justin said:Just have a good back up plan. Like get an undergrad degree in engineering or something.
Yeah - this also comes in handy to practice law in a niche area like intellectual property, which is what I will be doing ...
justin said:Just have a good back up plan. Like get an undergrad degree in engineering or something.
Well, I'll be darned. Thanks for setting me straight.setab said:A good one! Wish mine had thought of this. You can't imagine how many law students know by the time that they graduate that they don't want to practice law. The trouble is, as someone said above, you're in too deep by the time you figure it out and you have loans to repay or mouths to feed, or both.
shiny said:Whenever I hear the song "Runaway Train" by Soul Asylum I think of law school. It can still make me cry thinking of how trapped I felt. (Wrongway on a one way track) Having worked so hard to get in and get going it seemed like a non-option to not follow through.
The Other Michael said:It seems a common mistake to not figure out what your "real" hourly earnings are for some of these "high paying" jobs.
I guess it depends whether they're in purgatory or in limbo?setab said:I'm not sure whether you are comparing law school grads to Priests or devil worshippers. I'm not saying you are wrong in either case, I'm just saying I'm not sure. Seriously, I think it takes some level of enlightenment to help people use their education for other than traditional ends. That's why you don't see it all that much.
brewer12345 said:That wasn't really thr thrust of my post. What I was really getting at was that I think the way we choose careers, lives, etc. seems to be more based on socially driven ideas about "maximizing one's potential", being successful, making use of one's talents, etc. I'm not saying any of those are bad things. But I think they do not necessarily equal chooosing a life that will make you happy.
Nords said:I guess what bothers me is the thought that a school would spend time & money trying to find jobs for people who don't support the school's primary reason for existence. Presumably the school gets some sort of compensation for turning future lawyers into stockbrokers, tech support staff, or other non-lawyer fields.
But some point a law school prof/staff would have to ask: "If you're not going to take the bar exam and practice law, then why are we wasting our time with you? Stand up and give your seat to that guy!!"
Oh, I agree & no offense taken, but I'm amazed at the philosophy of an institution that goes to great effort (and considerable expense) to produce a product that is later thrown away or, at best, used in a manner totally inconsistent with its original purpose.setab said:Why pick on law school? Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people graduate with degrees in education, engineering, business, even medicine, and never use their education in a manner which is the conventional progression of their training. Who knows why in all cases?
BunsOfVeal said:I'm making a conscious choice to get into your field because I know that the pay is better. Will it make me happy? I doubt it, but it will certainly beat getting told to be happy with a 1% raise because some Indian guy can do your job for 1/4 of your pay. My thinking is that the banking systems of India and China are so badly regulated and badly run that their banking/finance industry won't be competitive with ours within the next ten years, and when their banking/finance finally start taking away finance jobs wholesale, I will be retired.
brewer12345 said:I hate to tell you this, but you are making an unfounded assumption. Yes, most of the nations we outsource to won't have the financial system to do all the stuff the US financial system does, but many of the jobs are already starting to go over there. For example, most of the big Wall St. banks already farm out a lot of the basic financial modelling, etc. to Indian MBAs.
Unless you can do high value added work and stay on top/constantly upgrade your skills, it doesn't matter what you do: you will be vulnerable to competition from foreign labor.
Hey, hit 'em where the outsourcing can really hurt: get your MBA in India or China!BunsOfVeal said:I'm going where the scholarship is the biggest. I hope it pans out. Businessweek and Fortune ranked the program, but if I'm begging for food on retire early forum in a year or two, you'll know that I f-ed up, and please send donations.