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Hello all,

I'm a rising senior and am strongly considering getting a master's degree in national security studies in the UK prior to attending law school. The programs I'm looking at are known in the field, are only a year in length, and I'd attend law school a year after completing one. I want to practice national security law or international law more generally in this field, and am looking primarily at T6 schools (especially H and CN).

My question is whether pursuing this master's would be worth it. It would provide me experience in the field in which I hope to practice, as well as a minor soft for admissions purposes. But it would be costly on top of law school debt later on, and would delay my entry into law school by a couple years (all the programs I'm looking at end in September so I'd have to attend the year after). Would I be better served being a paralegal or entering the workforce in some other way for a year or two? Or would getting a master's from a respected institution in this field be worth the cost/the trouble?

Work for a couple of years. Don’t pay for a MA.

therapeia wrote:getting a master's from a respected institution

I think you'll find that, except for a few niche areas where specific graduate degrees are useful/mandatory, a master's doesn't really get you much. Substantial work experience is much more coveted by firms than is some random master's degree that probably doesn't have much to do with the day-to-day work you'll be doing.