25 years old and deep in debt

[The Brain]

You get at least a MSc in STEM. BSc lol.

[Malthus]

I actively discourage my kids from going into law.  When I graduated there were limited opportunities.  Now I think there are even less.  The daughter of one of my partners is completing her third year of undergrad and she recently announced she wanted to go to law school.  We are planning the intervention as I type this.

I wouldn't encourage my boys to go into law, but actively discourage?

The profession has treated me pretty well, all things considered...

And as for STEM - my career options were much brighter after finishing law school than they were after my BSc.

If they have a real love for doing it, I would encourage them to do it. Not if they think it is the road to easy wealth, or are doing it for lack of a better thing to do.

Like you and CC, I have done well, all considered; but the attrition rate is horrendous, and it is becomming more and more difficult to break in.

However, these things go in cycles. The moment Ide and company convince everyone to go into STEM and avoid law, is the moment when there will be, three or four years down the road, a critical shortage of law students ...

[The Brain]

a critical shortage of law students ...

lol

[Ideologue]

Maybe in like 1970 or whenever you Beeb got his geology degree it didn't work.  Today it's $100k starting, working for a petro company, while even a pretty good J.D. with good grades is like $40k a year if they're lucky, and often enough an elite J.D. with good grades is $35k a year, making less than the fucking courthouse janitor, let alone the skilled support staff.  You would also do vastly more socially beneficial work as a geologist.

[Barrister]

Maybe in like 1970 or whenever you Beeb got his geology degree it didn't work.  Today it's $100k starting, working for a petro company, while even a pretty good J.D. with good grades is like $40k a year if they're lucky, and often enough an elite J.D. with good grades is $35k a year, making less than the fucking courthouse janitor, let alone the skilled support staff.  You would also do vastly more socially beneficial work as a geologist.

I got my BSc in 1997 - I'm not that old. 

As Malthus points out these things come in waves.  1997 was not a promising time to be a geologist.  Oil and mineral prices were quite flat.  Plus, as The Brain is right in pointing out, a BSc wasn't all that great - I'd have to get a MSc or PhD to do really meaningful work.

And what I like about my particular job is that I feel I really do "socially beneficial work" by protecting victims of crime. 

[crazy canuck]

The moment Ide and company convince everyone to go into STEM and avoid law, is the moment when there will be, three or four years down the road, a critical shortage of law students ...

What we have right now is a critical shortage in Canada with people with STEM degrees.  We graduate way too many law students.  If Ide et al convince people not to go to law school then the numbers might reduce down to where people might actually get articles and then employment after law school.

Btw, who knows they are really going to love doing law before they go to law school? 

[Valmy]

I really doubt it.  TV is full of shows about rich and glamorous lawyers having exciting court cases where their plucky creativity wins the day over professional skill.  Very few shows are about rich and glamorous Engineers.  Maybe Sav could write one though.

[garbon]

Glamorous engineers?

[The Brain]

There's Star Trek for that. Blind Kunta Kinte working his magic down in engineering.

[Barrister]

Btw, who knows they are really going to love doing law before they go to law school?

[crazy canuck]

Btw, who knows they are really going to love doing law before they go to law school?

I said "know".  That is different than thinking you will.  Nobody knows what law school is going to be like until they get there.

[Malthus]

The moment Ide and company convince everyone to go into STEM and avoid law, is the moment when there will be, three or four years down the road, a critical shortage of law students ...

What we have right now is a critical shortage in Canada with people with STEM degrees.  We graduate way too many law students.  If Ide et al convince people not to go to law school then the numbers might reduce down to where people might actually get articles and then employment after law school.

Btw, who knows they are really going to love doing law before they go to law school?

The same way anyone "knows" they are going to love any occupation - that is, they don't.

The difference isn't between those with miraculous foreknowledge and those without, it is the difference between those who genuinely want to do the activity, and those who merely drift into it. The former may well be awfully dissapointed with it; but that unhappy outcome is a lot less likely than for the latter.

[crazy canuck]

The moment Ide and company convince everyone to go into STEM and avoid law, is the moment when there will be, three or four years down the road, a critical shortage of law students ...

What we have right now is a critical shortage in Canada with people with STEM degrees.  We graduate way too many law students.  If Ide et al convince people not to go to law school then the numbers might reduce down to where people might actually get articles and then employment after law school.

Btw, who knows they are really going to love doing law before they go to law school?

The same way anyone "knows" they are going to love any occupation - that is, they don't.

Thats the point.  Why would you ever let your kid go to law school because he "really loves it" since there is no way for him to do so rationally.  There may be some other good reason for him to do it but that isnt it.

[Barrister]

The moment Ide and company convince everyone to go into STEM and avoid law, is the moment when there will be, three or four years down the road, a critical shortage of law students ...

What we have right now is a critical shortage in Canada with people with STEM degrees.  We graduate way too many law students.  If Ide et al convince people not to go to law school then the numbers might reduce down to where people might actually get articles and then employment after law school.

Btw, who knows they are really going to love doing law before they go to law school?

The same way anyone "knows" they are going to love any occupation - that is, they don't.

Thats the point.  Why would you ever let your kid go to law school because he "really loves it" since there is no way for him to do so rationally.  There may be some other good reason for him to do it but that isnt it.

I read about lawyers, I watched legal tv shows, as I got older I talked to lawyers what their jobs were like - it all sounded like a good fit to me.

Of course as a kid I naturally equated "lawyer=litigator", but when I got to law school I was seduced into thinking I wanted to do solicitor's work and be a securities lawyer (the fact a historic stock market bubble was going on probably also helped), and once I started doing that kind if work I found out I hated it and grew disillusioned with law.

But once I switched into litigation it's been more-or-less what I always expected.

[Valmy]

Glamorous engineers?

Yes.  Ones who shock the Chemical Engineering Establishment with the plucky and unorthodox way they create cheap and environmentally friendly fertilizers.