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Going to grad school to postpone job hunting
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Biotech in San Diego is doing really well, actually.
This is off topic, but I think that people who go to grad school mostly for career reasons tend to do better there than the people who go just because they really, really want to learn more about a subject. Those people almost always suffer severe burnout when their passion for their obscure subject fades after 3-5 years and they have no idea what they want to do anymore, whereas the first type of people can just keep chugging along. They might not love it, but they'll never hate it either.
I am currently working and living abroad and spending my time studying researching to prepare for grad school (maybe in a few years).
How much does already having mastery of a few foreign languages help your job opportunities/acceptance into Grad school?
I'm just wondering if my language learning will be a big help other than personal enrichment, because I've never seen jobs in the US that really require foreign languages...though it might be that I've been looking in the wrong places.
Thanks!
I don't know of too many parents who can support an adult at home, to be quite honest with you.
Like, if you're going to grad school for nursing or education, there are jobs that directly correlate with those accomplishments. You can't be an NP or professor, respectively, without them.
But if you're going for something you enjoy but have no prospects for, like fine arts, liberal arts, or humanities, I think it's more than a bit naive to get pissy when people don't start beating your door down to give you a great job.
Hell, even my first degree was in something relatively ubiquitous, Economics, and I got jack-shit offers out of college. But I did get a lot of, "Hey, you wanna be our intern for a year and then fight for a job that pays less than a fry cook?" offers.
I moved back in with my folks for about three months while looking for work and going on interviews. I kind of had a weird problem; I graduated a year early, but I didn't do any internships during summers, instead taking classes at community college to graduate faster. I think I would have been better off taking longer for my BS but getting my foot in the door somewhere. A buddy of mine basically did that with a BA-GB, and has worked for Foley's, Macy's and now Academy in upper executive management. He'll be a VP before he's 30.
What I ended up doing was going to nursing school, but taking a pause in the middle to go finish out my NCAA football credits and do some TA work while getting a masters in linguistics (totally worthless, but in line with NCAA rules). After getting the masters, the RN, and an associates in GB that I literally got by simply having the requisite credits, I moved to New York to go to film school. Loved every minute of it, and went completely broke.
So now I'm in Dallas, working as an RN, and making fairly good money. Much better than anything my other degrees ever offered me.
You have to get a job eventually so only go to graduate school if you'll be studying something in a field you plan on working in and which actually requires a master's degree. Don't get a master's degree in English or history or something similar unless you have full scholarships, wealthy parents footing the bill, or your company is sponsoring it.
As for law school in particular, if it's first tier or it's not costing you anything, you should hopefully be ok. Below that, really think things over. And absolutely do not go to the really shit law schools. Do some research, and you'll see the same few names cropping up.
That said, this list of things to do is pretty funny. "Give a speech a week to local organizations" is the best. "I'd like to welcome our speaker...some unemployed 22 year old hobo". What "local organization" would have a use for such a speaker?
I also don't see what "running a marathon" would contribute to a job search.
"What skills and experience do you bring to the table?"
"Well...I ran. Like 20 miles."
"I see. We'll let you know."
Maybe toss a racist joke in there to improve your chances.
The rest of the list is ok, I guess. I'm opposed to volunteering in general terms (people should get paid for their labour) but I volunteered for a few months. I couldn't find a paying job. Sometimes you can get more prestigious volunteer positions than pay positions.
What's better for someone who's unemployed?
Continue be inactive and become a 400lb fat slob who's stuck on the couch. Develop chronic diseases early in his life, develop depression, become uninsurable, and finally become a burden to society?
or
Maintain their fitness level, self confidence and motivation?
Except what he said wasn't true.
i meant to say that you have to start paying them back. You don't have to instantly pay it all back of course.
I didn't have to pay my UG loans back for six months, and I later had them deferred. I was under the impression that was normal. Did you have a different experience?
I was lucky enough to get a full scholarship so I never had student loans. Looking at it now, I guess you do get a 6 month grace period. But that's not really a long time to find a job that will pay enough to live on and repay debt. If you haven't found a good job inside of 6 months than grad school looks pretty good. How did you get yours deferred?
My ex did a sort of pre-law program and had to start paying back her loans during the year we lived together after she graduated. She was still working the waitressing job she had during school and I wasn't making that much at Home Depot. It sucked. She brought home more than me but I had to pay the bills a number of times because the bank was on her ass about late payments on her loans.
I am skeptical about the actual utility of college. By that I mean how necessary it is to do most jobs that require it. It obviously helps you get a job. But maybe it shouldn't.
You have to be a member to see this link, can you sum it up?
I'm in a sort of, but not really, similar situation to this thread. I plan on applying to law schools this coming fall, to start in 2011, but I'm not doing it as a stopgap measure, I currently have a job, and am applying purely because I want to be a lawyer. I think 4 years from now is a decent amount of time to think that the job market should be picking back up.
steam profile
This has been true for a while, and unfortunately the economy has really sharpened it. Finding a job as a newly-minted lawyer is tough right now, but entirely possible - as long as you went to a top-tier school and are near the top 10-15% of your class. As you get down into tier 2 and 3, or top 35% of your class, fewer and fewer firms will even look at you.
Your still going to have competition with all of the lawyers who graduated during the time and still need work. I'm currently in law school but have no delusions about it. I just want to be a lawyer and am willing to take a bet that I might get lucky. I'm sort of hoping that the job market will just be shitty instead of apocalyptic by the time I get out. I really want to work in criminal law or some other form of public service.
While true, I'd also be in a boatload of debt. While I was unemployed, I investigated a local community college program in game design, largely because it was taught by industry veterans (including the lead writer on TOR, as I recall). Even that would've saddled me with not inconsiderable amounts of debt. I also looked at graduate school at the Guildhall, but by the end of that program I'd be ~$100,000 in the hole and looking for positions that paid around $35,000 a year.
While I made terribly little money in 09 while I "paid my dues", as it were, the position I hold now is about 35-50 hours a week and I'm on salary for $32,000 a year, which may double by year's end. Now, it is a startup so job titles don't reflect all the work really being done and funding concerns pop up very frequently; but without doing so much work for little or no pay I'd not be where I am.
Exactly. No one is saying go run a marathon and put it on your resume, but running a marathon probably has other important benefits.
Well, the thread itself is ridiculously long, and it's the eleventh iteration. Here are some choice quotes.
From http://www.abajournal.com/news/law_dean_says_schools_exploiting_students_who_dont_succeed
Should you go to law school? Follow this graph:
Just wanted to chip in that in the public defender program I work in they have something like 120 applications for every staff attorney opening.
That's pretty fucking grim.
I don't know what U.S. Pi-r8 lives in, but you can defer those loans for a long time if you are having a tough financial time.
It's almost comical how flexible companies are with educational loans compared to other kinds.
Jesus, I almost went to law school for precisely that reason (what else can I do?). Reading that makes me feel like I dodged a bullet there.
How feasible would it be to do just start closing down schools in order to decrease the glut of lawyers in the market?
Lol, no true hate intended. I respect all my brothers and sisters in arms, no matter what branch they are.
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However, we went to a top-10 law school, so we landed jobs with big NYC law firms paying their first-years about $150K, incuding the bonus. I was able to pay off my debt in about a year and a half, while my roommate went debt-free after about 4 years.
So, if you can get into a top-tier school which is a pipeline to big law firm jobs, even a high debt load is petty manageable. On the other hand I'd be hesitant to rack up huge amounts of debt from a law school where the top-tier jobs are not a realistic option.
Rigorous Scholarship
Even the top tier really isn't any kind of guarantee right now.
I'm in a position similar to his, except I didn't go to law school.
Though, a degree from Yale Law is a ticket into pretty much any career path you want, regardless of how bad the economy might be. Your resume goes to the top of every hiring pile. So, a Yale grad who wants to go work in a top-tier law firm can do so just as easily, if not more so, than a grad from more "corporate" law schools.
Yale is so exceptional, it's not even worth talking about in the context of this discussion. It opens up doors that are closed to probably 90% of grads from even the other top ten law schools.
Rigorous Scholarship
Yeah, I think the reason he took the job he did was, in addition to the money, the lifestyle was better. More normal hours, regular trips to South America, Europe, and the Middle East to woo clients, etc.
Compared to being a drone in a law firm which is pretty much like doing a medical residency as far as hours and general level of respect, I think he has a pretty good deal. I do know that there would be pretty much 0 chance that he'd have his current job if he'd tried to get it just out of undergrad, so in that way the degree paid off.