If you want to make a difference in society, become a teacher.
If you want to make a difference in society, become a teacher.
Okay... I think you're on to something my friend. Let's say starting today I put all of my efforts into becoming a pharm, I won't lie to you the money would give the freedom, and my passions are running and family/friends. I'm currently 24, is it possible to be working as a pharm by the age of thirty? You are dead on about money affording the freedom to actually pursue my passions, I think you kind of flipped a switch on in my head. I appreciate the advice, and I think letsrun may actually be helping me to make a very difficult decision.
asdfasdf wrote:
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.
xxx wrote:
If you want to make a difference in society, become a teacher.
someone explain this to me please because I never understood it. Then again you that posted it is probably a high school teacher and in America that means you can't articulate yourself well and you're borderline illiterate and I bet 95% of the students you taught are unemployed because you tricked the impressionable teenagers in to thinking that they should major in something interesting. Congradulations you did make a difference....the difference on whether or not we get out of the recession. Since all of your students are completely useless other than filling in the recession proof positions of you and your fellow teachers we can sit back and smile as we produce nothing in the next generation. Please never post again!
anti dentite wrote:
someone explain this to me please because I never understood it. Then again you that posted it is probably a high school teacher and in America that means you can't articulate yourself well and you're borderline illiterate and I bet 95% of the students you taught are unemployed because you tricked the impressionable teenagers in to thinking that they should major in something interesting. Congradulations you did make a difference....the difference on whether or not we get out of the recession. Since all of your students are completely useless other than filling in the recession proof positions of you and your fellow teachers we can sit back and smile as we produce nothing in the next generation. Please never post again!
you are correct about a large number of the teachers in the US right now. Our educational system is an embarrassment bogged down by unions and bad parents.
however, if the guy/girl you're replying to had said, "...be a GOOD teacher...," he/she would be correct. Good teachers are a great thing for society.
You criticize teachers and you cant even spell the world "congratulations". Who is "borderline illiterate"?
It must only be in America where people make a mockery of teachers and then turn around and tell people to become doctors and lawyers.
Maybe you should never post again?
no fatties - I am glad that I have been helpful. I do think that you would likely would be done at 30 and working that same year. I honestly think your best bet is to teach anywhere you can (and if you live in a large metropolitan area you will likely find a job somewhere) and take night classes somewhere to fulfill your pre-reqs and then take classes in the summer. You would get them done within two years and in after the first year you would take the PCAT and apply, all while making some cash. Pharmacy school is 4 years and at 30 you would be done with a great career. You could also just go back to school full-time, but it would be difficult to make decent money while in school. Either way, I wish you the best of luck!
Here we go again... wrote:
Easy...
If you're a superficial, greedy, power-hungry piece of crap who thrives on manipulation of the rules, then be a lawyer.
If you want to make a difference in this god forsaken world and do something positive, be a teacher.
Yeah, lawyers are the worst, until you've been wronged and you actually need one.
Personally, I think people become teachers because they're lazy and want summers off. They aren't in it to "change the world." They have little, if any impact on students. The students who go on to be successful do so because they have good parents, not because some teacher "got through to them."
Somebody reply to me so I know these posts are going through. If you are considering law and teaching, WTF is wrong with considering medicine?
medicine9 wrote:
Somebody reply to me so I know these posts are going through. If you are considering law and teaching, WTF is wrong with considering medicine?
Why would a history major go to medical school? I'm pretty sure he would be well behind the super competitive pool of applicants applying to the most prestigious post graduate field there is.
Yeah, GUY GUY, OP here. Med school is a wonderful option, but for those of with BA\'s in Hist/English it\'s a tough world. I think you are in a similar situation to me, I have been getting some good advice from asasdfadaf or however he spelled it. I just went and looked at all of the prereqs to be a pharm, and let me tell you it is no freaking picnic, basically it\'s a shit load of math and science. I am considering all of my options still and one thing that I really think I will do is just start teaching. I make like 38 grand a year now and I work in f***ing office and it\'s miserable, I can make the same or a little less if I just jump right into teaching and get my certificate. I\'ll surely be happier teaching and helping kids while I decide what I want to do with my life. I would love to make BIG money and have the freedom to just run a ton of miles and live the good life, however the only SURE road to the big bucks is in a math or science based field and that isn\'t my bag, at all. The easiest jobs that reward you with big money (pharm, dentist, etc..) do require a myriad of prereqs that I don\'t have and didn\'t take for a reason.
Just because I enjoy reading and writing as opposed to math and science doesn\'t mean I or you should be destined to a life of low earnings and being shit on by society. Law school is a way to up your status and earning power with a liberal arts background, but as you can see by the other posts it definitely has its negatives, like 70+ hour weeks.
The one thing I know for sure right now is that I will get into teaching and see if I like it, and from there I can focus on a direction for grad school.
One more point to make.... Do you think ANYONE has a passion about Pharmaceutical Sciences??? HELL NO, they have a passion for MONEY, Just like the folks that many of you have bashed who get into law for the \"wrong reasons\". If I went to pharm school, I would do it to chase the paper, so I could do as I said earlier, have enough cash to be free and have more control over my life; therein lies the dilemma, those of us who want to work to live and not live to work need to have a damn good paying job to do so.
I will add my perspective to the mix: BA in history from a good liberal arts college, followed by a year as a paralegal and a year as a teacher at a "private" high school. Rather than sink yourself in loan-debt, why not try to land one of the jobs above and see if it's for you?
Granted, being a paralegal is hardly glamorous, but at least it will let you see the inside of a law office and give you some idea as to what lawyers do on a daily basis. The paralegal gig was mind-numbing at times, but it had its moments. At the very least, I felt like I was working for a legitimate organization.
After two years abroad and desperately in need of employment, I took a job teaching English at an extremely rural high school that had recently opened a boarding program. Long story short, it was one of the worst experiences of my life and I quit after 4 months.
Food for thought.
Why was teaching HS English so terrible? Maybe it had something to do with the school being, "extremely rural". What are you doing now??
try training wheels first wrote:
I will add my perspective to the mix: BA in history from a good liberal arts college, followed by a year as a paralegal and a year as a teacher at a "private" high school. Rather than sink yourself in loan-debt, why not try to land one of the jobs above and see if it's for you?
Granted, being a paralegal is hardly glamorous, but at least it will let you see the inside of a law office and give you some idea as to what lawyers do on a daily basis. The paralegal gig was mind-numbing at times, but it had its moments. At the very least, I felt like I was working for a legitimate organization.
After two years abroad and desperately in need of employment, I took a job teaching English at an extremely rural high school that had recently opened a boarding program. Long story short, it was one of the worst experiences of my life and I quit after 4 months.
Food for thought.
Hey, if you were a good teacher, you'd be able to "change lives," right? Are you saying that you basically just want an easy teaching job handed to you? Typical.
I am not a high school teacher. I am not living in America.
As much great substantive discussion as this thread has fomented, the fact of the matter is that what the OP is asking for is unreasonable. OP: if I could get one point across, it would be that six figures just aren't made without a boatload of responsibility, at least at first for a 25-28 year old. You say you want 'middle class income with an easy job so you can focus on life' or whatever, but the simple fact is that most people want just that--that's why professions that generally used to lead to that (law, etc) are saturated. If you can go to a top 6 law school and make 160 with soul crushing hours for a few years, why is that so much worse than doing residency or anything else like that?
As to pharmacy, I have four close friends in pharmacy school--not one likes it, it takes a year longer than law school, they have to pay to intern during the summer, yet yes, they will probably start at 6 figures. That said, being a pharmacist is soul-crushingly boring, in all of their experiences--it's just a job that pays relatively well.
You seem reasonably bright, but maybe not bright enough (at least, if you were planning on going to a T2 regional law school, then you probably aren't a top student, I'm guessing)--there is no golden job out there for 25 year olds to work 40 hours a week and make six figures. If you're okay with starting out in the 50s and being at 100+ within 10 years, I would suggest engineering or actuarial science, particularly the latter.
I guess all this just points to the question: why the rush? What makes you feel like you should be able to get 100k+ with little work when you're not qualified for anything and not anomalously intelligent? Not to be a dick, but it just seems like the whole premise of your situation is presumptuous and myopic.
Studying law even at Harward doesn't require that one is anomalously intelligent - string theory does. Then again
physicists aren't paid that well.
xxx wrote:
Studying law even at Harward doesn't require that one is anomalously intelligent - string theory does. Then again
physicists aren't paid that well.
maybe not 'anomalously intelligent,' but certainly very unusually so. The median LSAT at HLS is within the 99th percentile of all test takers--so that's the top 99% of people who want to go to a professional program....that's a tall order.
Thanks for the feedback, I am reasonably bright, and any shortcomings in my grades can be attributed to a lack of effort and not intelligence. I would be going to a top 50 and not a top 10 school because in school just as in life I valued other things more than studying all day. I valued running and free time but I still managed a 3.4 while not studying every waking moment. Now as a post grad I simply want to pursue a career that will afford me the things I have stated earlier in the thread. I have a good work ethic and being stuck in an office for the last year has made me re-evaluate my priorities, when I go back to school I will put in that extra effort to not coast by with a 3.4 and get back to the 3.8 range I was at as a frosh/soph in college. I see fat lazy people all around me who work in the very professions many of you have been telling me to get in that are considered "successful" and "intelligent". I guess making 100k a year requires such an immense amount of responsibility that I could never handle it, or that's what you want to believe. When people doubt me I have always proved them wrong, so your negativity is really just more motivation for me.I don't mean to take what you said so personally, but you make it sound like I'm a "have not", and that simply isn't the case. I'm totally fine with working my ass off, it just has to be doing something I can somewhat enjoy.
why this thread is ridic wrote:
As much great substantive discussion as this thread has fomented, the fact of the matter is that what the OP is asking for is unreasonable. OP: if I could get one point across, it would be that six figures just aren't made without a boatload of responsibility, at least at first for a 25-28 year old. You say you want 'middle class income with an easy job so you can focus on life' or whatever, but the simple fact is that most people want just that--that's why professions that generally used to lead to that (law, etc) are saturated. If you can go to a top 6 law school and make 160 with soul crushing hours for a few years, why is that so much worse than doing residency or anything else like that?
As to pharmacy, I have four close friends in pharmacy school--not one likes it, it takes a year longer than law school, they have to pay to intern during the summer, yet yes, they will probably start at 6 figures. That said, being a pharmacist is soul-crushingly boring, in all of their experiences--it's just a job that pays relatively well.
You seem reasonably bright, but maybe not bright enough (at least, if you were planning on going to a T2 regional law school, then you probably aren't a top student, I'm guessing)--there is no golden job out there for 25 year olds to work 40 hours a week and make six figures. If you're okay with starting out in the 50s and being at 100+ within 10 years, I would suggest engineering or actuarial science, particularly the latter.
I guess all this just points to the question: why the rush? What makes you feel like you should be able to get 100k+ with little work when you're not qualified for anything and not anomalously intelligent? Not to be a dick, but it just seems like the whole premise of your situation is presumptuous and myopic.
I didn't mean to imply that you're a 'have not' in terms of having a hope of making 100k+. What I was trying to say is that you seem to have the mentality of needing to start at 100k, when in fact very few people/professions allow folks to make that kind of bank starting out. One route for this is a top law school, and whether or not you're capable is irrelevant--the 3.4 will be a serious hindrance, and you'd need to dominate your lsat.
I guess that what I'm really pointing to is why you seem to be so averse to working your way up as, say, an actuary or an engineer--starting at 60-80k and working your way to 100k, which is a much more realistic mindset.
It just seems like people our age (i.e. the 22-26 recent grads folks) live in this fantasy world where they see people making 100k and feel like they need to make that much immediately. If you're single, 60k will be more than enough for you for a couple of years while you work your way to 100-150k (as would be the case as an actuary).
I never got the impression that the OP wanted to start at 100k. In the very first post, he said "eventually".
All the talk about teaching salaries is too general. It really depends on your state, region within the state, and district. On top of that, cost of living is a huge factor (San Fran salaries look great but finding affordable living seems like it would be quite a challenge). I'm a teacher and love it. Best wishes with whatever choice you make.