What is More Rigorous: Ph.D., M.D., or J.D.? Forum

[scifiguy]

Slightly bored tonight, but a real question, nevertheless.

I'm sure the answer is "it depends" or that it's an appples to oranges type thing. ...But, any arguments for a position?

[Mal Reynolds]

It's people like you.

[scifiguy]

So, I think Gross Anatomy might be one of the more difficult MD classes. You learn every macroscopic bone, tissue, muscle, etc. in the human body (in their normal and diseased states). The level of physical detail and memorization involved can be hard.

For Ph.D.'s the difficulty can vary a lot by field and strength of program. I'm guessing a person doing theoretical physics at MIT will have more difficult work than a Ph.D. in Film Studies at Montana State Univ.

What about JD programs? Is there a class that usually students find to be one of the harder/hardest ones? Civ Pro? Contracts? If so, what makes it super hard?

[isuperserial]

Slightly bored tonight, but a real question, nevertheless.

I'm sure the answer is "it depends" or that it's an appples to oranges type thing. ...But, any arguments for a position?

It doesn't just depend, it's impossible to say. I honestly haven't been to law school yet, but I do think I am much more suited for that than Med School. PhDs are so diverse. If I were to try for a PhD in English, I would probably do pretty well (3.92 GPA for my English Major), but if I were to go for a PhD in Nuclear Physics, I'd probably end up blowing my brains out.

I tend to do very well with the humanities. I tend to suck at math and some sciences, relatively. So it differs from person to person.

I know a lot of kids who are going to become very wealthy, very successful people in their fields, but could never in a million years succeed in law school because they're pretty shitty at writing and don't really care for reading.

What's easiest is going to be what you're good at and enjoy.

[cinephile]

It doesn't matter, because no one will do all three. Besides, rigor is meaningless. Rigor doesn't put a roof over your head nor does it make you happy. Pick the one that will make you happiest and provide you with the best job opportunities.

[twenty]

In order of DAT RIGOR:

American Ph.D > M.D. > J.D. > British Ph.D

Though in fairness, I'd rather spend three years in school working really hard than seven years in school working moderately hard.

[star fox]

Having done all three, I feel uniquely qualified to answer this question.

[twenty]

Having done all three, I feel uniquely qualified to answer this question.

If you've done all three, get a job you hippie. ;)

[A. Nony Mouse]

I've met a bunch of JD/PhDs, and some Ph.D./MDs, but I don't think I've ever met a Ph.D./M.D./J.D.

[redgreenpaper]

undergrad STEM master race reporting in.

starting salary 300k any job i want

[jwinaz]

I'm not sure how we're defining rigor, but also realize that JDs aren't meant to go that in-depth into a subject matter.

They are trained, from what I understand (disclaimer: 0L), to "think like a lawyer" without necessarily having to remember and master in detail all the stuff of their field like a Ph.D.

From the posts here at TLS, some say you don't even have to do the readings in law school and can just read outlines and learn how to apply the material from there. It might be that application is what's important for law, whereas for a Ph.D. you actually do need to know the material in-depth. You literally wouldn't be able to do anything in chemistry or physics, for example, if you didn't understand atoms and their structure and the various laws that govern them and the math needed to describe those processes, etc. etc. Everything builds and you need to know it all to do any work.

Same with medicine. There is a definite need of mastery of material for doctors to be able to do their jobs properly and not make catastrophic mistakes.

I think "rigor" may be conceived of differently for law. Again, since I'm an 0L, I can't speak with any certainty here, but it would seem that you're being trained to have general analytical ability pertaining to interpreting and applying the law. It doesn't seem as narrowly focused, nor necessarily as detailed (yet). ...Perhaps later in real practice of the law when dealing with a highly complex case you end up having greater detail and "rigor" ??

Just speculation, so feel free to correct me if wrong. I'm actually curious about this too.

[John_rizzy_rawls]

moar shitty threads please.

[Void]

This thread stinks. What's with all the phd/md/jd threads? Sounds like OP is trying to decide what to do with his life. Here's some advice: if you're not sure whether you want to be a doctor, a lawyer, or an academic, that probably means that you don't actually want to be a lawyer. Dont waste your time and money on law school unless you actually want to do this.

[JCougar]

I'm not sure how we're defining rigor, but also realize that JDs aren't meant to go that in-depth into a subject matter.

Not only does a master's thesis and a dissertation require you to think more deeply about a subject; in scientific fields, it also requires your ideas to be empirically validated. This means you can't just spew out 50 pages of conjecture simply because it sounds good and you can unearth enough low-level law review citations (that are similarly not empirically validated) to pass it off as "scholarship." It also has to be an original idea--whereas the "study" of law is mostly recycling the ideas of others. Moreover, PhD programs make you defend your ideas in front of the faculty, whose main goal is to rip your reasoning apart time and time again.

Science PhD programs thus require a lot more practical, critical thinking skills. I'm not sure what is required for dissertations in fields like literature or English, though. I'd certainly put the JD last on that list. The only reason it's actually hard is that it requires boatloads of mundane busywork.

[scifiguy]

I'm not sure how we're defining rigor, but also realize that JDs aren't meant to go that in-depth into a subject matter.

Not only does a master's thesis and a dissertation require you to think more deeply about a subject; in scientific fields, it also requires your ideas to be empirically validated. This means you can't just spew out 50 pages of conjecture simply because it sounds good and you can unearth enough low-level law review citations (that are similarly not empirically validated) to pass it off as "scholarship." It also has to be an original idea--whereas the "study" of law is mostly recycling the ideas of others. Moreover, PhD programs make you defend your ideas in front of the faculty, whose main goal is to rip your reasoning apart time and time again.

Science PhD programs thus require a lot more practical, critical thinking skills. I'm not sure what is required for dissertations in fields like literature or English, though. I'd certainly put the JD last on that list. The only reason it's actually hard is that it requires boatloads of mundane busywork.

Do JDs/law students evn write papers at all, though? I thought it was all a single end-of-semester exam, no???

I actually asked about the non-reading of assignments thing in another thread: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 4&t=205205

[Void]

Do JDs/law students evn write papers at all, though? I thought it was all a single end-of-semester exam, no???

I have 4 papers to write this semester, and zero exams.

[spleenworship]

The hell is with you starting all these dumb threads?

[ManOfTheMinute]

The hell is with you starting all these dumb threads?

[byn]

MD/PhD.

[TheBiggerMediocre]

just look at their employment numbers