in finance and cs, i feel like there’s less earning potential and to land a high paying job simmilar to those in medicine, you need to be in quant finance or investment banking etc, which requires immense mathematical skills. while mathematics is a great passion of mine, i wouldn’t take it to a degree level thus i wouldn’t deem myself suitable to those highly mathematical jobs. I’ve heard that work hours are very long in finance which puts me off since i need a good work life balance, however with cs you can work from home. also its worth noting that another reason i want a good work life balance is because i want to go into entrepreneurship and one day own a startup; being in finance or cs equips me with great transferable skills. however i should also mention that cs is getting very oversaturated; whats your opinion on that? one of my friends is an extremely smart guy, landing around the same gcse results as me except he’s much more better than me at maths. he’s doing maths further maths and physics and wants to go into software engineering/artificial intelligence. in his opinion, medicine is way harder to him however to me its the opposite. i feel like medicine is much easier as i excel highly in scientific subjects relative to maths however both are strong for me.
what do you guys think will be the best career choice for me to go into? I’m literally only focused on money and time. being as nice as possible, please don’t give me a philosophical reason why i shouldn’t do something for the money; i’m from a deprived backround and financial freedom is my ultimate goal.

I am in the exact same situation as u. I want to be either a doctor or a software engineer. I am not that passionate about chemistry or biology too! but the thing is, it's harder for programmers to get jobs as they are being replaced by AI..so i actually have no idea what to choose

Reply 4

Original post by wilderose
if you wanna have a start up, why do you want to be a doctor? why do you not work on your startup idea over the summer? Working in CS/having physics and tech background will be more useful in my opinion if that's what you wanna do. And if your start up works ( maybe not the first or the second one but ultimately one should) then you would end up with way more money than a doctor. There is a difference between having your own business/being entrepreneur and the security of a salary though. So taking up CS is a good idea because you will probably find a job that you can quit easily when your start up works whereas a doctor it's more difficult because you are studying towards something (even as an F1/F2 S1 S2 S3) and you feel a bit silly not working as a doctor after all these years studying. Also, wait till A Levels to make a decision about how much you like maths and physics etc. You might decide on your first day that it is not for you and change your options.


ah sorry for the misconception; if i do take the cs route, i’d want to have a start up. but if i take the medicine route i’d like to have my own practise

Reply 5

hmm honestly I was in ur same situation 2 years ago, I chose to apply for tech cos the field is constantly evolving and the money is there. You say that it’s oversaturated but if you work towards becoming a data scientist (who work with ai) you could earn way more than a doctor would ever earn. Honestly, seeing as u don’t have any passion for it, don’t do med - that’s like 12 years of ur dedication and time when there’s shorter routes to making money. Tbh work experience is the best thing to seeing if you’d enjoy a job. Try getting work experience in a hospital and see if you can see yourself there. Finally, I’d like to add that a degree apprenticeship might be wise to apply for if you want to do tech. In year 12 start going to diff websites and applying for work experience and summer programmes to increase your chances. And then y13 apply for as many companies as you can. I’m Muslim too, this way you’re getting paid, you get a free degree and hands on work experience which is really a win win.

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