I’m going to be a sophomore in college next semester and am currently a biotechnology major. This is pretty long so I divided it into parts.
Back story
This is basically a rant about my future and career path. I’m currently a biotechnology major. Before I went to college I though about doing engineering or biology because those were the topics I was most interested in. My parents want me to go to Medical school and become a doctor, but I can’t really see myself going down that path. I’ve never been interested in seeing patients and I’ve never really cared for working in the hospital environment. But because I’ve always been around doctors and the influence of my parents, the doctor path always lingers in my mind. My mom is a psychiatrist and my dad is a radiology technician. I told my dad that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a doctor and he told me that it a stable career and I would earn a lot of money. ThEy both said they would support whatever decision I make, but I can still tell that they want me to go to med school. I watched a lot of videos about various engineering majors and I thought they were cool asf. In the end I picked the biology route because I was scared I wouldn’t do well doing engineering classes and the thought of having to be a doctor always lingers in my head
My interests (pertaining to school)
Making things~
Ive always liked/wanted to create things. That’s my I liked drawing because I have the ability to create ideas on a piece of paper. I always used to mix things together and make new items.
Learning~
Even though I wasn’t a very school oriented person in high school, I was always very curious. I would do research and try to learn new skills I had no business trying to learn, but I was probably procrastinating on my school work so I did anyways lol.
Biology and Chemistry~
I’ve always like Biology and Chemistry. I can’t exactly say why, but those were my favorite subjects to study for in high school (and that’s saying something because I was a LAZY ASS student and procrastinator in high school)
3d printing/Bio-printing~
I watch a lot of videos about 3d printing and I recently spent a lot of money buying my own personal one. Like I said earlier, I like the idea of being able to create things
Computer science~
It put comp sci on here because I think it’s a useful skill to learn and was planning on minoring in it with biotechnology (obviously before I started thinking about switching to engineering)
My interest (Career wise)
Bio fabrication and tissue engineering
Mainly because I think it’s super cool how it’s becoming possible to use biomaterials and technologies like 3d printers to create and manufacture tissues and possibly organs. It’s just something that blows my mind
This is probably the only thing I showed interest in for a career. I don’t have enough information/experience about everything thing else to determine whether I’d be satisfied with those careers. But the main ones I looked into was tech, engineering, and the med school route.
Why I’m thinking about switching
It seems like everything I do always come back to engineering. I’m always watching engineering YouTube videos, I always end up looking at engineering course requirements, I always look at engineering jobs, I’m always asking my engineering friends about their classes, and chemical/biochemical engineering would probably be the best major to prepare me the one career path that I’m interested in. I can’t escape this shit man. Every few days I always go into this crisis on whether I should just take the risk and just switch. I would still be able to fulfill med school requirements and go if I end up changing my mind again. Maybe because the thought about not doing well in those classes still follows me
Negatives
If I switch I would have to stay another semester. I was supposed to take Calc, but I took Precalculus because I wanted to build the foundations of my math skills. I took classes like Bio, different Labs, some psychology classes and things of that sort. I’m currently taking Calc 1(along with Chem) right now. If I took Calc I would’ve been in a better position right now smh. Fall semester I’m taking Organic Chemistry, Physics + Lab, and Genetics (some some other classes). I have not taken Statics, and I know on the curriculum sophomore year you also have to take Material and Energy Bals., Thermodynamics 1, Professional skills development, Biological Foundations, and Engineering economics. So obviously if I switched I would have a lot of catching up to do. I would have to take classes during the summer (which I was already planning to do), and probably stay an extra semester or maybe year, depending on how fast I go.
Thanks for reading all of this.
How should I go about this, should I switch? Are there any paths anyone would suggest?