What do you think of this career/uni plan? (CS+ med)

So Im currently a year 12 student taking biology, chemistry and maths. I decided to drop fm in september because I found it too stressful and at the time, I wanted to do medicine, for which further maths is not required. I've been hearing great things about how CS is an amazing degree, with good work life balance, lots of transferable skills etc, but a lot of unis prefer people taking physics, comp sci, fm etc for a bsc in computer science. So i thought that maybe if I catch up on the 3 months of fm I missed (totalling to 160 hours of missed work - lessons + homework), I can maybe opt for a bachelors in computer science, followed by GEM. The total amount of time it would take is 7 years, which is essentially how long it would take for a medicine degree (5-7 years) so I don't feel like I'd be missing out on much, and end up with more job opportunities. My main aim is to ensure better career stability and have a good work-life balance; I've heard horror stories about the NHS, and CS on the other hand, despite some economic downturns, seems to have good job prospects overall (though I'm worried about stuff like outsourcing). Although, here are some of the issues...

- However, I've never in my life had any interest in coding and programming. I only did a bit of python in Year 9 as part of computer science, but I didnt really enjoy it and was pretty bad at it as well ( compared to my peers who were much more logical).
- I'm also horrible at problem solving. My strength is my memory, which is why I initially picked medicine as a career. For reference, I've only ever gotten bronzes in the ukmt and smc ( maths challenges in yr 11 and yr 12) while my peers typically get gold and olympiad stuff.
- I'm worried I'll find coding incredibly boring and tiring, as I haven't had much experience in it yet. I'll try my best to catch up and learn more, but I also have 160 hours of fm to catch up on, which I doubt will be the case.
I dont know if my school will allow it so im considering a gap year.
- I'm worried that doing 4 a levels will take away time spent socialising with family, friends etc ( doing 4 was already stressful for me).
- a lot of GEM courses require a related degree e.g. bio, chem etc
- I dont know if GEM costs more than undergrad med, as Ive only checked a few websites.

I still love medicine as a subject, but every teacher (and doctors online) I've spoken to have said that there are much better jobs other than medicine, and its no longer the career for academically able students ( for context, I have all 8s and 9s but I did struggle with topics like physics and fm at gcse). Another thing is that I really mainly enjoy the academic aspect of medicine, and not really the patient communication aspect. I'm quite an introverted person, so I dont feel I'd be a great fit for medicine. However, I've gotten a bit better through socialising a bit more by volunteering at a local hospital, although I'm still very awkward and often bad at interpreting social cues ( i have the emotional intelligence of a potato). Although I dont enjoy interacting with strangers a lot, I am okay with interacting with a familiar team of people - which a computer science jobs has a lot more ( although medicine does have a bit of that too). So that is my rationale behind why Im thinking of doing computer science first and then medicine. The latter I love a lot more, but I think I would need to do a bit more investigating into computer science as I do want to have a creative job, which jobs like software engineering seem to be. However, even if I don't get a job in a computer science related field, I've heard that employers place good value on the problem solving and mathematical skills you gain from the degree, and so I could also work in an adjacent degree e.g. finance.

So.. what do you think? Please criticise this plan as much as you can, I really appreciate any feedback. I don't know if my school will allow me to pick up further maths again, so what other ways could I do further maths? We do have AS level fm here, but im not sure if theyll allow it in year 13. I also am thinking about doing a gap year and study further maths ( and maybe even physics) but I don't think I could cover the costs financially and so would have to find an institution to complete it at.

Reply 1

Dunnig Kruger

If you want to earn money from an IT job, if you're good at self motivating and getting on with things - which you should be with 8's and 9's, you're better off not going to uni at all.
You're better off getting some training in a specialisation, getting certified in that specialisation, getting a starter job in that area and taking things from there.

If you find you don't enjoy that specialisation, swap to another specialisation. And keep going till you find something where you don't hate getting up in the morning to go to work.

Medicine is also fantastic if you can get into it.
Don't listen to your teachers when it comes to careers advice. They're just teachers. They don't have a clue. They've never been doctors. They've never created their own successful IT business.

A proportion of doctors are negative about their careers. I look at them and think "They don't seem to mind their pay levels. And if they weren't doing doctoring they still wouldn't be happy and they'd be earning a lot less money."

There's training and mentorship you can take to help with your introversion and rudimentary people skills. With the skipping uni approach you should plough some of your income in to paying for good quality training and self development.