My personal example. I'm betting four years of medical school loans that I can successfully complete med school, residency, and find a job. There is a lot of uncertainty in pursuing a medical degree. What if I didn't make it into med school? I have a four year biochem degree.. a field I don't want to work in. I was almost faced with that after two years of applying and finally making it in. Okay.. now what? Four years of medical school, hundred exams that I can possibly fail, license exams I can fail, bad evals I can receive. Even after that, it is more uncertain.

The only way I can "deal" with this is thinking of it in terms of a risk/reward analysis. I'll start with some variables.

Variables:

- The graduation rate / residency placement rate is around 90%+. What happens with 10%?

- Salary in a mid competitive field is $300K+ USD in areas that aren't expensive (Nevada?). What if I did computer science instead? 130K in Seattle? What if I didn't land a job?

- Loans are around 350K at 6.5%. What if I fail and can't pay them off?

- Employment rates of doctors vs CS? Job security?

- Ability to leave medicine and go into computer science?

- Etc.

My risk is I fail and it takes me 25 years to get out of debt... by then I'm an old man. That is a pretty big risk. My reward is job security for the rest of my life. Gamble? ~10% odds I end up failing. Pretty low risk, but everything in the med field is filled with uncertainty. A few years from now I might be the guy making 40K with an MD next to my name, I might not.

The question to ask yourself, is the uncertainty worth the reward? Be reasonable and analyze the risk involved.