This question was originally posted on Quora.com and was answered by Zach Peterson, come from a family of doctors. Come from a family of doctors. If you're debating between the two, don't choose medicine. As a lot of doctors have said, only choose medicine when you couldn't imagine yourself happy in any other career. Here are the pros and cons: Medicine Pros: Status (you're "doctor" so-and-so) Improving people's health in a tangible way You can be a lifelong learner, there are so many specialties, so much to learn, you'll never get bored After grueling, expensive medical school and long residency, you're making a very nice salary (but you're worse off in the long term because of the opportunity cost and debt) You'll never be unemployed Cons: Years and years of school, so terrible decision financially. If you put the same effort that a doctor puts into becoming a doctor into your CS career, you'd end up way ahead Tons of government regulation Insurance Tons of stress Tons of hours Many regret going into medicine 2x more likely to commit suicide Generally not very happy Computer Science Pros: Better lifestyle/work-life balance Awesome pay, especially if you work as hard as a doctor and get into a tech company like Google or Facebook Tech is the future, software is eating the world. Get into a hot space and you could be riding a steep upward trend throughout your career Tons of arenas to play in. If you want to work in healthcare, you can become a data scientist and help predict cancer earlier and save tons of lives with your computer science knowledge. You can start a startup. Or work for the government. Or work in finance and make the big bucks. Or become a consultant. High demand for your skills People will know you're smart Cons: Potential for outsourcing/automation for certain jobs You have to always be learning Cognitively intense work A degree of stress Less tangibly impactful than medicine in many cases Agism and sexism Best of luck! You know where I stand Source
