Calling all lawyers (and other sundry old people)

[CountDeMoney]

Right now I'm staring at law school, a career as a lawyer, retirement, and death. It's a little terrifying.

I imagine a career as a lawyer would be.  Welcome back.

[Valdemar]

It is not necessary to take a year off to learn good language skills, or achieve self-reliance.  There are many other ways.

OFC there are, but you don't truly get to learn a language unless you talk it all the time with natives... just like you did in Vancouver I presume

V

[Grey Fox]

You can try to travel for only a month or so. Do it in India. Once you are there, it's fairly cheap. Vietnam would be better but I'm unsure how they treat Americans.

[Gups]

Deffo take a year off. One day you'll be 40 with a mortgage and kids and have only an fortnight off a year in some kid friedly place.

You know whose last words were "I wish I'd spent more time in the office"? Nobody.

Corporate work pays well. I've never done it but my impression is that it is largely due diligence - long hours of ticking boxes with no real law involved. If you want to do something intellectually interesting but which still pays well, tax law would be a good call.

[Admiral Yi]

Welcome back.

[Ed Anger]

You goto a hostel, you'll get crabs.

[Malthus]

The most precious asset you have is your time.  The number of income generating years that you have is a finite number.  An extra year spent doing nothing is a year's worth of salary forgone.  That's a pretty big number. 

I agree.  I look down at hippies that think they are entitled to spend a year 'finding themselves in Indonesia' (I'm looking at you, Malthus).  Here's a knuckle sandwich for you to find, filthy hippie.

I'll interpret that as American for "have a nice day". 

Anyway,

I'd say go for some travel. If you do go into law, you will not be able to do it later, and if you don't, you will regret it. I'm happy I did it.

[KRonn]

After all your hard work, make sure to enjoy some of your time, the summer. Do some traveling maybe, USA or where ever.   

[Camerus]

What Malthus and Gups said.  Take a year and travel.

[Berkut]

Take the year, if you can manage it.

You will have plenty of time to work. And work. And work.

Welcome back.

[stjaba]

I'm in my second year of law school right now, and I agree with everyone else's advice. Plus, deferring a year means that you will defer one year of entering the work force, which may not actually be a bad thing in this economy. Obviously, as long as you pretty well at Columbia, you should have plenty of opportunities, but there are definitely people at Columbia and other elite schools who aren't getting good 2L summer jobs, which is pretty much the kiss of death if you want to work in a corporate law firm and quickly pay off your 6 figure debt. Last summer, when I was a 1L, I interned at the US Attorney's Office and one of my fellow interns was a 2L from Columbia. He told me he was going to graduate with around 180k in debt and he was working for free* alongside me. 

*I think he was getting some sort of stipend from Columbia, but it wasn't significant.

[Savonarola]

If you're going to see the world don't go to Australia or Western Europe.  Man up and go to Africa, the Middle East, latin America or India, you'll save money, you'll have much better stories, have a much broader perspective, and you'll learn how to rely on yourself.

[Ed Anger]

If you're going to see the world don't go to Australia or Western Europe.  Man up and go to Africa, the Middle East, latin America or India, you'll save money, you'll have much better stories, have a much broader perspective, and you'll learn how to rely on yourself.

Plus, you'll get cholera.

[Savonarola]

Plus, you'll get cholera.

Cholera will make a man of you. 

[Martinus]

TES is a lawyer too now.

Gay lawyers FTW.