How hard/realstic is it to teach oneself finance? Forum

[lawhopeful10]

I have seen on these boards a lot of people saying not to do summer prep before 0L but rather learn a skill. I only have two classes my final spring semester of undergrad so I was thinking of trying to learn some finance. I am an econ major who has already taken basic business classes and international finance which just discussed mncs, and trading currencies shit like that. I have also seen some people on these boards claim learning finance can possibly get you interviews with accounting or banking jobs if one strikes out in law school and I was wondering how true that is.

Any information on this topic is appreciated, thanks in advance.

[20130312]

Do you mean with regard to investments? Or corporate finance? Even both of those are huge fields in their own right, but you should at least be a little more specific about what you hope to accomplish. Saying "I want to learn finance" is meaningless.

[lawhopeful10]

fair enough, I guess whatever kind would be the best to learn in terms of making oneself an appealing employee either outside the legal field, or if one wanted to lateral over to something else later.


to clarify, I have no idea what skills investment/big 4 accounting firms look for so whatever those would be. All of this is assuming it is possible, and beneficial to learn said skills.

[cinephile]

Learning something on your own will mean nothing. Taking classes will also mean nothing after you graduate. If you get some kind of internship that you could put on your resume, that would be helpful. But really, if you want to impress lawyers and make them think you are skilled in finance, you should work full-time for two years minimum before going to law school.

[lawhopeful10]

thanks

[Swimp]

Learning something on your own will mean nothing. Taking classes will also mean nothing after you graduate. If you get some kind of internship that you could put on your resume, that would be helpful. But really, if you want to impress lawyers and make them think you are skilled in finance, you should work full-time for two years minimum before going to law school.

This. It doesn't matter if you taught yourself something (aside from personal fulfillment, of course). You need someone like a boss to vouch for you, and to be able to point to something you did with that knowledge.