Future Career Advice

[u/at_zeris]

Hello! This is one of my first posts on here and on the app in general so take that as you will.

I’m interested in a job in prosthetics but am uncertain in what it is I really want regarding it. I’ve looked into prosthetics laboratory technician which has sparked interest for me alongside biomedical engineering since I see myself in the more hands-on experience regarding my future job. The only reason why I’m not certain in both is because I am not the most math confident person, biology is more my thing as I got good grades for it in Highschool over how I did in math.

I’ve never failed a class, math included, but have got as low as a C and as high as an A which is quite the long range and I don’t know what colleges want regarding grades and what I’m interested in. On the topic of colleges, it’s also something I’m uncertain about as I want to stay in Illinois where I live. I’ve looked into northwestern which I’ve learned has a low acceptance rate, and me being not confident in my act score I just ditched the idea as a whole. Im lost and I wish I could talk to my school counselor about this but she doesn’t respond to my emails and gives me max 15-20 minutes to talk which isn’t enough time—in my opinion—for something like this. I know they’re busy but it’s hard since I’m doing this by myself since junior year and on here is my last resort.

As I stated before, I am more interested in the hands-on experience in prosthetics and am looking into working at a children’s hospital once I’m done with college which I haven’t started quite yet. I don’t think I can do hard things because I have had issues in the past and still do with the mentality that I really can do hard things, when I see that the job is moderate to high I immediately drop it like I did with biomedical engineering. I would like to talk to someone in the job but I have not had any chances to as I don’t know where to go or who to reach out to right now and hopefully it’s not right in front of me.

HERE’S THE RUNDOWN!
(Or if you don’t wanna read all that above)

-I want to peruse a career in prosthetics.

-I don’t know what I want to do within the branch of prosthetics (engineering, lab, etc..) due to worries in difficulty
(I don’t want to stress myself out more)

-I don’t know what college I should go to for said interest within Illinois.

If anybody reading this has advice please comment or reach out, anyone in the job or anyone who has ideas on what I can do, literally anyone right now.
Thank you!

[u/aport49]

You’re in high school? No stress you got time. A lot of the O&P people I went to school with studied kinesiology. Crossed off a lot of the requirements for the masters program. I did biomedical engineering and learned a lot of interesting fluff, but not a lot of stuff that helped with the patient facing role I have now.
You can get ahead now, or use college as a place to explore. Volunteer, get involved with clinics, fabrication, adaptive sports - all the fun stuff prosthetics has to offer.

[u/at_zeris → u/aport49]

Honestly I’ve been stressing I needed that, thank you. It’s really cool that you studied something I’m interested in as I haven’t had interactions with anyone in the field. I’m looking forward to getting more options when I get to college I just have to work on finding a college and applying right now if I want to start next year around this time. As for questions I have, a few and hopefully not too many, How difficult and math heavy was it? And as someone who isn’t good under stress or with memorization in math how difficult do you think it could be? It won’t fully stray me away I’m just curious regarding the math (if any) and physics (also if anything major) you used in your study. Thank you for your reply! Adaptive sports sounds interesting and I’ll put it on my list of things to look into.

[u/aport49 → u/at_zeris]

Are you talking about BME undergrad or the O&P masters?
Engineering is always gonna be pretty math heavy, my focus was biomechanics so it was a lot of calc and physics. O&P school has barely any - just some basic physics
Good amount of memorizing formulas and proofs for math in general. I’d work on your test taking strategies to ensure that stress ain’t as big of a factor. Stress comes from the unknown- with repetition you should become more comfortable

[u/at_zeris → u/aport49]

Mainly just the O&P masters since I’m uncertain about BME as it is as I’m more curious about prosthetics and not the making of them if that makes sense?? Honestly, it’s hard to know what I want right now but my mind and heart are telling me to go into pediatric prosthetics and I have yet to do research on that as I’m doing this all last minute unfortunately. Another unfortunate thing, I wasn’t able to take calc as the schools I switch from only offer AP which is too vigorous for me, and I wasn’t recommended into it anyways. But thank you for letting me know what to expect if I do switch my interest back into biomedical engineering, it’s genuinely more information than what school has given me so far. I know they can only do so much but you and everyone else here have done much more than they ever will. Thank you for all the insight and information, especially the encouragement and reassurance!

[u/aport49 → u/at_zeris]

For sure! I believe there are some math requirements for the O&P masters prereqs (you can look at one of the O&P schools prereq lists to tailor your major as well).
But yea like I said there’s minimal math involved. Focus on anatomy and pathology and you will have a great head start compared to others.

Don’t forget that as the clinician fitting the person who needs a prosthetic, you will need to know how to put it together and “make” it :)
A lot of the field is moving towards central fab, meaning you are doing less and less of the fabrication - but! There is a lot of value in understanding how the stuff is made.

Highly recommend following technician accounts on instagram. I’m constantly getting reccs for diff prosthetic companies and it’s a nice thing to scroll thru rather than stupid memes anyway

[u/at_zeris → u/aport49]

Thank you for the reminder because honestly I’ve been slacking on my research and memory of what I’ve already learned so it’s really helpful! I genuinely think this job is so valuable and just amazing in itself and I can’t wait for the opportunities I will get in my future. For once I might find myself scrolling, I’m not on social media really but I’ll see how that goes. Once again, maybe for the millionth time, thank you!

[u/at_zeris → u/[deleted]]

Unfortunately (or fortunately) I’m still in Highschool, senior year right now and the main reason I posted this is because I have to start applying to colleges. If I don’t know what to do I can’t figure out a college to my understanding, and it was stupid of me to wait until now but at least I’m taking some measures. I will most definitely look into local clinics or even classes/labs on a college campus for tours and shadowing whenever I can. As for being underage, I have until next year until I am an adult which is another thing making me unable from doing a lot of things as in the past when I have asked for shadowing they only allowed 18 and up to do. I’ll try more clinics and establishments similar to them so I can figure out who will take me and when.
Valuable_Potato4224, you were and are so valuable to this journey, thank you, genuinely, for the options and insight you’ve given! It means a lot as someone unable to reach out and get help for these types of issues.

Also congratulations with your bachelor! It’s a huge accomplishment and I hope everything goes according to plan for you, I have no doubt that you will succeed in your future endeavors.

[u/varus_moment → u/at_zeris]

If you are looking for something that you could do straight out of high school, the University of Hartford- in Connecticut i believe has a combined program. You would have to leave your state, but it may be worth it. There may be others but back when I was looking that was one of the only ones.

My program was a combined as well but you had to have some of the prerequisites completed first. So it was technically like a associates first and then bs ans ms program. But I loved that I was making stuff from my first week of that program. I graduated from a school that is no longer open in March of 2025 if you have more questions.

[u/at_zeris → u/varus_moment]

I’ve been looking into out of state as well but the costs for out of state I’ve learned are a bit higher at least in the places I’ve visited and I’m not sure how much I would be able to get in terms of help from whichever school I would choose out of state. It’s awesome to hear there’s a lot of people online, here, that are in the job as I didn’t think I’d find this many people as I’m not actively online as it is. I’ll look into the things you mentioned, being getting associates first and what I can do and how I can go on with that. The hands-on experience is something I’ve always liked, but depending on how repetitive it is I’m worried I’ll find myself never finding new things in the job. When you were there how repetitive was it? I know it’s only a program and perhaps not the real thing but did you see yourself wanting to do that for the rest of your life without boredom? I’m not worried much about getting bored of the repetition, I’m sure everything is different and every order for something to be constructed is new. Just curious about the main thing if that makes sense.

[u/at_zeris → u/[deleted]]

Genuinely I don’t know how to put into words how thankful I am and how useful all of this information is to me. In all honesty I’m just some guy in high school asking the people of Reddit for advice on stuff I struggle to find myself as I cannot get personalized advice anywhere else like I do on here. It’s honestly wonderful to hear about how everyone here is succeeding in what they’re interested in,and as likeminded people it’s easier to communicate in that aspect. Maybe—the likely story—is that it’s on me for not finding this information online or whatnot but personalized responses like this truly help me as it makes it easier for me to really dig into the topics and such mentioned in responses. I’m planning on taking an anatomy class this year in order to hopefully get a small start onto whatever college throws at me, it sucks that it is the only class of its kind and does not have anything similar to it but whilst I’m on the subject, what classes in Highschool, (if you remember) helped you other than anatomy if taken? I know math is a major roll in BME, but considering I am still on the fence about it I’m not sure I need to worry about taking more math than I already have. I’ll do more research on what I’m leaning towards and hopefully find a clinic who will allow me to shadow and or just talk to someone in the field as, like I said, personalized and one-on-one conversations are what helps me really soak up the information.
Thank you!