Law School or Master in Teaching?

My cousin and her husband are pharmacists. Her husband at 24 and bought a new Mercedes within a year with cash. Cousin at 30 because she was rejected from admission to the local state school a few times. She got a new Audi with cash within a year of graduation. The schedules can be a little tough because one worked nights for a while and one worked 7 on 7 off with 12 hour days. But they are pretty much set. I'm not the kind of person who likes buying expensive stuff so I'd probably just be saving a lot of money if I were ever in their position. They worked hard and were patient and now they sort of get to relax. And it seems like the kind of profession you could do in old age if you had to. I see a lot of old pharmacists at grocery stores and Target etc.

So basically I'm screwed ;) I have a history degree from a liberal arts college, I am not going back and taking 3 years of biology and math so I can go to grad school to be a pharm. From where I stand right now, teaching and law are the most reasonable options...OR starting my own business which would be a dream but I lack the funds. Judging from the negative tone of your response you are obviously quite sour on the legal profession and I totally get that, all of the things you warned be about I have thought of before and that's precisely why I am considering teaching instead. I do know of lawyers that went to regional law schools and weren't the top dog in their class but still have happy legal careers. As you said, there are "exceptions"! Please forgive me for daring to hope that I might be one of these exceptions. Anyway, your response and many others keep me apprehensive about law. My friend who is an accountant for a law firm has been telling me for awhile about how ruthless the lawyers in his office are and how they work insane hours...why does this have to be the norm? I don't have to take a JD degree and be miserable, but of course I am probably just incredibly naive.

don't pay attention to the "ruthless lawyers" crap. there are people like this in most professional fields. in fact, plenty of teachers are ruthless union monsters.

from what I have seen in the legal profession (from my dad, wife, and inlaws), you do have to be a top student to give yourself good opportunities. this should not be surprising. however, law school...like med school...is more competitive than other grad programs.

if you go for an MS in teaching for instance, you'll be surrounded by a bunch of morons, most of whom expect to live on the government cheese for 10 months of work per year.

You know, I probably do come off a bit sour and cynical. HOWEVER, I really haven't been dealt that bad a deal personally. BUT I have seen many of my friends facing the picture I have painted for you.

My question for you about your regional-lawyer acquaintences is if they are young or old? As I mentioned earlier, there are few young regional types that are either making good money or "happy". If they are, like I said they probably were top of their class. (Likely they haven't volunteered such info).

You very well may be an exception. But I still say there are FAR better ways to hedge your bets. You mention that you wouldn't like to go back to school for the pre-reqs just to do graduate school. I still would say that teaching while taking those pre-reqs, but NOT going to get an MA is a far better investment. Teach for the more likely two years you need to finish up pre-reqs and to take the PCAT. You save money and do not waste the value of your time. Pharmacy school is tough, but if you work part time and during the summers you can make quite a bit of money througout the year (my sister did this and pulled in 25K/yr). Then you go to graduate school and make great money and have a more than comfortable lifestyle money-wise and time-wise. My friend, it is all about hedging your bets. Neither the legal profession, nor an administrative position will likely give you either. As such, a law degree (at a non T-14) or an MA is an extrememly is extremely risky and hence a poor investment in most situations. Not a wise decision, and you will likely regret it.

Like I said, I actually make pretty decent money (close to 6 figures right out of law school), but I know many, many of my classmates at a top 40 law school that are making far less than me (even those that did relatively well, ie top 50%) and working horrible hours to boot at jobs they never would have imagined pre-law school. Sorry to be so cynical, but without it people don't tend to pay attention.

You really aren't that screwed, but you just have to think practically now. You received a degree that is basically worthless for making a lot of money and leading a comfortable lifestyle. It is likely not your fault as no one steered you toward a more functional major (ie accounting, engineering, etc.), but maybe they did who knows. The point is that now you are at a crossroads and you must choose a practical decision that will allow you to achieve your goals with the least amount of risk. An extra couple of years is worth it at this junture. Three years extra is worth it all if you can nearly guarantee your goals for the next 50+. Think about that.

Just to add my experience

Wife is a elementary school teacher (13 years) with a masters degree in teaching.

Makes 87K/year, base salary, no summer school.

Starts- first week Sept. Ends- mid June Xmas- 10 days

gets out sharply at 3:00pm

No real xtra work such as lesson plans- been teaching so long, no need

Has good benefits

Can retire whe shes 52

ps; if she worked summer school, she could make 100K no problem. Some times does after school work and gets paid xtra, when she wants.

My best friend works for a high powered law firm, makes a load of $. Lost his fist 7 years of his working life, due to work/stress load.

I happen to be on the far end of my legal career. I have been practicing for 30 years now. I went to a decent regional law school and went to work with a firm in the city where my law school is. For the first 25 years of my practice I worked about 55-60hrs/week and rarely took more than 2 weeks per year vacation. Nonetheless (<-lawyer word) I managed to put in some quality family time and run about 30-40 miles/week through that time. The income was okay starting out and got to be pretty good over the years, although there were some lean years as well after I started my own firm. I now have a nice home and am financially secure. For the last 5 years I have worked about 25-30 hrs/wk, and probably will stay at that level as long as I continue to enjoy the practice. I liked the practice of law before I started and I am still enthusiastic about it. In looking back at my career I never think about how much money I made, but rather, about the things I accomplished and the people I worked with. If you are contemplating what you are going to work at for a lifetime, then you are best off picking something that excites you most mornings when you have to get up and face it.

just to clarify some of the stuff about teaching pay- you DO get paid more for having a masters in almost every district. in NYC its a pretty significant salary step- about $4k per year, so in most cases it pays for itself really quickly. if you teach at a high needs school there are grant programs through the federal government that will give you a stipend towards your school debt for teaching in that school. i'm not sure what the program was called because i didn't qualify for it, but i know other teachers at the school where i taught took advantage of it.

second, you DO need a masters in certain places to get tenure. in new york city, you are still considered highly qualified if you are working towards your masters and have a certain number of credits in the subject area in which you are teaching. you can teach three years with what is called a transitional b certification. if you want to teach more than that, you have to get your masters. obviously you need to look into the requirements of the specific place where you are teaching to find out whether you need a masters or not.

Everything you say is very logical and I agree with most of it, but you seem very set on the idea that college is about getting the most applicable degree. By your logic I should have been an engineer or as you have alluded to a pharm, those are great careers but I have no interest in them. I want to pursue my passions while still being able to make a decent living, but I understand that won't be easy in this country.

I was told by my family to go to get an applicable degree but math based degrees don't interest me at all, thus I ended up going for something that really interested me.

I guess part of growing up is realizing that work isn't going to be a fun part of life, I still think it should and can be.

I still don't know what to do though...some have encouraged law and others teaching; while some of you have been lobbying for totally different options that would force me to go back to undergrad. Damn confusing.

Do you already teach? If not, and you get a masters in teaching... harder for you to get hired.

honestly, a post-bach is 2 years and medical school is 4, with residency in Emergency Medicine 3. Salary is 225-300 thousand for life, and 35-40 hour weeks.

Not sure what to tell you in terms of the best outcomes here, but it seems like a career that could satisfy all of your requirements.

no fatties wrote:

I want to pursue my passions while still being able to make a decent living, but I understand that won't be easy in this country.

I was told by my family to go to get an applicable degree but math based degrees don't interest me at all, thus I ended up going for something that really interested me.

It doesn't sound to me like you should be a lawyer or a teacher. You mention pursuing your passions, what are those if they aren't teaching or law? Why not figure out a passion that is also a career instead?

I'm no lawyer, but it's no secret that a huge percentage of lawyers hate their job. It's not as well paying as perceived, and it takes up a ton of time.

Try some teaching before you commit to it. I'm have a masters in engineering and I occasionally teach software classes for my job. I do not enjoy this aspect of my job at all. Do not believe anyone that says teaching will be easy or rewarding. It isn't if you aren't the type of person that enjoys it.

A friend of mine is trying to become a fire fighter at age 40. He looks really young and has young kids. You've got time to do whatever you want to do.

Seriously, get a medical degree and be GOOOLDEN

no fatties - Another poster alluded to it and I would like to expound upon it. It seems like you are really unsure of what are your "passions". What are they? If they are reading history (you have a degree in it from what I remember), you can do that in your free time, no problem. Any myriad of things can be done ON YOUR OWN without someone taking your tuition.

Many people think that college is about pursuing your "passions". The reality is that there are an overabundance of useless degrees in college that seem quite appealing. The secret is that you DO NOT need to study under some professor to understand that material and enjoy it on your own. We live in the information age and if you are so inclined you can learn an amazing amount on your own WITHOUT paying ridiculous amounts of money to get it. The idea that you HAVE to go to college to understand the world is the biggest lie that our generation has been fed my friend. College is big business, nothing more and nothing less. You would be naive to think otherwise. (Not trying to insult you, just think about it).

College should be about getting an applicable degree that will allow you to have a comfortable life. If you have a comfortable life (ie work 40 hours a week and six figures) you will have ample time to pursue your "passions" (which will assuredly change throughout your life). You may not like being a pharmacist, an engineer, or an accountant, but those are three of the best careers that will allow you to truly pursue your passions long term.

The reality is that you just don't even know if you are going to like a legal career or a teaching career. The good news is that even if you hate one of the abovementioned careers, they will provide you with economic security and the time needed to cultivate other interests as you see fit. You go the legal route, or the teaching route and hate it? You will be stuck with a job you hate WITHOUT the freedom to pursue your passions. Once again, it is all about hedging your bets my friend. Three extra years in your early twenties are nothing to 50 years of misery. Dwell on it carnal.

what are your real passions wrote:

It doesn't sound to me like you should be a lawyer or a teacher. You mention pursuing your passions, what are those if they aren't teaching or law? Why not figure out a passion that is also a career instead?

I'm no lawyer, but it's no secret that a huge percentage of lawyers hate their job. It's not as well paying as perceived, and it takes up a ton of time.

Try some teaching before you commit to it. I'm have a masters in engineering and I occasionally teach software classes for my job. I do not enjoy this aspect of my job at all. Do not believe anyone that says teaching will be easy or rewarding. It isn't if you aren't the type of person that enjoys it.

I agree. I've been a lawyer for over twenty years, and I'm fortunate to be in a practice area (appellate litigation) that tends to attract bright people with a real passion for law. They're the kind of people who actually read biographies and critiques of U.S. Supreme Court justices in their spare time. They may be as ideologically and temperamentally different as Steve Breyer and Nino Scalia, but they are passionate about what they do.

For many lawyers, though, law is primarily a living in which they are judged by the number of hours that they bill and collect from clients. If they were doing something socially useful, like picking up trash or unclogging pipes, that might be O.K., but a large percentage of them are just increasing the costs of goods and services for everyone else.

If you are passionate about law or education and are reasonably bright, that's great. There is always room for more capable, honest, hard-working lawyers and teachers. Otherwise, find something else to do. We've got enough of the other kinds of lawyers and teachers already.

This is good advice. Some people get in at the right place at the right time. If that doesn't happen then it's good to have a degree you can fall back on that will actually qualify you to do a job. If you are an undergrad and want to be an actor, go ahead and study drama but also study nursing so you can make a decent living while you try to become a pro. If you don't become an actor you can always get a master's in nursing and become a nurse practitioner and make pretty good money (~$100k).

If you study something like economics or even finance, a bachelor's in it really doesn't qualify you for jobs like an accounting degree does. Your department might bring in alumni guest speakers with the same degree who've done well by rising to the top of an investment company or something. When it's time to hire you find out that these same alumni would rather have an MBA with an engineering background or CPA with Big 4 experience. Then you may find out that you can only get sales jobs and you don't like sales.

bump a trump. I find this interesting because I had a similar major and it seems these are the only career paths for me. Can anyone give any advice on what an english/history major can do other than be miserbale as many of you have stated that there is no hapiness in life unless you have a career in pharmacy. Then again you all are probably still undergrads reiterating articles you have read rather than sharing real world experience. Can someone share any real PERSONAL (not the friend of a brother) experience on here in the working world?

OMG I posted a few lines ago and nobody is paying attention.

Why not go to med school it satisfies every single one of your little requirements: money, helping people, lots of charity work available, good hours. You must do well in your post-bach programs etc. but if you can be a top lawyer in your class or whatever you can get into med school and do OK and be a doctor (exclude the extremely competitive specialties for academic reasons).

guyguy - Why do you assume that we are simply undergrads? We ARE NOT, and many of us in this thread have actually already been through college and grad school, and for that reason we are trying to impart a bit of "real world experience" advice to those that are contemplating similar paths.

It seems that you have not actually read through the thread. Several of us are lawyers and have gone through law school and know how that works. If you read my posts you will realize that MANY of my classmates throughout college and in law school had received useless liberal arts degrees.

In fact my friend, prior to the atrocious bajon of our economy over the past year there were really not many articles criticizing college education. As many are having trouble getting jobs in this economy due to useless degrees and fewer openings, articles have been popping up everywhere about recent grads with no marketable degree who can't make student loan payments.

Anyone that really takes a look at higher education in the USA will realize that it is big business, and you will see that even moreso once you are out in the real world. I will tell you (and so will many, many others) that a history and english degrees are essentially useless, especially in the current economy. They are not the types of degrees that will lead to economic prosperity and lots of free time. I am simply trying to tell people how it is (which is what colleges should be doing, but don't) and helping them to achieve their self-professed goals. A ley part of what I am preaching here is that college today is quite the scam in many instances, and that you need to be properly informed and advised so that you do not make 100K and 4-7 year investment mistakes.

I will add a caveat that an english or history degree from an Ivy, along with great connections, will still get you a great job, but that is NOT because your degree has given you great skills, it is due to name recognition and connections that you already had or will likely make in such an atmosphere. If you have a specific critique of anything I have written, I would be happy to respond. Assertions of inexperience in the face of claims to the contrary are poor form however.