Advice - 27 years, Comp Engg graduate, been working for 4 years

[softieToMed]

Hi folks!

I did my undergrad in computer Engineering (2005) and have been working since then in Seattle. I am thinking about going to medical school (I come back to this every few months). I will never get the satisfaction I need from staying in Engineering, so I am realizing that I should take the itch seriously.

I plan to start seriously volunteering to validate before making any serious decisions. However, I was wondering if this forum had any particular advice for my situation. My undergrad GPA is between 3.5 and 3.6 with some extra curriculars, but I have no research experience whatsoever. I also have no Bio/Chem pre-reqs but probably have the physics/math/humanities.

If I decide to make the jump, it would be to pursue clinical + research/policy.

Should I do another degree (masters + thesis)? Or just the two years of coursework? How bad does the non-research experience look? I could probably get decent letters of recommendation from Sr engineers at work, but I bet they don't count for much in academia.

What are good schools for pursuing research/policy on top of clinical? (other than UofT).

By the time I can start medical school, I will be 30. Any outright reality checks are welcome

Prior to moving to Seattle, I was an Ontario resident. Does this limit me to Ontario med schools? (which also seem to be the most competitive)

Thanks in advance! great forum!

[JTG]

Hi,

I don't see any issues with you pursueing medicine if that is what you want to do.

To be safe though, I would definitely start volunteering somewhere that gives you some clinical exposure before giving up your job / moving / starting school again. Who knows maybe you would be happy to continue in your current career, but enjoy volunteering doing something different in your free time.

Your age is not much of an issue, in the grand scheme of things you are not very old. I am turning 32 and starting first year medicine at U of Ottawa this fall, and am not particularly concerned about it. There are many many years left to work....its important to find something you enjoy doing...

I am not going to pretend to be an expert on all the various admission rules, each school is different, so you will need to look each one of them up. As a mature student I would think that going back and doing a Masters (Biomedical engineering?) and taking the remaining prerequisite courses you need on the side would be the most interesting route. I am not sure how the med schools would count these marks though. I know a lot of schools only count marks from terms in which you take a full course load.....I would definitely figure this out before deciding.

Good luck.

[Spacko]

Hey softie,

I can empathize with your situation as it's got some similarities to my own. I took a six year break between my undergrad and eventually getting accepted to medicine (class of 2013), I'm currently 30 myself.

Medicine was always what I wanted to do since I was young, but after getting rejected after undergrad, not having much more than an 80% avg, I pursued graduate school and found myself starting to 'look for reasons' as to why Medicine probably wasn't for me anyways. 'I'm too old, I'll probably never be accepted anyways, The work is probably too time consuming for a happy life, It'll be hard on my family anyways..." In any event, I finally realized that I was just trying to make the best of something I was unsuccessful at, and that's not what I wanted my mental legacy to be when I was older.

So I got back on my horse, completed 3 additional pre-reqs I had never taken (O-chem), studied and wrote the MCAT twice, stepped up my volunteer efforts to a higher level... and about two years later I'm ready to enter Medicine!

If you're really serious about it, and you put in the effort to get yourself prepared (given where you are in life), I think that counts for something and will likely be recognized by the admissions committees. It takes some preparation though, so work through what you need to do and see if you're still willing to make the sacrifices after a year or two.

With regards to your questions about courses, I would look into the possibilities of doing a graduate degree (e.g. an MSc) and see if you can take the pre-req courses while in the grad program. During my PhD studies I completed my required chem classes at no extra cost (most schools require a set tuition regardless) while completing my research. ...At least you'd get a higher level degree and some research experience in addition to your required courses.

UBC has a school of public health that may hold some interest for you and you wouldn't have to be too far from Seattle (assuming you have some ties there).

Oh, and I'm not certain about residential status, but my guess is that you'd currently be listed as an Ontario resident (so you'd only be 'in-province' for Ontario schools). However, if you did your coursework/grad degree in another province, you'd likely have the choice of whether you wished to remain an Ontario resident, or you could choose to be classified as a resident of X province. You have to choose one the other as your 'home' province in the end. No double dipping!

Good luck and keep us posted on your decisions!

PS. I think Seattle is a great city.

[Rayven]

Originally Posted by softieToMed

My undergrad GPA is between 3.5 and 3.6 with some extra curriculars, but I have no research experience whatsoever. I also have no Bio/Chem pre-reqs but probably have the physics/math/humanities.

You'll need to bump up your GPA to at least a 3.7 (80%) to be considered competitive. Also I'm wondering about your course load per year.

Regarding pre-reqs, some schools don't require them but that'd severely limit your choices.

Originally Posted by softieToMed

Should I do another degree (masters + thesis)? Or just the two years of coursework? How bad does the non-research experience look? I could probably get decent letters of recommendation from Sr engineers at work, but I bet they don't count for much in academia.

A masters degree usually doesn't help much at most schools. However it does carry some weight at UofT if you manage to turn out a lot of publications. I forget which med school it was but one or two of them will add 0.1 or 0.2 to your cGPA if you finish a Masters.

Also note that if you start a new degree then some schools like Western will require that you finish that degree before you can apply.

Having done no research isn't a terrible thing. You should only pursue research if that's what you're interested in. A lot of students get into med school without ever doing gaining any research experience.

LORs from work are good. I think most people usually get a LOR from work, a LOR from a doctor or prof/supervisor, and a LOR from their volunteer coordinator.

Originally Posted by softieToMed

By the time I can start medical school, I will be 30. Any outright reality checks are welcome

I'm going to say to you what someone said to me before..

One day, you'll be 30 anyways. Would you rather be 30 and doing what you are now or would you rather be doing something else?

Originally Posted by softieToMed

Prior to moving to Seattle, I was an Ontario resident. Does this limit me to Ontario med schools? (which also seem to be the most competitive)

Thanks in advance! great forum!

It doesn't limit you to Ontario med schools however it you gain pretty much no In Province (IP) advantages. The only school that I know of that will give you a 0.05 GPA advantage for being an Ontario resident is Ottawa.

If you do move back to Canada and you can afford it... I'd highly recommend going to either do a new undergrad or just additional years at a university outside of Ontario. I think to establish residency you just need to be living/going to school in a province for 2 years.

Anyways, hope that helps.

[Satsuma]

Agreed with previous post...a grad degree will do little for you if what you need is to raise your GPA.

You could do grad school and take the undergrad prereq courses at the same time (you will likely need permission from your supervisor to take those courses since they won`t be directly related to your project). But why? Research isn`t necessary to gain admission to med school, you will signing up for at least 2 years of school and you could prob just do your prereqs faster on their own, you will take a large paycut for these 2+ years even if you get really solid funding...so why not just keep working as an engineer, even just part time and take the prereqs.

[Dampy]

You should check if you overloaded during your eng degree (i.e. more than 5 full credits per year)....I'm guessing you did (if you finished it in 4 years), in which case you probably have at least one year above 3.75 according to westerns weighting scheme.

If you bust your butt like starting today and write a late summer early fall mcat you could potentially make it in for this cycle.

[softieToMed]

Regarding GPA/Courseload:
Hm, I have an 80+ across all my years, but when I use the conversion scales (I went to Waterloo which gives out percentages) converting each course's percentage to GPA, I end up with something between 3.5 and 3.6. I think 3.7 is 85% and above which I have in my last few terms but not consistently (I have a stats course that is positively a blight (68%)). I have a full or in some terms higher courseload, so I should be okay there.

But your point of bumping it to 3.7 still stands. The question then is how..

Part time coursework wouldn't count towards bumping GPA, just meeting the pre-reqs right?

It would be interesting to be combine the pre-req coursework and some research for a prof under full courseload. That would give me the immersion, hopefully GPA bump and an LOR. (and some credibility). Thoughts?

A complete graduate degree might get distracting in itself.. especially if it is engineering again.

Doing it at UBC would also be interesting because I could potentially keep working part time for my current employer.

(a little aggressive maybe)
So Year 1: Immersion in volunteer/validation
Year 2: full time Coursework + research (+ volunteer)
Year 3: MCAT & Application + (work? courses? volunteer? )
Year 4: hopefully acceptance or.. (here a graduate degree program would be more useful)

[Dampy]

it seems like a well thought out plan.

but just an FYI, you only need one year above 3.75 (last years cutoffs) to get a provisional interview at western, as long as your mcat holds up, your marks aren't that bad so i'm thinking one of those years where did more than 5 courses could count for that. Sorry should mention, because western only counts best 5 courses towards GPA.

Also u of t will remove your 4 worst courses.

[Rayven]

Keep in mind that most schools use special weighting formulas. UofT for example allows you to drop your lowest mark for each full-time year which I'm guessing would do wonders for that 68% stat course.

Also, I don't think you need to take an entire your year out for each step. You could start school and volunteering at the same time. If you plan to keep working then just cut back on some of the volunteering hours.

The MCAT can also be written multiple times with virtually no consequence here in Canada (different story in the USA). No need to take an entire year off just for the MCAT. I'd suggest you buy some MCAT books (Exam Krackers for example) and study up for the MCAT now in your free time.. especially since it's a good way to get ready to take those science pre-reqs anyways. The EK MCAT books are about 150 pages per subject. It'd take maybe a week to go through a subject if you go slowly or just a 2-3 days if you're just straight out flipping through it.

Year 1: Courses + Volunteer + Work + MCAT
Year 2: Volunteer + Work + MCAT (repeat if necessary) + Another year of undergrad if you need it

[softieToMed]

I bought Exam Krackers - it has a fair number of typos that makes me distrust it. Can anyone recommend textbooks for Level 1/2 Bio/Chem? I think that would be a good accompaniment to Exam Krackers/Kaplans.

I guess I should recalculate my GPA - it's been a while since I went through that exercise and the rules may have changed.

Thanks for all the feedback!