Law School

What PhD would take less time???

 

I'm going back to school to get my Bachelor's in Criminal Justice as soon as my application gets processed. It will be an online course, so I will be looking at 2 years of straight studies.

 

i should have been clear my bad. I already my masters so programs at places like Baruch and Uconn would only be another year to two years depending on my schedule.

 

Kind of crazy, seems like we all have to be programmers in order to excel in our fields

 

That's another important thing about law practice that a lot of folks don't realize: networking. So often it's not what you know but who you know. Like undergrad and any other field, making those connections is very important and just like any other field, the more that you have the better.

 

So very true. Right now I can't think of a job I actually applied for that I actually held. I've done the typical online searching and applying but every interview I got is usually because of people I went to school with or my parents

 

Ah!

 

Absolutely not. That's just way too much time in school.



I need to get a union job at McD's.

 

Sounds like way to little to me. Lol.

 

I think the word "dissertation" alone would scare the living shit out of me, so no, I wouldn't ever consider it. LOL

 

Thought you were a lawyer

 

After some research I came to the conclusion it would be unlikely for me to complete law school without owing somewhere in the range of $100-150,000.

No bueno.

The legal field is also saturated with people who are desperate to take anything, including measly $20 an hour doc review jobs. I can stay in high-end property management and earn more.

Law school doesn't make sense to me unless I were to attend Yale, Harvard, or Stanford. Easier said than done and I'm not interested in leaving Los Angeles anytime soon.

I'd planned to take up tax law because if you're entering a labor-clogged field, it always pays to own a skill set that emphasizes math or science.

That said, I have registered to take the first of several exams to become an actuary. It requires copious amounts of calculus-based probability to succeed but I'm certainly up for it.

 

I've taken two of the actuarial exams already, pretty tough but it is a good field to be in. I only never went forward because of the mandatory internship you need to have to gain good employment. And the jobs are sparse out here in NY, seems like most of the good ones are in Hartford, CT.
I don't know what its like on the West Coast, but it is a lucrative field, I think starting in most cases are around 70k..

 

Sparse in NYC? That seems unlikely.

You took exam P and FM?

 

Yeah the probability one and the one that was calculus oriented.

Yeah sparse for new actuaries, if you have experience there are a lot of good opportunities, but when I was looking they didn't seem to want any new actuaries unless you interned for them. So if you had 2 to 5 years experience you were golden.

 

Good luck to you Satyr. When do you take the actuarial exam? With the growth in prominence of pension funds and insurance companies in asset management, I would imagine that there are lots of opportunities for actuarials. As for the cost of law school, it doesn't have to be anywhere near that expensive. You can work while you're in school and pay some of the loan as you go, and you can go to one of the excellent affordable schools, like FIU, at $13K/year. Ivy League schools have excellent alumni networks and reputations that can help graduates make great money, but I do not think it is mandatory that a student attend there if they wish to be successful.

 

Thank you, I'm booked for July 26th. Yes, there is tremendous growth in the actuarial/risk assessment field that won't require working under a billable hour structure either. Another reason to forgo a career in law as many firms love racking up hours at the existential cost of their counsel/paralegals.


I'm interested in how the Obamacare provision requiring health insurance companies to offer coverage regardless of pre-existing conditions has altered the way is risk assessed. What kind of opportunities in the field will spring from that?

 

True that. Unless you're top 1% or determined to represent rich folk, your're going to make enough to justify the debt only if you bill 300 hours a month. My student loan debt is more than my mortgage. I woulda been better off being the bailiff

 

Very astute point. Didn't consider how Obamacare might change things. I might re-take my tests just to see what might be out there. I like to keep as many income streams open as possible.

 

Criminal law?