Hi everyone,
Not sure if it's the right place to ask. But I am a bit curious about why there are notmany people applying for graduate entry medicine or dentistry through professional programs like oral health or pharmacy etc? Is it mainly because of the workload, length of degree and rigidity of the degree structure? Because on one hand, doing such professional programs will give you career opportunities to fall back on right?
Are there more applicants getting accepted through bsc or bmedsc rather than pharmacy or oral health etc?
And also how do you guys choose your backup options in case you didn't get into medicine? My parents are still not supportive of my decision to try for graduate entry,as they are concerned about my career prospects with just a "theoretical" science degree. How can I convince them? Are there some bsc or bmedsc degree that have relatively good job prospects compared to others?
sorry for the extremely long and random message.Thank you for reading all the way to the end.
From what I gather, the rigidity, length and workload are pretty big factors in not taking a professional program. While no option is "easy" per se when going for post-grad entry, taking a professional course makes it hard to alter your workload and papers in a way that makes it more manageable and more likely to score much needed high grades. At the same time though, it definitely does give you a back up option to fall back on. Anecdotally, lots of people going for post-grad dent via oral health actually realise oral health is more for them and take that over dentistry, so I guess you never know. You've pretty much highlighted the advantages of both pathways in that first paragraph haha
Never heard much about certain degrees having more applicants accepted really. I remember sitting in on a biomed course advice thing as a year 13 that claimed to have more biomed applicants getting into post-grad med, but tbh I wouldn't believe this claim really. Either you do the work to get in and get the grades or you don't, personally I don't think the degree you're taking matters compared to a good work ethic and using a study technique that works for you.
Lastly, the way I always looked at it was that going for grad entry gives you another chance at something you really wanna do, compared to just settling on something half-heartedly that you're not 100% on taking. Going through grad entry gives you another shot at the dream, and other back up options like pharmacy, optom, etc. will still be there when you try through grad entry and if you keep up the work, getting accepted into those options shouldn't be too much of a worry; if you can get in now you'll be able enough to get in later. Of course, that's easy for me to say as I got in via HSFY and didn't have to go through the 2 years of uncertainty that post-grad applicants have to go through and people I know going through it definitely say it's tough and many of my friends have just opted to go for a professional course instead and stick with that. But if you really wanna get in and can keep the drive and motivation for another two years, then it could be worth trying. At the end of the day though, it's your decision and whichever decision you make, I'm sure it'll be the right one, good luck!
TLDR; General degrees have more flexibility, professional degrees have more robust career paths, any degree can work for you if you have the work ethic and a technique that works for you and go for post grad if you don't wanna give up just yet