Law School or Master in Teaching?

registered$ wrote:

NOONE is a compassione teacher and NOONE is an honest lawyer.

Your teacher was obviously compassionate if she didn't kick you out of school for being illiterate.

I don't how serious "registered" is, but I'm enjoying his posts. (It's not too late to get a dog, by the way. As for golf, who would want to play that game if he were in good enough shape to do something else?)

registered forgot to register. How ironic.

Perception wrote:

registered$ wrote:

NOONE is a compassione teacher and NOONE is an honest lawyer.

Your teacher was obviously compassionate if she didn't kick you out of school for being illiterate.

You just don't get it. NOONE was my teacher and NOONE was compassionate. NOONE is an honest attorney. As a matter of fact, NOONE is faster than Usain Bolt. NOONE can defy gravity. NOONE thinks...therefore NOONE is.

amksteeple wrote:

1. avocados number asked if you need a masters to teach and whether they would ask the nobel prize winner in physics to get a masters in teaching. the answer to both questions is yes. part of this has to do with NCLB requiring that all teacher be "highly qualified" in their subject area which means attaining a masters within your first x yrs of teaching. a little ridiculous since no study has ever proven a causal link between student outcomes and teaching certification, but it is what it is.

"Highly qualified" has nothing to do with a masters. In order to attain "highly qualified" status you simply need to graduate from a state-approved program and earn a teaching certificate. There are lots of schools who like masters degrees so they can show off how great of a school they are, but they certainly aren't required.

And principals do NOT get summers off. Principals get about 20 days of vacation time for the whole year (pretty much the same number of vacation days for any job). The rest of the year they are working with a few paid holidays.

wow, lots of dishonest lawyer jokes, how original.

First off, maybe you should not go right into grad school if you don't know what you want to do. No offense, but I know a bunch of people in law school that went there just because it might be a good career and ended up either not liking it or not being prepared to do the work. Then you are stuck with a student loan and no degree to speak of. Before I decided to go to law school, I spent a year working in a law firm. Plus, don't go be a lawyer simply for the money. No matter how much money you make, it does not buy you happiness (but maybe a swimming pool). You have to put up with a lot of crap as a lawyer (as you do as a teacher) and if you want to be good, then you should think of it as not a job, but a calling. Cheesy, yes. But grad school costs too much money to not put 100% into it.

I choose law school after working in a plantiff's firm. I thought litigation was what I was going to do for a career. Now I work in Compliance, as far from litigation as you can be. But I'm happy with my career (but not rich). I am buried with student loans, so only choose grad school if you are sure you want to and that it will improve your career. If you do choose to teach, teach first - some schools will help pay for your degree. Good luck

On the whole, this country desperately needs teachers more than lawyers.

Only one in ten kids from low income families graduate college, only half graduate high school- and do so reading at an eighth grade level.

If you want to wake up knowing you can positively influence someone's life every single day - become a teacher. There's a ton of bureacracy, but at the end of the day, it's you and your students.

There's obviously no easy answer to your decision, but these are a few things to keep in mind:

1. With zero experience in either field it sounds like you should try to find a job in one or the other before you commit to going to school. Keep in mind that an ed masters qualifies you do nothing else but teach. There are a lot of happy people in both fields, but unless you have a valid reason to choose one, you should think about working first before committing to school.

2. To be a good teacher, you have to do a lot of extra work. Sure your contract says 7:30 - 3:30, but grading, tutoring, lesson planning, assessment writing, classroom cleaning adds on 10-15 hrs a week. Your first year teaching you won't work less than 65-70 hrs a week. No joke. Especially if you're at a demanding school (meaning a really good school or a really bad school). People get away with less, but they're there for the wrong reasons.

3. You don't need a master's degree to teach, and you get almost no return on your investment. I did a master's in education and policy at UPenn and it will literally never pay for itself if I continue to teach. Unlike law or business school, your ed. masters has zero effect on your income. The principal of my school is barely literate, has an online masters, and makes six figures.

3. That being said, you can make six figures as an administrator, but I guarantee that in order to be even minimally competent at your job you won't work less than 70 hours a week, and summers off will be a myth. You have to really, really care about your school and your students to be a good principal. If you're smart, can figure out a budget and can motivate kids, then I'd love to have you as a principal.

4. I can't speak to being a lawyer, but a law degree is unquestionably far more transferable - meaning there are a lot of other industries that you could end up working in down the road. And you could very easily become a teacher down the road - you'd just need to take a Praxis test in the subject area you'd like to teach - as I said before, a teaching degree qualifies you only to teach.

Most importantly: If you care about children and you want to go into work everyday and really make a difference - then teach. If you teach in an urban school, you can literally change people's lives on a daily basis - if you care enough to put the time in.

I'm a lawyer. I like it for the competition. It's like a big game of the tv show Survivor: Out Last, Out wit, and Out Play your rival. Being in court is like being on stage. Winning a motion is like winning a race. It's a big game. If you're really religous or adhere to some moral compass, don't go into it. Sometimes you may need to trick your opponent. Some might call it throwing a low blow, but you can be ethical. Are you the person that tries to figure out if a baseball player was actually out or safe at a close play at first base? If so, go into teaching. If your the type of person to yell "He's safe" when the runner is on your team or "He's out" when your playing the field, become a lawyer. Some law jobs you only need to work 50 hours a week. Be careful about setting up your own practice early in your career. It may give you more flexibility, but you'll spend 20 extra hours in addition to your regular work doing marketing to bring in the clients. I say go to law school. If yoi don't like it you can teach it to others.

I agree with this guy because you can truly change the lives of your students. If they have an apathetic teacher they will bomb every class and be backed into a teaching career. But if they have a GOOD teacher like you they will be able to get into a good law school.

Heck if teaching is a more rewarding career than everything else we should just spend less money on education so students keep getting bad enough grades to keep them from pursuing any other career but teaching Then everyone will be happy pushing the same useless dribble 9 months a year while the economy really goes to crap because any career other than teaching is unethical and nobody is willing to fill those "scumbag" postitions (this encompasses every other career according to all the miserable teachers out there who assign themselves a false sense of entitlement). Give me a break. Teaching is BS and I'm not going to keep repeating myself. NOONE understands.

Seriously I never understood the point busting your hump getting great grades in math,science,history, and english only to be a teacher and encourage the next generation to get great grades in math,science,history, and english because...well...your teachers told you needed to. Those grades must be the means to something more..the end hopefully being able to create something of value(a product a service) If this is not true, then grades are ultimately of no value and we all might as well just settle for mediocrity because all we are going to need to do is know it well enough to pass along which isn't hard.

Even if you do get into a good Law School all you are is a number in the eyes of the admissions council. You earn your way based on two numbers:GPA and LSAT score. Your law school prowess is based on 2 numbers:Your GPA and rank. Your career is based on two numbers:How much more you make than lawyer A and how much more you need to catch up to lawyer B. Doesn't anyone have any creativity these days. Find your niche and meet people and create something of use. I'll be back later,I got to go finish the motion picture I directed.

My friend, some people have been beating around the bush regarding a legal career, but I am about to give you the stark reality since you apparently have done little research into the profession (as is the case with most "0Ls").

First and foremost - the probability of you receiving anywhere near 160K ("market pay" - which really only exists in NYC, LA, CHI, and a few other large cities) is about 10-25% AT BEST if you go to a law school outside of the "T-14". DO NOT think that you can "easily" get into the top 25% of your law school class. The odds are stacked against you.

You will incur AT LEAST 90K in loans after you are done with school (unless you go to an extremely cheap school or get a scholarship - which seems unlikely in your case since you talk of going to a regional school). This debt-load will haunt you for a long time. Why? Because you likely will not make much money.

It is a myth that being a lawyer is the path to economic prosperity. 25, 20 years ago it was extremely different. Outside of "BigLaw" you will not find very many YOUNG attorneys (as in 5 years out or less) making 6 figures. Even those working and making 6 figures at "local" law firms assuredly graduated in the top 25% of their class. There are exceptions to every rule, but they are EXCEPTIONS!

Most lawyers will likely make no more than 50-60K their first couple of years out of school, and will likely never reach 100K at any point in their career. REMEMBER, I talk of those that have RECENTLY graduated law school. Those that graduated many years had an opportunity to stake out the market as solos and with small firms. BUT there are TOO MANY lawyers now, and TOO MANY LAW SCHOOLS. This has led to a saturation of the legal market and today's graduates have little opportunity to break into the market.

It is true that you will likely make 5K to 10K more starting out as a lawyer than you would as a teacher, BUT it is still very likely that you will make about the same once you take into consideration hours and benefits.

You will likely not pay attention to this post and will likely head straight to law school thinking I am full of crap or that you will beat the odds. However, once you are a 2L and have not scored that market job, I GUARANTEE that you will remember what I said, but by then it will be too late and you will have sacrificed 3 years of your life and nearly 100K in loans to make more or less the same you would have made as a teacher.

Also, DO NOT get a masters in teaching. Honestly, what you need to do is get an accounting degree, an engineering degree, or just start over and get a pharmacy degree. Those degrees are truly marketable and will guarantee you a comfortable life. There is a possibility to make 160K straight out of law school, BUT IT IS UNLIKELY. With an accounting degree your odds are MUCH higher. With a pharmacy degree, you are truly guaranteed about 100K straight out of school (but your potential isn't super great and compression is tight). REMEMBER WHAT I SAID. And by all means ask me for clarification for what I said.

The only thing that would be concerning about pharmacy would be the possibility of an oversupply of pharmacists because there are a lot of podunkville pharmacy schools being built lately. That probably isn't a possibility for the next 10 years though. But at least you'd be qualified to do something and could probably live wherever you want. You could get a pharmacy degree and move to a ski resort area like Whistler in Canada or something. It is a pretty long haul though. Two to three years of prereqs and four years of pharmacy school. If you don't get into a state school, pharmacy school can be really expensive. You could have $200k in debt if you go to a private school. But you would basically be guaranteed $100k and if you work lawyer hours you could get yourself a good amount more with overtime. My dentist friend tells me to go for it and seems to think pharmacists have a good deal and don't work as hard as dentists.

I think most of what asdfasdf says is correct--law school is worth it if you're going to a T14; honestly, from what I've heard even outside the T10 or so is so competitive that it's not worth it. Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, NYU, and Chicago (maybe Berkeley) are shielded from this somewhat, although Chicago is still really competitive if you want a good clerkship. Outside of those, be prepared to have a really competitive three years if you want to be successful (vis-a-vis HYS, which barely even have grades--esp Yale).

I would be nervous about pharmacy because there's really no way to know what that job landscape will look like in the future--it's a surprisingly politicized and unstable profession.

The best routes to 100k+ as a young man are

1) elite JD/MBA: by this, I mean very elite--top 6 or so of either program; you'll work a good bit, but you will start out with a 120-160k job as a 25 year old.

2) PhD in Statistics--e.g. see NYT article from yesterday

3) accountant/actuary--particularly the latter; start passing tests in college

4) maybe petroleum engineer--it'll take a few years

And what school district is that? Yeah, right. The school districts have so much money that they love spending 50% more for new teachers with masters degrees. Yeah, right.

Halfman wrote:

Fat Boy wrote:

First off, if you get the masters in teaching before you are tenured then no one will hire you. That's a fact. Been there, done that. I'd forget the older crowd because they will probably end up knifing you one day. Stick to the elementary kids.

Get your masters first. Don't listen to this guy. It is such a pain to try to get your masters while you are teaching. Either that or you will get some cheap superficial online masters that won't actually enhance your education or abilities. It is completely untrue that no one will hire you if you have a masters. Some schools don't even hire people without masters degrees. I would estimate that 50% of our new hires are new teachers with masters degrees.

everything you need to know.

My background: subject-matter MA from a top school, several years of privates school teaching, starting at a top law school in a few weeks.

My disconnected reflections, in no particular order:

- We don't need more teachers. I have about a dozen friends with teaching degrees and good grades who cannot get a teaching job. Nobody is hiring young teachers, and unions protect bad teachers. What we need is more GOOD teachers. If you KNOW that teaching is what you want to do, then you should go for it.

- Most people get into teaching for 2 reasons, which are often mutually exclusive. They want to make a difference, and they want lifestyle benefits. Unfortunately, if you're doing a good job, you're not going to enjoy a lot of lifestyle benefits. 70-80 hours/week was the norm during the year for me, and I only had 60 students. Meetings and lesson planning take up all your time during the week, so the weekends are all spent grading--a mind-numbing task that happens to be one of the most important things you do as a teacher, so you have to take it seriously.

- The choice you're considering is not between making a difference and looking out for number one. I've known many teachers who loved their work, but were NOT GOOD AT IT. Not everyone can do it well. If you're not better than the person who would be doing the job if you weren't there, you're not making a difference (remember that there are tons of unemployed teachers who would love to be in the classroom). I've also known many rich lawyers who have really made a difference: building schools in the Dominican Republic, serving on non-profit boards, sending many talented but underprivileged kids to college.

- Law has its own problems at the moment, many of which have been covered by other posters. Like teaching, it's a career for people who REALLY want it.

- That said, teaching is a better choice than law if you're not sure what you want to do. You can teach for a few years with less risk than if you were to take out loans to go to law school. The experience will also be useful to you in other careers.

Sorry for taking a long time to respond. My choice was between law school or an MA...not in teaching. I chose the MA. I start in 2 weeks. I have no idea if this was the correct decision, but as I stated earlier, I did not want to be an attorney after working with so many and seeing what it was really about.