Quote Originally Posted by Deborajen View Post
Are scholarships out of the question? Back when I was in college (it's been awhile - ) the usual advice was "don't go to grad school unless you can get someone else to pay for it." Now, I never knew for sure if that meant there were lots of scholarships out there, if you can't get someone else to pay then you're not grad school "material," or it's best to build a network first and the network should include the financial backing. But I didn't go to (or haven't gone to) grad school.

I've tossed around the idea of changing careers, too. I don't think it's crazy at all. Variety is the spice of life, right? And dreams are good! My thoughts are to take a prerequisite or two and just ease back into it - see how it goes.

That's a really good point. I need to look into it. That's why I have no student loans from my first masters degree - 80% of it was covered by a research grant. The remaining 20% was covered by a fellowship. All I paid for was books and living expenses and I worked part time to cover that. When I was at a conference as a student, I was approached by two different PhD programs who offered me free ride if I would attend and then teach at their schools. Being a an american born woman with good communications skills really served me well in EE. I didn't take either one up on their offer and I'm super thankful that I didn't. I'd feel way too guilty to ever leave behind a field if I had a PhD in it!

I have no idea how this all might work for the medical field. There are a list of scholarships that I can apply for based on things like my ethnicity, my specialty, my grades, etc...so there are options. I'll have to do some research. Thanks for the idea!