I don't consider myself all that smart so a JD or MBA is a huge accomplishment for me. But what I secretly want, and may never be able to achieve is an Associate's Degree in Physics followed by a BS in Quantum Physics like my good friend from school 25 years ago. He recently got his PhD in Network Engineering Management and he said his BS in Quantum Physics was far, far harder than his PhD. Not that his PhD was easy or easier than other PhDs, but that Physics, especially Quantum Physics, even on a BS level, is super hard for most. I got a D in high school physics 30 years ago, and though I love the topic more than any other, if I ever achieve anything, getting an undergrad or two in Physics will be something I will feel proud of. JD/MBA, ok, but it's not Quantum Physics by a long shot.
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**** law school. The Law School Hate Thread
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I don't consider myself all that smart so a JD or MBA is a huge accomplishment for me. But what I secretly want, and may never be able to achieve is an Associate's Degree in Physics followed by a BS in Quantum Physics like my good friend from school 25 years ago. He recently got his PhD in Network Engineering Management and he said his BS in Quantum Physics was far, far harder than his PhD. Not that his PhD was easy or easier than other PhDs, but that Physics, especially Quantum Physics, even on a BS level, is super hard for most. I got a D in high school physics 30 years ago, and though I love the topic more than any other, if I ever achieve anything, getting an undergrad or two in Physics will be something I will feel proud of. JD/MBA, ok, but it's not Quantum Physics by a long shot.
If you really want something hard, we had this non-degree language school near where I live that only gave out "certificates" to enlisted Army soldiers. They had to go through a three language set of courses (Arabic, Spanish, Farsi, for instance) after passing at the top of their class at Ranger School, I think at Fort Bragg. These guys all worked so hard, and kept a low profile and never received even an Associate's degree, but had just finished Ranger School, and then another special forces school with a 7% percent pass rate. So talk about hard. There is a TV show about this group of well trained, well disciplined, multi-linguists depicted on a TV show on CBS called "The Unit".
These are the smartest, yet toughest group of people I have ever met in my life, and they had little respect for AA, BA, MBA, or PhD since their education and training included not eating for two weeks, learning how to be tortured ala John McCain, and learning no less than three languages each. So when I feel sorry for myself, I remember these young men who go through far more intellectual and physical rigor than I can conjure up, and I move on. I didn't even know these long haired, bearded students were Army soldiers. But they know what "hard" is academically and in practice.
These are the smartest, yet toughest group of people I have ever met in my life, and they had little respect for AA, BA, MBA, or PhD since their education and training included not eating for two weeks, learning how to be tortured ala John McCain, and learning no less than three languages each. So when I feel sorry for myself, I remember these young men who go through far more intellectual and physical rigor than I can conjure up, and I move on. I didn't even know these long haired, bearded students were Army soldiers. But they know what "hard" is academically and in practice.
No offense, but your link doesn't support either of your arguments where you claim a J.D. is a second Bachelor's degree and also your other argument where you claim a master's degree is ahead of a JD. This quote is directly out of your link and it says, "the Juris Doctor is a professional doctorate, similar to the Medicine Doctor (Doctor of Medicine)... the [JD] was changed to confer an equivalent professional status found in other American [doctrate professions] (i.e. medicine, dentristry, etc." I don't want to take away from your degree but a Master's degree is a less difficult and less prestigious accomplishment; that fact is known throughout the academic community. PhD's are tough but not nearly as stressful (i.e. turning in papers for your final grade doesn't compare to timed essay exams covering 1,000 pages of material). Sorry but that's the truth.But get your facts straight about a law degree. Here's a link explaining the often misunderstood degree. www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Juris_Doctorate I am not being harsh to you but forgive me so I can spare you embarrassment in the futureI got seriously embarrassed on this topic:
Why wouldn't it be? It's the same academic accomplishment as going to medical school. It's a 70-hour-a-week study commitment at a top school, you suffer from a total lack of sleep for almost four years of your life (counting the bar), and you study insanely complicated material that only the brightest minds in the country can hope to master one day (i.e. Supreme Court Justices).
Excuse me, are you a law student?
I do those crazy hours. I know. What is your status? Are you an undergrad?
You question somebody who knows, rhs, and you question me? Unless you are either an MBA student, or a JD student, as I am both, you have no leg to stand on. Argue semantics, but then tell me how you study for Con Law, Torts, Crim Law, and Contracts. How did you study for graduate level mathematics? How did you study for your second year MBA courses?
When you can answer those, then you can be on a level conversation with us. Not being snobby, but first get into law school, or MBA school, or any graduate program, and then comment. It's like me commenting on being an astronaut or an NFL player and then arguing with them directly on the internet.
How old are you?
So how many MBA courses have you completed?
How many Master's degree, non-MBA courses have you completed?
You can't ever judge an MBA course load unless you have been there, same as law school.
Re-read rhsgolfer's post. Double check it. Triple check it.
Did I ever say law school was easy? (from my posts)?
Guess what, there are harder things in the world, that's all I am trying to say.
My advice to you -finish law school, and then enter an MBA program. Then compare. Some will find that law school was much easier and some will find that MBA school was much easier. We are all different, that's all. I am not trying to argue with you. Maybe you have a Harvard MBA and found it super easy, fine then. It's just not that way for all JD/MBA students.
You are definitely in good company. I do know an older businessman, actually one of my role models, who got his MBA, built up a good small town business, got rich, and then got his JD.
I asked him, "Why would you ever do that?"
His answer was, "So once you make your money, then you can learn how to hang onto it."
He definitely thought law school was harder.
His 3L electives were in tax law and those were the hardest courses, ever, in his opinion. Crunching the numbers in tax class in MBA school were easier for him than to memorize the tons of tax laws, in law school, which has become our ever complicated tax code.
Though I may want to practice, maybe, I've only thought about legal aid and/or pro-bono at this point. Like him, my primary role is to have or grow a business. He saw my school sweatshirt and asked if I went there, and told him that's where I got my bachelor's and was considering my master's there. After that I asked him if he ever heard of Richard Rosenberg (who was a JD/MBA from my school and did well in banking eventually becoming CEO of Bank of America and Senior VP of Wells Fargo). He told me Richard was his classmate, yet another JD/MBA who took a business path in life, but of course way bigger than almost any JD/MBA in US history. But the JD/MBA stereotype is usually a person who builds a business and gets others to work for them, whether it be a bank, restaurant as per my mentor, or in my case, a skate clothing business. Sometimes a JD/MBA goes only into law, but the rewards, monetarily, are far less and the MBA part often gets under-utilized. When you have a business or are a manager in corporate America, the MBA part and the JD part are relevant every day.
Also to agree with you, but to bolster the new argument, that "The JD is the new MBA" and is looked at as the new business manager's training, has a lot of merit.
You can go find a $44,000 dollar a year asst. DA job where I live. If you are really lucky, you can make $125,000 dollars a year at a top IP law firm in San Jose. Or you can go to that same big city and get in at Microsoft or Cisco or HP or Google as a junior manager starting at $200,000 dollars a year along with top MBA grads from Stanford, UCLA, Cal, Chicago, Wharton, Thunderbird, and many eastern programs. This has been a big trend in Silicon Valley to hire top ranked students from top ranked law schools to start them into high level managerial positions once reserved only for top MBA grads. Unlike GM or Ford, a dot.com or high tech CEO may be under 40 in many cases and are not scared to take people right out of grad school or undergrad and give them huge duties fairly soon. Note that there are also a lot of college dropout whizkids in the mold of Jobs, Woz, Ellison, Dell, and Fanning out there already working and making the big bucks in San Jose now that the fear of high tech stocks has dissipated some. When the economy comes back, high tech will lead the way.
Some of the MBA curriculum is theoretical, outdated, and a little too focused on math skills. American business has become more lawsuit based, especially for the deep pocket companies of Silicon Valley and a young star manager is just as well, or more geared for a great path to CEO if they went to law school. Fifty years ago, this may have not been the case. But today, your JD, if from a top school and if you have a top standing, will bump a top MBA from the applicant pool.
I am in the skate/surf clothing, boards business. I am also following a model of a couple of high school kids who I know who dropped out of college, have no college business knowledge or law school knowledge, and then these kids find their brand took off. They were the brand that replaced OP and Izod, and ruled for a decade before being overtaken by Element and Volcom-Stone. If I were one of these two teens, who both learned how to sew about the same time they learned how to read, and then found out their home clothing business was being hit on by the likes of Macy's and Mervyn's, as was the case, I would have hired law school grads to be my senior managers.
This company, who I won't name, but is similar to other surf and skate clothing companies, have the custom of taking an already well known logo, take playboy or budweiser, changing the look slightly, and then making a cool surfer hoodie out of it. You can imagine why it would be smart for two suddenly rich millionaire teens to have to hire lawyers.
Today, the surf and skate companies have become so bold with their ripoff of others' designs all one has to do is to go online to Zumiez or Pac Sun and see all the companies they carry and all the logos that belong to somebody else not remotely related to surfing and skating. All I can think of is that these skate/surf wear companies have some pretty darn good brand managers with JDs.
ARISE!
My life is sucking because school starts again tomorrow.
I currently have a 1.9 GPA (pending one more grade that STILL hasn't come in yet), and if my GPA doesn't get over 2.0 after this semester, I get the boot.
So I'm seeking out some tips/advice here... what is the easiest and most sure-fire way to graduate law school? I'm not bothering with the Bar, or any law-related jobs, so I couldn't care less what classes I take or what my GPA is when I graduate, as long as they meet the graduation requirements.
Any tips on what classes I should take?
My life is sucking because school starts again tomorrow.
I currently have a 1.9 GPA (pending one more grade that STILL hasn't come in yet), and if my GPA doesn't get over 2.0 after this semester, I get the boot.
So I'm seeking out some tips/advice here... what is the easiest and most sure-fire way to graduate law school? I'm not bothering with the Bar, or any law-related jobs, so I couldn't care less what classes I take or what my GPA is when I graduate, as long as they meet the graduation requirements.
Any tips on what classes I should take?
Take courses from adjunct professors. They are usually full-time practicing attorneys and teaching is something they do for "fun" to get out of the office. They usually don't grade hard and aren't looking to fail anyone. Also, they are usually experts in their field so they are excellent attorneys and highly intelligent (not like any law professors are idiots, but still).
Obviously this is stereotyping adjunct law professors a little, but I think you will find it is at least partially true.
raven has been a member for close to five years. Two posts per day doesn't seem excessive, IMO.
I'm not trying to put anyone down, I was just throwing that out there for something to think about.
And I disagree with your opinion about 2 posts/day not being excessive. I think for most people that seems like a perfectly fine amount of posts, but not for a law student.
At school 8-5, take an hour to chill out, study for 3 or 4 hours. By then it's 9 or 10 and you had better get to bed to wake up and do it all over again the next day. This is the life of a law student. Where does two posts per day come into that equation? I'm just saying that perhaps raven isn't studying as much as he/she probably should. I could be wrong.
I just got my second trimester grades in the JD program
First trimester, I was tied for dead last at the 0% percentile, and didn't even compute numerically, but if there was a number, it was "under 55", which means 50 or 45.
But on first set of midterms a few months later, I got dual 55s, not the worst but bottom 10% percent.
On the second set of midterms, I got 55s, some 60s, and one 70 and upped my class ranking by a considerable amount and am only in bottom 40% percent. My school ranks according to California bar standards where a 63.9% percent is the "average" passing score for the California Bar as was reported on the California Bar for 2007. Fewer than 1% percent get a 79% percent bar score, just to put things into context.
On my MBA portion of my studies, I am a 93% overall after my 2nd semester, but nowhere near the top of my class where many graduate with a 100% percent. I am in the top 15% percentile with that set of scores which is around an A- average for my MBA program.
It's important to put these two different programs into context. If you get an 85% in a law class, that is freaking amazing in California, but for an MBA class, that's very bad.
If I get out of the JD program with a 70 and the MBA program with a 90, that is pretty good for what I am shooting for. Some law schools have massive grade inflation and give out 80s and 90s like candy only to have their grads turn out to fail the California bar over and over and that's not fair to the student.
While the MBA programs in most schools give out the "higher" grades in any JD/MBA program, the MBA side is far more unforgiving with math and copious amounts of reading. The law school side is unforgiving in its time constraints usually only grading according to very, very short timed tests where extreme concise outlines as essays are key.
A perfect law school answer could be 1 page, where some MBA thesis papers, in schools like mine that may have a master's thesis, can run 1000+ plus pages and require a lot of interviews and travel.
In the context of your studies, if you have a 1.9, and a 2.0 is needed to pass, just passing is what is key as the real goal is usually passing the bar exam. Don't fret over grades as many a top law student never passes the bar. Class rank is just a number, but when you have that JD or MBA or PhD, it's if you finished it, not what class rank you are at.
Anyway, good luck and hang in there.
Thanks man for the encouragement. I need it.
I'm just throwing this question out there in hopes someone knows (or could point me to the answer): how long is a license good for? Once you pass the bar, how long will that hold? Say, if you pass the bar, then don't practice as a lawyer at all for 10 or 15 years, will the license still be good? Or will you have to retake the bar or some such?
I am wondering because I plan to go back to undergraduate school for an engineering degree, and hopefully afterwards, join the Peace Corps. There'll be a long gap between me graduating law school and me actually becoming a lawyer (if I ever do). I wonder if I should take the bar after I graduate law school, or when I actually decide to practice?
(And in case you wonder how I'm gonna afford all this, law school is basically all paid for, and I will work part-time during working towards the engineering degree (and go to a public university, which will save me a lot of money)).
Thanks man for the encouragement. I need it.
I'm just throwing this question out there in hopes someone knows (or could point me to the answer): how long is a license good for? Once you pass the bar, how long will that hold? Say, if you pass the bar, then don't practice as a lawyer at all for 10 or 15 years, will the license still be good? Or will you have to retake the bar or some such?
I am wondering because I plan to go back to undergraduate school for an engineering degree, and hopefully afterwards, join the Peace Corps. There'll be a long gap between me graduating law school and me actually becoming a lawyer (if I ever do). I wonder if I should take the bar after I graduate law school, or when I actually decide to practice?
(And in case you wonder how I'm gonna afford all this, law school is basically all paid for, and I will work part-time during working towards the engineering degree (and go to a public university, which will save me a lot of money)).
I worked for the California Bar at what really amounted to relicensing convention once, where lawyers absolutely have to put in class/seminar hours every certain time period in order to retain good standing with the Bar. All I remember was how many lawyers were so pissed off about these extra hours and the cost/fees. Unlike professional education to keep abreast, lawyers in my state have to have continuing education and the extra fees that go along with it. I heard every argument in the book about how this was highway robbery and how no other field forces their workforce to have "mandatory" continuing education and fees.
I know "this" tidbit of news, at least for California attorneys, is terrible news, but I worked for the Bar convention before I knew much about the law so I don't know if this fee/continuing education is for all lawyers, private firm lawyers, or public interest lawyers, or if a $3700+ yearly fee is based on every individual lawyer, a firm, or a certain income.
Since 1Ls should be finishing up there exams, i'm bumping to see if anyone's opinion changed. I'm mentoring a 1L from my school (a t14) and i can't imagine what the current students are dealing with.
Holy ****, dudes. I've just finished my second year.
Pending my grades, I'm a ****ing 3L.
One more ****** year to go!
63dot, thanks for your response, I didn't see it until today. That sounds like a bowl full of suck. Oh well.
Pending my grades, I'm a ****ing 3L.
One more ****** year to go!
63dot, thanks for your response, I didn't see it until today. That sounds like a bowl full of suck. Oh well.
You are almost there. You can finish 3L, pass the bar, and then burn your bar card and do something in life that will make you happy. I already know a ton of people like this.
I have heard about torture in Gitmo with waterboarding and catepillars, but law school/practice of law has to be deemed cruel and unusual punishment.
Well. It has been three years.
My very last grade at UC Hastings College of the Law has been posted.
I've now just officially (as opposed to ceremonially) graduated from law school. It's truly hard to believe that I've survived those three years.
Things have changed since my last update. For one, I'm now studying for the New York bar exam, instead of the California bar exam as I was planning.
Wish me luck - I'm on the home stretch!
And for the sake of the tradition of this thread... **** law school!
My very last grade at UC Hastings College of the Law has been posted.
I've now just officially (as opposed to ceremonially) graduated from law school. It's truly hard to believe that I've survived those three years.
Things have changed since my last update. For one, I'm now studying for the New York bar exam, instead of the California bar exam as I was planning.
Wish me luck - I'm on the home stretch!
And for the sake of the tradition of this thread... **** law school!
