Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Job That Really Requires the Most of You (And It’s Not About the Years in College)

Introduction: The Question That Nearly Broke Me

For the first decade of my career as a strategist, I was confident, perhaps even arrogant.

My job was to guide the best and brightest toward their futures, and I had the data to do it.

I built my practice on a foundation of metrics: years of education, starting salaries, prestige rankings, and clear, linear paths to success.

I saw careers as ladders, and my role was to point talented people toward the tallest ones with the most reliable rungs.

Then, a single experience—a single person—shattered that foundation and forced me to question everything I thought I knew.

His name, for our purposes, is Alex.

He was brilliant, the kind of student you meet once every few years.

He came to me with that familiar, burning question: “What’s the best path? Where can I make the biggest impact?” Armed with my charts and figures, I pointed him toward one of the most demanding and respected professions imaginable.

It was a long road, I told him, a marathon of education and training, but the rewards—financial, intellectual, and social—were unparalleled.

It was the tallest ladder, and he had the talent to climb it.

He took my advice.

Years later, I learned the truth.

Alex had completed the grueling journey.

He had the degree, the title, and the salary.

He also had a case of professional burnout so severe it had hollowed him O.T.¹

He described a profound sense of depersonalization, feeling like a stranger in his own life, and a cynicism that had poisoned the very altruism that had once fueled him.

He was, in his own words, “suicidal with planning and intent,” a state terrifyingly common among those who reach the supposed pinnacle of their profession.²

My advice, my metrics, my ladder—they had led him to a personal hell.

Alex’s story became my professional rock bottom.

That failure sent me into a spiral of self-doubt, but it also sparked a period of intense research.

I started to see that my personal failing was a symptom of a much larger, systemic problem.

The world of academic and career advising is often broken.

Advisors are frequently overwhelmed, with caseloads that can exceed 300 students on average and sometimes reach a staggering 1,000 students per advisor.³

They have little time for the deep, holistic guidance students are desperate for; a 10-minute meeting is barely enough to handle course registration, let alone map out a life.³

They work in siloed departments with poor visibility into which students are truly struggling, and face immense pressure to provide simple answers to life’s most complex questions.⁴

We have created a system that incentivizes transactional advice over transformational guidance.

My experience with Alex forced me to confront a devastating truth: asking “What job requires the most college?” is the wrong question.

It’s a trap.

It mistakes length for depth, credentials for commitment, and the ability to endure for the capacity to thrive.

It’s a question that builds careers on a foundation of sand.

The right question, the one that can actually guide a life, is this: “What does a truly demanding career build?” This report is the answer I Found. It is a new framework for understanding career commitment not as a ladder to be climbed, but as a skyscraper to be built from the bedrock up.

Part 1: The Epiphany – We’re Building Skyscrapers, Not Climbing Ladders

In the wake of my professional crisis, I became obsessed with finding a better model.

I needed a new way to think about the architecture of a career.

The answer didn’t come from education theory or labor economics.

It came, unexpectedly, from civil engineering and the construction of skyscrapers.

I learned that when builders want to construct a truly massive building, they don’t start by going up.

They go down.

They excavate deep into the earth, removing soil, sand, and clay until they hit solid bedrock.⁷

The height a skyscraper can safely reach is directly proportional to the depth and integrity of its foundation.

A weak or shallow foundation can only support a modest structure; a deep, solid foundation is the prerequisite for touching the clouds.

This was the epiphany.

We have been telling people to climb career ladders when we should have been teaching them how to be master builders of their own career skyscrapers.

This analogy doesn’t just reframe the question; it provides a comprehensive new mental model for evaluating the true demands of any profession.

I call it the Skyscraper Paradigm.

It deconstructs a career into five essential components, moving us far beyond the dangerously simplistic metric of “years in college.”

The Skyscraper Paradigm: A New Mental Model

1. The Blueprint (The “Why”): Before any ground is broken, there is an architectural plan. This is your career’s blueprint. It is your core purpose, your non-negotiable values, your answer to the question, “Why am I building this?” This blueprint dictates the entire design, from the foundation to the spire. Without a clear, compelling blueprint, any construction is aimless, and the final structure will lack integrity and purpose.⁹
2. The Excavation (The Foundational Costs): This is the process of digging deep. It represents the quantifiable, upfront costs that everyone focuses on: the years of formal education, the immense financial debt accrued, and the personal sacrifices of time, social life, and youthful energy.⁷ This is where the traditional metric of “most college” resides. It is a critically important phase, but it is only the first and most visible part of the work. It is the hole in the ground, not the building itself.
3. The Bedrock (The Psychological Fortitude): Below the excavation lies the bedrock. This is the solid ground upon which the entire structure will rest. In career terms, this is your innate psychological resilience, your emotional stability, your support systems, and your capacity to withstand immense and sustained pressure.⁸ A career built on fractured or unstable bedrock is doomed to collapse, no matter how deep the excavation or how impressive the materials used. As we will see, some of the most demanding career paths actively and paradoxically damage the very bedrock they require for support.
4. The Superstructure (The Visible Career): This is the building itself, the part that rises from the ground and becomes visible to the world. It comprises your tangible achievements: your degrees, licenses, certifications, technical skills, publications, and daily professional responsibilities.⁹ This is what people see when they look at your career. It is the steel, glass, and concrete of your professional life.
5. The Penthouse (The Ultimate Fulfillment): This is the view from the top. It represents the ultimate potential for long-term fulfillment, professional autonomy, societal impact, and deep satisfaction.⁹ But a tall building does not automatically guarantee a beautiful view. The construction process can be so brutal that by the time you reach the top, you are too damaged or disillusioned to enjoy it. Sometimes, the penthouse is just a high-altitude prison, where the rewards of the job are completely offset by the stress and demands required to keep it.¹⁰

Using this paradigm, we can now revisit the original query with a new level of clarity.

To find the job that truly requires the most, we must analyze not just the length of the excavation, but the total load placed upon the entire structure.

Part 2: Deconstructing the “Tallest” Towers – A New Look at Elite Professions

To truly answer the question of what job requires the most, we must apply the Skyscraper Paradigm to the professions that, by any traditional measure, are the most demanding.

We will analyze two titans of the professional world: The Physician and Surgeon, a career defined by the most intense excavation imaginable, and The University Professor and Research Scientist, a career built on a tower of intellectual inquiry.

By examining how each component of the skyscraper is built—and stressed—in these fields, we can uncover a much more nuanced and useful definition of “most.”

Case Study 1: The Physician and Surgeon – The Ultimate Excavation

The path to becoming a physician, and especially a surgeon, represents the most profound and prolonged “Excavation” phase of any mainstream profession.

It is the gold standard for a long educational commitment.

The Blueprint

The blueprint for a medical career is often drawn from a powerful and noble place.

For many, it’s a calling rooted in altruism, a desire to heal, and a deep fascination with the science of the human body.

One physician described his motivation as a mix of having a disabled family member, a love for biology, and the influence of medical television shows.²

This initial blueprint, however, is immediately and relentlessly tested against the brutal realities of the construction process.

The Excavation (The Quantifiable Costs)

The sheer scale of the excavation—in both time and money—is staggering.

It is a multi-decade marathon that demands total commitment.

• The Timeline: The journey from high school graduate to fully licensed, practicing surgeon is one of the longest in modern society. It is not a single path but a series of demanding, sequential stages, each with its own gatekeeping exams and requirements.¹²

Table 1: The Physician’s Educational Timeline	Typical Duration	Key Activities & Milestones
Stage 1: Undergraduate Degree	4 Years	Bachelor’s degree with “pre-med” prerequisite courses (biology, chemistry, physics). Requires high GPA and extracurriculars to be competitive for medical school.14
Stage 2: Medical School	4 Years	Earn a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) or Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.) degree. Involves intensive classroom learning and clinical rotations. Pass the USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 exams.16
Stage 3: Residency	3 – 9 Years	Post-graduate training in a chosen specialty (e.g., pediatrics, internal medicine). A general surgery residency is a minimum of 5 years of progressive training with immense responsibility.12 Pass the USMLE Step 3 exam to qualify for licensure.
Stage 4: Fellowship (Optional but often necessary)	1 – 3 Years	Additional, highly specialized training in a subspecialty (e.g., cardiology, pediatric surgery, surgical oncology) after residency is complete.13
Total Time Post-High School	12 to 20+ Years	The total time to become a fully independent, board-certified specialist can easily stretch into one’s late 30s or early 40s.15

• The Financial Burden: This immense investment of time is matched by a financial excavation that can shape a physician’s entire life and career. The cost of medical education has skyrocketed, creating a debt load that is difficult to comprehend.

Table 2: The Financial Excavation of Medical School	Average Cost / Debt	Context & Implications
4-Year Cost of Attendance (Tuition, Fees, Living)	~$215,380 (Public, In-State) to ~$271,800 (Private)	These are the direct costs for the four years of medical school alone, not including undergraduate expenses.19
Average Medical School Debt	~$234,597	This is the average debt from medical school only. When premedical undergraduate debt is included, the total often exceeds $264,000.20
Total Repayment Cost	>$350,000	With interest, an initial loan of $200,000 can easily require total repayments of over $350,000 over the life of the loan.20
Impact on Career Choice	Significant	Studies show that high debt levels can influence specialty choice, pushing graduates toward higher-paying specialties and away from critically needed but lower-paying fields like primary care and family medicine.21

The Bedrock (The Psychological Toll)

Here, the Skyscraper Paradigm reveals its most critical and disturbing insight.

The very process of the deep, demanding “Excavation” is what directly attacks and weakens the psychological “Bedrock” it is supposed to be built upon.

The path to becoming a healer is, paradoxically, one of the most damaging to the self.

The connection is not coincidental; it is causal.

The grueling hours of residency (often exceeding 80 hours per week), the chronic sleep deprivation, the constant high-stakes pressure of life-or-death decisions, and the emotional toll of patient suffering are the defining features of medical training.¹²

These are the same factors that lead to staggering rates of burnout.

National studies show that over 40-50% of practicing physicians report at least one symptom of burnout, such as emotional exhaustion or depersonalization.²³

This burnout is linked to a nearly 200% greater chance of suicidal ideation compared to the general population.²³

The construction process itself is cracking the foundation.

Furthermore, the immense financial debt is not merely a postgraduate inconvenience; it is a fundamental structural weakness in the bedrock from day one.

This debt acts as a constant, low-grade psychological stressor throughout the entire training process.

It amplifies the pressure to succeed, narrows career choices, and adds a layer of personal financial anxiety on top of the already immense clinical pressures.¹⁰

The financial excavation actively erodes the psychological bedrock, making the entire structure more vulnerable to collapse later in life.

The Superstructure (The Daily Reality)

The visible career of a physician is built upon a scaffold of credentials.

This involves passing all three steps of the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE), obtaining a state medical license, and achieving board certification through rigorous specialty-specific exams.¹²

For surgeons, this also includes documenting hundreds of operative procedures and demonstrating technical proficiency.¹³

The daily work is a relentless combination of complex clinical decision-making, technical procedures, patient communication, and a crushing administrative burden.

The Penthouse (The View from the Top)

The view from the top of the medical skyscraper can be extraordinary.

It offers high income, immense societal respect, and the profound satisfaction of saving lives.²⁴

However, the view is often obscured by the damage sustained during the long and brutal construction.

Research applying the Job Demands-Resources model shows that while highly educated professionals like physicians have high “job resources” (income, autonomy), they also face extreme “job demands” (long hours, work intensity, time pressure).

These demands generate high levels of stress that can significantly offset, and sometimes completely negate, the positive effects of the resources, leading to lower overall job satisfaction.¹⁰

The penthouse may be luxurious, but the resident is often too exhausted, cynical, or emotionally depleted to enjoy the view.

Case Study 2: The University Professor & Research Scientist – The Tower of Inquiry

If medicine is a skyscraper built on depth of practice, academia is one built on depth of inquiry.

The path to becoming a tenured professor or a principal investigator at a research institution is another journey that requires a massive upfront investment of time and energy.

The Blueprint

The blueprint for an academic career is typically drawn from a place of deep intellectual curiosity.

It is fueled by a passion for a specific subject—be it genetics, history, or engineering—and a powerful desire to contribute to the sum of human knowledge and educate the next generation.²⁵

The Excavation (The Quantifiable Costs)

The academic excavation is also long and arduous, but it is characterized more by ambiguity and uncertainty than the rigid structure of medical training.

• The Timeline: The path is less standardized and can vary significantly by field, but it is consistently a multi-decade commitment.

Table 3: The Academic’s Educational Timeline	Typical Duration	Key Activities & Milestones
Stage 1: Undergraduate Degree	4 Years	A bachelor’s degree is the foundational requirement, often in the field of intended future study.28
Stage 2: Master’s Degree	1.5 – 2 Years	While some PhD programs admit students directly from undergrad, many require or prefer a master’s degree. It provides specialized coursework and initial research experience.30
Stage 3: Doctoral Degree (PhD)	5 – 8+ Years	The core of academic training. Involves advanced coursework, comprehensive exams, and several years dedicated to original dissertation research. Average time-to-degree varies by field: ~5.7 years for biological sciences, ~6.8 years for humanities.33
Stage 4: Postdoctoral Fellowship (“Postdoc”)	1 – 3+ Years	A temporary research position after the PhD. For many scientific and academic fields, one or more postdoc positions are now a de facto requirement to be competitive for a permanent faculty job.28
Total Time Post-High School	11 to 17+ Years	Similar to medicine, becoming an independent, tenure-track professor can take well over a decade of post-secondary education and training.27

• The Financial Burden: While many PhD programs, particularly in the STEM fields, are funded through research or teaching assistantships, this does not mean they are free. Students often live on meager stipends, and many still accrue significant debt, especially if they must first complete an unfunded master’s degree.

Table 4: The Financial Excavation of a PhD	Average Cost / Debt	Context & Implications
Average Master’s Degree Cost	~$62,820	An often-necessary but expensive stepping stone to the PhD.37
Average PhD Graduate Debt	~$98,800	This is the average cumulative loan balance for PhD recipients (excluding education PhDs) who took on debt.38
Debt Disparity by Field	High	PhDs in Social Sciences, Behavioral Sciences, and Education are far more likely to accrue debt, and in higher amounts, than PhDs in STEM fields, where funding is more plentiful.39
Impact on Life	Significant	The “opportunity cost” of spending one’s 20s and early 30s in low-paid graduate and postdoctoral positions, often while accruing debt, has profound long-term financial consequences.24

The Bedrock (The Psychological Toll)

The pressures on the academic bedrock are different from those in medicine—less acute life-or-death stress, more chronic, existential pressure—but they are no less corrosive.

A critical vulnerability is revealed by connecting the data on funding and time-to-degree.

PhDs in the humanities and social sciences take significantly longer to complete than those in STEM fields.³³

They also result in much higher levels of student debt.³⁹

The underlying cause is the disparity in funding models.

STEM programs are often funded by large research grants that provide students with stipends and tuition waivers (research assistantships).

Humanities students, by contrast, often have to rely on less secure funding, such as teaching assistantships that divide their focus, or take on external loans.

This forces them to stretch out their research and writing over a longer period.³⁶

This lack of stable financial support is a direct cause of the extended timeline and higher debt, creating a vicious cycle of precarity that grinds away at the psychological bedrock for years on end.

On top of this financial instability is the immense pressure of the “publish or perish” culture.

From graduate school onward, an academic’s career depends on their ability to produce a constant stream of original research, get it published in highly competitive, peer-reviewed journals, and secure grant funding to support their work.²⁷

This creates a state of chronic workplace stress that is a primary driver of academic burnout, characterized by emotional exhaustion, cynicism towards one’s work, and a feeling of reduced professional efficacy.⁴⁰

Finally, unlike medicine where completing the training virtually guarantees a well-paying job, the academic job market is brutal.

After a decade or more of training, there is no promise of stable employment.

The number of PhD graduates far outstrips the number of available tenure-track faculty positions, leaving many to cycle through years of low-paid, insecure, temporary adjunct or postdoctoral roles.²⁸

This prolonged uncertainty is a major structural stressor on the bedrock.

The Superstructure (The Daily Reality)

The visible career of a professor is a demanding juggling act.

It involves teaching undergraduate and graduate courses, mentoring students, conducting original research, writing and submitting grant proposals, publishing articles and books, and serving on an array of departmental and university committees.²⁷

The Penthouse (The View from the Top)

For the small percentage who successfully navigate this gauntlet and achieve tenure, the penthouse can offer a life of profound intellectual freedom, autonomy, and the satisfaction of contributing to a field they love.

However, the landscape is littered with unfinished or compromised skyscrapers.

Many highly educated graduates find themselves in a state of “educational mismatch,” where their advanced skills are not utilized in the jobs they can find, leading to lower earnings and significantly lower job satisfaction.¹¹

For many, the ultimate view is not the one they spent over a decade building toward.

They may have constructed a 70-story tower of expertise, only to find the job market has an opening on the 20th floor.

Part 3: Your Personal Skyscraper – An Architectural Guide to Career Choice

Having deconstructed the demands of these elite professions, the path forward becomes clearer.

The goal is not to be intimidated by the height of these towers, but to become a more intelligent architect of your own.

The Skyscraper Paradigm is not just an analytical tool; it is a practical guide for making one of the most important decisions of your life.

This section is designed to help you move from analysis to action, to begin drafting the blueprint for your own personal skyscraper.

The Career Blueprint Worksheet

Answer these questions honestly and thoughtfully.

This is not a test; it is the initial survey of your personal construction site.

1. Designing Your Blueprint (The “Why”)

The blueprint is the soul of the building.

A magnificent structure built for a purpose you don’t believe in is a beautiful prison.

Before you consider the costs, you must be radically honest about what you want to build and why.

• What problems in the world make you angry, curious, or passionate? What issues do you feel intrinsically motivated to solve?
• What are your non-negotiable core values? (e.g., autonomy, collaboration, stability, creativity, service). How must your daily work reflect these values?
• Imagine you have already achieved financial security. How would you choose to spend your time learning, creating, and contributing? The answer often points toward your true blueprint.

2. Surveying the Site – The Excavation (Your Resources)

Every construction project is constrained by its available resources.

Acknowledging your real-world limits on time, money, and energy is not a sign of weakness; it is the mark of a wise builder.

• Time: Look at the timelines for physicians and academics (12-20+ years). How many years are you realistically willing and able to dedicate to formal education and training before your primary earning years begin?
• Finances: What is your personal and familial tolerance for financial debt? Use the data from the medical and PhD excavations as a benchmark. How would a debt of $50,000, $100,000, or $250,000 impact your life choices regarding family, homeownership, and personal freedom?.²²
• Energy: Be honest about your physical and mental stamina. Can you sustain the intensity of an 80-hour work week during residency? Can you tolerate the chronic, low-grade stress of an uncertain job market for years after your PhD?

3. Testing Your Bedrock (Your Resilience)

A skyscraper’s foundation is its most critical component.

Your psychological bedrock is the foundation of your career.

You must assess its current state and its ability to bear a heavy load.

• How do you historically handle sustained pressure and high-stakes situations? What are your go-to coping mechanisms—are they healthy and sustainable?
• How do you respond to failure, criticism, and rejection? Do you learn and adapt, or does it derail you?
• Who is on your construction crew? Do you have a strong support system of family, friends, and mentors you can rely on when the work gets difficult and lonely? Building a skyscraper is not a solo project.⁹

4. Planning the Superstructure (Your Skills)

The superstructure is what you do.

It’s the tangible expression of your blueprint.

• What specific, tangible skills do you want to master? Do you want to be an expert diagnostician, a skilled surgeon, a brilliant researcher, a persuasive writer, an inspiring teacher?
• What kind of work environment allows you to thrive? Do you prefer the highly structured, credential-heavy world of medicine, or the more ambiguous, self-directed world of academic research?

5. Envisioning Your Penthouse (Your Definition of Success)

The view from the top is deeply personal.

Defining it for yourself is the only way to ensure you’re building toward a destination you actually want to reach.

• What does a truly fulfilling life look like to you in 10, 20, and 30 years? Go beyond job titles and salaries.
• Rank the following in order of importance to you: financial security, intellectual freedom, societal impact, work-life balance, and public prestige.
• How important is external validation (praise, awards, titles) to your sense of self-worth compared to your own internal sense of accomplishment and satisfaction? Research shows that the link between education, job resources, and job satisfaction is complex and often offset by stress, so this internal metric is paramount.¹⁰

Conclusion: The View from the Top is Personal

I began this report with the story of Alex, a story of failure that exposed the deep flaws in how we measure the demands of a career.

The “tallest ladder” approach, focused on years and prestige, led him to a place of profound despair.

It’s only fair that I end with another story, that of “Jordan,” a student who came to me after I had developed the Skyscraper Paradigm.

Jordan had the test scores and ambition to pursue any path, including medicine.

But as we worked through the blueprint worksheet, it became clear that her bedrock was not suited for that specific kind of pressure.

Her deepest values were creative autonomy and a desire for immediate, tangible impact.

Her financial risk tolerance was low, and she wanted a life that integrated work, family, and community without the decade-plus delay.

Using the paradigm, she chose a different path—one in a specialized design field that required a master’s degree but not a doctorate.

On paper, her “excavation” was shorter and less costly.

Her career might not look as tall or prestigious as a surgeon’s to an outsider.

But it was the right skyscraper for her foundation.

Today, she runs a successful small firm, is a leader in her niche, and describes her work with a word I never heard from Alex: joy.

She has a beautiful view from a penthouse she designed herself.

The job that requires the “most” is not the one with the longest transcript or the highest debt ceiling.

It is the one that demands you build the tallest, most complex, most ambitious structure that your unique personal foundation can safely support.

The true challenge is not to find the most demanding career out there, but to consciously and intentionally design a career whose demands you are uniquely equipped and profoundly willing to meet.

The most beautiful view comes not from the tallest skyscraper in the city, but from the one you were meant to build.

Works cited

1. Case 14: Burnout – American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy | ASGE, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.asge.org/home/resources/key-resources/blog/view/practical-solutions/2023/11/16/case-14–burnout
2. A Physician Burnout Story (Part 1) – Physicians Anonymous, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://physiciansanonymous.org/physician-burnout-story/
3. 4 Challenges Derailing Advisors and Strategies to Fix Them, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.civitaslearning.com/blog/4-challenges-derailing-academic-advisor-effectiveness-and-how-to-fix-them/
4. Looking to the future of advising: 6 takeaways from the 2023 NACADA conference | EAB, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://eab.com/resources/blog/strategy-blog/the-future-of-advising-6-takeaways-from-2023-nacada/
5. Behind the Scenes: Top 7 Challenges & Insights for US Career Services in 2023 – Hiration, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.hiration.com/blog/career-services-challenges/
6. Aligning on College and Career Advising Expectations – Education Strategy Group, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://edstrategy.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Aligned-Advising-Case-Study-Aligned-Expectations.pdf
7. The Law of The Skyscraper – Jon Gordon, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.jongordon.com/positivetip/law-of-the-skyscraper.html
8. Skyscraper Analogy – YouTube, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jZdCO3jInM
9. Constructing my skyscraper — A Metaphor of transformation | by …, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://medium.com/@centerforhealingandlife/constructing-my-skyscraper-a-metaphor-of-transformation-20582b0a83f7
10. Does Educational Attainment Promote Job Satisfaction? The …, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/apl-apl0000904.pdf
11. The role of education, occupational match on job satisfaction in the behavioral and social science workforce – PubMed Central, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7351121/
12. Physicians and Surgeons : Occupational Outlook Handbook: : U.S. …, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/physicians-and-surgeons.htm
13. Surgeon Certification Process – American Board of Surgery, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.absurgery.org/get-certified/certification-process/
14. I Want to Be a Doctor! What Now? | Long School of Medicine – UT Health San Antonio, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://uthscsa.edu/medicine/education/ume/outreach/become-doctor
15. How to Become a Surgeon | BestColleges.com, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.bestcolleges.com/healthcare/careers/how-to-become-a-surgeon/
16. Medical School & Doctor Careers | How To Become A Doctor, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.learnhowtobecome.org/doctor/
17. What degree is needed to become a surgeon for 2025? – Research.com, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://research.com/degrees/what-degree-is-needed-to-become-a-surgeon
18. How to Become a Doctor in 5 Steps – BestColleges.com, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.bestcolleges.com/healthcare/careers/how-to-become-a-doctor/
19. Average Cost of Medical School [2024]: Yearly + Total Costs – Education Data Initiative, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-medical-school
20. Average Medical School Debt [2024]: Student Loan Statistics – Education Data Initiative, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://educationdata.org/average-medical-school-debt
21. Medical Student Debt – AMSA, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.amsa.org/action-committee/wellness-student-life-action-committee/medical-student-debt/
22. Rising Medical School Costs Are Shaping Specialty Choices, Practice Type | ACS, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.facs.org/for-medical-professionals/news-publications/news-and-articles/acs-brief/december-10-2024-issue/rising-medical-school-costs-are-shaping-specialty-choices-practice-type/
23. Extent and Consequences of Clinician Burnout – NCBI, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK552628/
24. Education vs. Experience: Which One Gets the Job? – Investopedia, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0511/work-experience-vs.-education-which-lands-you-the-best-job.aspx
25. Research Scientist in Academic or Government Institutions, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://undergrad.genetics.iastate.edu/career-planning/research-scientist-academic-or-government-institutions
26. What does a research scientist do and how do I become one? – SRG, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.srgtalent.com/us/blog/what-does-a-research-scientist-do-and-how-do-i-become-one
27. How to Become a College Professor | University of Phoenix, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.phoenix.edu/blog/college-professor-career-path.html
28. How To Become A Professor – LearnHowToBecome.org, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.learnhowtobecome.org/professor/
29. How to Become a College Professor: Degrees & Requirements, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.educationdegree.com/articles/how-to-become-a-college-professor/
30. How Long Does it Take to Get a Master’s Degree? – National University, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.nu.edu/blog/how-long-does-it-take-to-get-a-masters-degree/
31. How Long Does It Take To Earn a Master’s Degree?, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://graduate.northeastern.edu/knowledge-hub/how-long-earn-masters-degree/
32. How Long Does It Take to Get a Master’s Degree? | SNHU, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.snhu.edu/about-us/newsroom/education/how-long-does-it-take-to-get-a-masters-degree
33. How Long Does It Take to Get a PhD? – Coursera, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.coursera.org/articles/how-long-does-it-take-to-get-a-phd
34. How Long Does a PhD Take? – Alliant International University, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.alliant.edu/blog/how-long-does-phd-take
35. Years to Attainment of a Humanities Doctorate | American Academy of Arts and Sciences, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/higher-education/years-attainment-humanities-doctorate
36. Why do people spend up to 6-7 years to finish a PhD in the US, compared 4 years in the UK? : r/AskAcademia – Reddit, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia/comments/ucp2vv/why_do_people_spend_up_to_67_years_to_finish_a/
37. Average Cost of a Master’s Degree: 2024 Analysis – Education Data Initiative, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-a-masters-degree
38. Trends in Student Loan Debt for Graduate School Completers – National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), accessed on August 7, 2025, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/coe_tub.pdf
39. The Price of a Science Ph.D.: Variations in Student Debt Levels Across Disciplines and Race/Ethnicity, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.air.org/sites/default/files/2021-06/AIRPriceofPhDMay13_0.pdf
40. Identifying & Dealing with Burnout in Academia – Hello Bio, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://hellobio.com/blog/identifying-and-dealing-with-burnout-in-academia.html
41. Career Map: Research Scientist | Department of Energy, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/career-map-research-scientist
42. Trends in Educational and Skill Mismatch in the United States – MDPI, accessed on August 7, 2025, https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/10/10/395