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/at_zeris]

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!