u/blankpaper_

I’m moving down to LA from Portland next month. I’m looking for places with shorter lease terms, and I want to keep rent around $2k at first, which limits the search a lot, but I found a place downtown

It’s in South Park, and my understanding is that’s the nicer part of downtown. Google street view is pretty recent (October) and it looks fine. Not much around besides apartments and offices but I know downtown isn’t the fun cool city center type of area so I expected as much. It looks like there’s an Erewhon going in nearby in 2027 and I doubt they’d put one in a dicey area

All signs point to it being fine but there was a post on here this morning with a bunch of comments saying women shouldn’t live downtown so now I’m second guessing it. I’m a single woman but I’m 35 and look mean lol so probably not quite as much of a target as a wide eyed 22 year old or something

Just looking for a reality check if I need it

I’m 34, and while I don’t think that’s necessarily too old, I don’t have a science or healthcare background. I graduated in 2013 with a business degree, my GPA was around a 3.1 or 3.2 if I remember correctly, and I’ve been working in accounting ever since (and I hate it)

I know i would need to take all the prereq classes, take the MCAT, get some sort of hands-on clinical experience, and shadow. Having research as well would be ideal, but realistically I don’t know how that will fit in since time isn’t exactly on my side. From what I’ve read, it seems like being strong in other areas can make up for a lack of research, and I would have no expectation of getting into a top school anyway. For prereqs, I’m looking at the classes through UCLA Extension

Looking at the financial side, taking on that amount of debt at this age and sacrificing peak earning years is daunting. I think the only way it would make sense would be to specialize, which I would want to do anyway, but I assume that would mean a fellowship which would mean even more years before earning an actual physician salary

I would think maybe 4 years for the prereqs, MCAT, etc, would be realistic, and then 4 years of med school and maybe 4-6 years of residency/fellowship. Which would put me at 46-48 by the time it’s all said and done. Which would still mean a 20-25 year career, and PSLF can help with the debt so I won’t be saddled with that until I die

Does this sound like I’m looking at things realistically? Or do I need to accept that I’m staring down middle age and probably shouldn’t be starting anything that’ll take 10+ years lol