Killer of a decision!!!!

sd123 · 07-09-2007 10:58am #1

I accepted my second choice, TP in tcd on 1st round. I got no offers on the 2nd round. Just turned out that i got offered my 1st choice, med, this morning. Duno if i should take it. Ok, i need some quick info bout both courses. any links/comments or suggestions would be great, thanks.

Boston · 07-09-2007 11:02am

sd123 wrote:

I accepted my second choice, TP in tcd on 1st round. I got no offers on the 2nd round. Just turned out that i got offered my 1st choice, med, this morning. Duno if i should take it. Ok, i need some quick info bout both courses. any links/
comments or suggestions would be great, thanks.

Oh my, any links to propaganda will be pointless. They're two very very different fields. Just decide yourself, Do you want to be a doctor or do you want to be a physicist its not like they are remotely similar.

Question: Did you put down med because of pressure not to "waste" your points?

sd123 · 07-09-2007 11:39am

Boston wrote:

Question: Did you put down med because of pressure not to "waste" your points?

Not really, i'm very interested in all areas of maths and science. Thats why i put med and tp down.

Boston · 07-09-2007 11:53am

Well how do you see that fitting into a medical degree? I'm not being sarcastic, there is alot of engineering (for which TP would be useful) in certain medical fields.

Kurtosis · 07-09-2007 11:55am

There is quite a lot of Maths involved in TP, despite the name.

If you're interested in both maths and science, then odds are you'd enjoy both of the courses. What you should also consider is what career path you might want to follow after you graduate.

Could you see yourself working as a doctor? I'd recommend maybe talking to anyone you know who is a doctor so that they might be able to give you a bit of insight into what it's like.

As for TP, here's a splurge taken from the TCD site

Career opportunities
Many of our graduates proceed to Ph.D. degrees in leading institutions throughout the world in mathematics and experimental physics as well as theoretical physics. Alternatively, or following on from a doctorate, an infinite world of possibilities beckons. You might not have thought that the technical manager in charge of the main European production line for M & M's could be a graduate in theoretical physics from Trinity, for example! The broad scientific background and skills that the course develops are in great demand by employers in diverse areas including patent law, journalism, weather forecasting, telecommunications, medical physics, information technology and teaching.

low · 07-09-2007 12:08pm

don't do medicine if you don't really want to be a doctor. it's as simple as that. How someone can have Med first choice and TP second choice I don't know. It just demonstrates the farce that is Irish 3rd level application.

TP has a lot of maths, it's 4 years and doesn't lead to a discrete qualification.
Medicine is probably 6 years if you're going in as a leaving cert person and leads to a professional qualification.

Both courses are known to be fairly though, TP combining the tough abstract parts of maths and physics and Medicine being tough because the course is long, there is a lot to know and memorize, and you have to go to hospitals.

medicine is obviously attractive because you're guaranteed a well paying job, lot's of tP guys go into well paid jobs but than some of them struggle to even find a job.

don't take advice from random internet people this isn't a case of spending your points and trying to find the best bargain.

dan719 · 07-09-2007 12:28pm

To be honest I don't think jovs really come into it. A first class honours in either pretty much guarentees you a job, in particular if a TP graduate goes into banking or becomes an actuary. It is highly possible they will make more money than a doctor also in such a scenario. Basicall sd123 what do you want to study- I remember you posted to a thread on the LC forum a few week back saying how upset you were to miss out and that you really wanted to be a doctor, if that's still the case, then your decision is prettty much obvious.

sd123 · 07-09-2007 12:45pm

^^ ye but i was still really delighted to get TP. Kinda decided in my mind that its great and couldn't wait to do it. I never expected to be offered med tbh. Even when filling out my cao form in the first place, i didn't know whether or not to put tp first. almost did my head in then. Here it is again, i have to make the same decision again. Thanks for the suggestions guys all the same. I suppose I'll just have to have a long hard think bout it.

ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI · 07-09-2007 3:19pm

low wrote:

don't do medicine if you don't really want to be a doctor. it's as simple as that. How someone can have Med first choice and TP second choice I don't know. It just demonstrates the farce that is Irish 3rd level application.

Yeah, it's impossible for someone to be very interested in two (or more) different fields :rolleyes:

Hitchhiker's Guide to... · 07-09-2007 5:45pm

Seems to be some good advice in this thread. Even Boston managed to provide good comments!

Without really knowing too much about both fields; i think that TP would give you a lot more options after college, while medicine would pigeon-hole you into a narrow range of jobs. If you are happy with that about medicine then you should go for it. Although, i don't get the impression from the few posts i've read from you that you are into medicine as a vocation, which it really needs to be due to the enormous stress and long-hours of the job. Having said that - if you want to be a doctor, then definitely go for it.

Good luck with your decision-making!

sd123 · 07-09-2007 11:20pm

I think i'll have to at least make a go at the med. Whatever decision i make i'll always be wondering would the other be better. I was bang on the bottom of the points ladder so i'll probably never get the chance again to do med. If i dont like it i'll re-apply next year and do TP. Thats the best i can think of. :rolleyes:

08-09-2007 12:16am

sd123 wrote:

I think i'll have to at least make a go at the med. Whatever decision i make i'll always be wondering would the other be better. I was bang on the bottom of the points ladder so i'll probably never get the chance again to do med. If i dont like it i'll re-apply next year and do TP. Thats the best i can think of. :rolleyes:

Although it would be difficult (but by no means impossible) if you go into Medicine and then decide that it isn't for you, you could apply to a transfer to TP. I say that it would be difficult because TP is tough without taking into account missing a week or two. So check out the other thread in this forum on transfer to keep it in mind. I'd guess that there shouldn't be a problem moving since, well, a lot of people leave TP (HELLO!).

sully-gormo · 08-09-2007 12:47am

i did tp and then changed course; tp is grand, its not mad hard, you just have to a maths-oriented mindset. theres loads of continuous assessment in 1st yr so that would take up a good bit of your time. its really just a big chunk of maths and a big chunk of physics, there isint a whole lot of crossover, until 3rd or 4th yr. That means youll be doing both pure maths and physics, which are both fairly different.

Think long and hard about which youre more interested in. I changed from TP because I lost interest, despite being really really good at maths. My transfer to bess is workin its way through the system now. Keep in mind that while you should be fine if you want to go from med to tp; i really really doubt youd be able to do the opposite

sd123 · 08-09-2007 1:00am

Myth wrote:

Although it would be difficult (but by no means impossible) if you go into Medicine and then decide that it isn't for you, you could apply to a transfer to TP.

Like the carlsberg add, its not always just (a) and (b), theres always (c)

Thanks for the info nontheless. much appreciated

low · 08-09-2007 2:44am

ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI wrote:

Yeah, it's impossible for someone to be very interested in two (or more) different fields :rolleyes:

Haha, let me clarify. It's easy for a broad minded intelligent young adult to be interested and able for a number of different career paths and university education. Like I would have been very happy studying classics in trinity if I wasn't doing natural sciences. However,

It's a little suspicious that someone puts Random Course 1 in trinity first choice than Random course 2 in trinity second choice and Random course 3 in trinity in third choice. Of course it is important WHERE you study not just WHAT you study but that scenario (not pointing a finger at OP btw although he could be a culprit) indicates somebody looking for status and not rational thinking.

Like if someone was clearly interested in medicine surely they'd apply for Medicine in the university of their first preference first and then medicine else where until the practical limits of location and price need to be considered.

I think that's one of the problems (and strangely great strengths) of the Irish Leaving Cert and university application system. It allows people to apply for things on a whim. If there was all this rigmarole of letters of application, interviews, work experience, you'd get a lot less people doing courses they liked the look of rather than courses they decided after (as much as you can do as a teenager) research was for them.

Again with the leaving cert as opposed to the a-levels there is much greater scope for subject requirements. If you're 16 years of age and you don't have a clue what you want to do in college but you know you want to go, you just need to really pick one science one foreign language and any other subjects and you'll still be qualified to enter the vast vast majority of courses. However, doing A-levels you'll have to decide very early if you want to the science route, the humanties route or something else.

Pinker · 08-09-2007 2:52am

Regarding the above post, maybe where one wants to study has to do with the actual courses being better in say Trinity than elsewhere, and anyway whats so bad about wanting some status to boot?:)

low · 08-09-2007 2:58am

medicine is almost exactly the same all around ireland tbh. the difference might be in the hospitals you do rotation in.

sd123 · 08-09-2007 12:03pm

low wrote:

Like if someone was clearly interested in medicine surely they'd apply for Medicine in the university of their first preference first and then medicine else where until the practical limits of location and price need to be considered.

That was pretty offensive, however, i have the answer for you. Yes, the first 6 of my level 8 choices were in TCD, but for ONE reason. I dont have the foreign language requirement for almost all other universities. Therefore, I couldn't do med in ucd, ucc, rcsi, and nuig, all of which were the same or lower points than TCD. So i've been working harder than most other people in my school for two years just because i chose not to study french for the LC. Just think twice the next time you post something like that. Thanks.

low · 08-09-2007 12:58pm

Steady on old chap, why / how are you getting offended? You don't have to take it personally, you shouldn't. I don't know anything about you or your personal situation. Don't be so sensitive. Good luck with you decision

4Xcut · 08-09-2007 1:12pm

Well, without sounding condesending that was a bit short sighted, wasn't it? A d3 in ordinary level can't really ahve been too much to ask and it would have given you so much options with regards to university.

On topic: I actually planned to do med for years but then decided to switch to TP in the feb of sixth year. I did TP for 2 weeks and am now much happier doing economics and philosophy. The one thing i do know about both of those courses is that you really have to want them. Not just be interested but you really have to want to study the topic.

As regards career, if you have an interest in sciences, then perhaps think about which area of med you want to get into and see if its an area that is changing and developing all the time. TP is a very employable degree and you but more of the careers from that to make serious cash are in the finance worls(the maths) and not in science.

Whichever you choose, best of luck. Just remember that you're going to college to be educated, not to learn, so get as broad an education as you can;)

Boston · 08-09-2007 9:32pm

sd123: The CAO isn't the only way into a medical course, You can do one year of another course and then apply to be accepted into a medical course. You need excellent results to be even considered. I'd suggest ringing up trinity med department and asking for alternative methods of entry. I know one person in my course (Engineering) who after first year applied via this system to gain entry in UCC med. IT was always his intention to take this approach though, and he used it as a back door into med, since CAO wasn't an option.

Low and 4Xcut:You both being being judgmental and presumptuous. Neither of you know this guys situation, so Bull like "only a d3 at ordinary less" is less then helpful giving he's done the leaving and must have got a fantastic result (which he is no doubt proud off)

sd123 · 09-09-2007 5:38pm

Boston wrote:

Low and 4Xcut:You both being being judgmental and presumptuous. Neither of you know this guys situation, so Bull like "only a d3 at ordinary less" is less then helpful giving he's done the leaving and must have got a fantastic result (which he is no doubt proud off)

Thanks for that, although, now i think i was a bit hard on low earlier.

regob · 09-09-2007 10:05pm

do medicine, you would more than likely regret it if you didnt do it

Killer of a decision!!!!

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