Is it worth it? Forum

[romothesavior]

More concerning: taking advice from someone with 4,000+ posts in 1 year.

yeah i hate taking advice from people who know what they're talking about. takes the fun out of it.

You've got neither

+1.

Also, please don't post my picture on tha interwebz.

[094320]

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[thebookcollector]

I found the law school decision chart. Take a look...

http://g.imagehost.org/view/0248/e1656e ... 3dff18ec86

[thebookcollector]

I found the law school decision chart. Take a look...

http://g.imagehost.org/view/0248/e1656e ... 3dff18ec86

For what it's worth, I actually strongly agree with the chart...

[okfine]

OP, whether you go to law school or not, remember that ITE academic credentials alone won't get you a job. You need to develop specific skills, then demonstrate those skills during internships/volunteer work/low-paid jobs if you want to start a career.

A CS degree is actually an excellent example of this reality. A CS degree won't teach you how to code--you need to teach yourself that. A CS degree is much more about the study of computation and algorithms than it is about banging out code.

Whatever field you end up in, you'll be competing for jobs against people who are very aggressive about learning new skills using free resources on the internet, then honing those skills in specific, demonstrable, resume-friendly ways by offering their skills for free to non-profits or at low cost to others. Whatever academic route you take, you need to learn how to do this.

The analogy using CS would be this: find what area of IT you'd like to get involved in, then use free/low cost resources to build your skills in a way that will make employers take notice. This process is especially critical in the IT field--an unavoidable job requirement of nearly any IT professional is a well-practiced ability to learn new techniques/technologies from resources found for free on the internet. Anyway, let's say you want to be an applications programmer. You might learn some python to start, then dive into java and C++ because they seem to be highly in demand. As things get more complex, you hear about MIT's OpenCourseWare, and that leads you into Scheme and Lisp and all sorts of more theoretical, and very useful, things. You build bigger and bigger programs until you have something you're really proud of to show people. That gets you involved with a little-known open-source project. You do well on this project, which gets you involved with a prestigious open-source project. Armed with a recommendation from your group leader and everything you've learned along the way, plus a large portfolio of programs you've written, you now have a compelling resume to show employers.

You do this all while waiting tables (a good job for keeping daytime hours open for career development). Then you get a job as an applications programmer and live happily after.

Here's the deal: no matter what field you end up in, people will be taking this approach. They'll always have an edge over you if you rely on academic credentials. Employers want to see what you can produce. Practice, not theory.

This approach is also a great way to figure out career you want. Interested in CS? Write some programs. Graphic design? Make some logos. Etc.

If you're used to relying on credentials to get a job, you need to change that mindset before you get to law school.

Also, start waiting tables and pay down your credit cards.

[shortporch]

I don't get the chance for long advisory comments to 0Ls, so this is my forum, I guess.

OP, I guess I don't understand what you want. You've made it clear you don't really have a direction: you majored in English because you like reading and writing; you're thinking about going back for a Bachelor of Science in computers; you're thinking about getting IT certification instead of a BS; you're thinking about law school. Those are wildly different career paths. And it looks like you're primarily interested in "a better, more secure career." I haven't seen anything suggesting you actually want to be a lawyer or practice law.

Your 2.5 GPA is a concern. You like reading and writing, you picked a major that catered to your strengths, and you ended up doing very poorly. Your LSAT suggests you're intelligent, but your GPA suggests you can't write very well, and you might not be able to write law school exams very well.

All of this is kind of harsh, and it assumes a lot (which you have to do in this kind of forum). And it's probably not helped by the fact that a number of the replies have given you a path to getting into X rank of school, rather than address your actual question: not whether it's worth it to attend X over Y law school, but whether you should be attending law school at all. That's a preliminary issue, whether you're attending the bottom of the fourth tier paying sticker or the top of the first tier with a free ride. And, frankly, absolutely nothing in your posts so far suggests you really want to go to law school.

I've seen the backgrounds of my classmates and of my students. It's generally the case that those who really want to go to law school because they want to go to law school enjoy it, and tend even to do better. Those who go to law school because they drifted in, or because they picked a bad undergraduate major, or because they want financial security, tend to dislike law school, and tend not even to do as well. And the very last thing you want is to get all the way to the end of law school (which you never really wanted to do in the first place but only did for a "better" career) and find out that you really don't want to practice law.

While I can't recommend, over a few Internet posts, that you shouldn't attend law school, I think you need some serious soul-searching before you make a significant decision like law school. Picking it on a personal security whim isn't wise, in my humble opinion. Again, if this sounds harsh, I apologize, but I'm trying to be as honest as I can.

[splitterhopeful]

Thank you for the last two posts, which were very helpful. I realize that academic credentials are not the end-all-be-all, and that is an important aspect to consider. I do believe that I could succeed in law school, as my GPA is a poor indicator of my abilities (Actually a 2.9, LSDAS 2.5 due to rough transition to college, major GPA of 3.5+ in contrast to lack of interest shown in core curriculum/immaturity, etc.), and I am interested in law. I am just worried primarily about debt. My goal is to take the LSAT in October to see if I can breach 170 this time and possibly get scholarship money or a better list of schools to apply to. I received a fee waiver, so it's free anyhow.

[okfine]

Good luck! Keep me updated--we're in similar situations. I'm also a splitter with a strongly rising GPA. One thing that really helped when I was retaking the LSAT was to raise my standards--it makes a big difference in your work habits to be shooting for a 175 instead of a 170.