<p>Good morning! ( I live in CA)
well, for right now i'm an undergraduate student, and have to yet to decide my major. Just roughly though, i am considering COMMUNICATION and English for my major, because i am not much of a sicence person. Although i enjoy and excel at math, i do not want to persue a career in that field. So my question is that is COMMUNICATION a suitable major for getting into law school? I have been bombarded by the idea that there is no RIGHT major for law school. However, i would think that an art major who has not spent substancial amount of time doing so much "practical" critical thinking will be at a disadvantage.</p>
<p>The idea is that you want to do something academic rather than vocational. So English is better than communication; biology is better than exercise science; economics is better than accounting; psychology is better than marketing, etc.</p>
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i am considering COMMUNICATION and English for my major, because i am not much of a sicence person. Although i enjoy and excel at math, i do not want to persue a career in that field.
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<p>If you want to study communications, study it because you're interested and/or you know it will lead you to where you want to go. A communications degree in itself won't keep you out of law school. That said, it's a degree that sometimes turns up in "Things we don't love to see..." quotes from admissions officers (I know the quotes have shown up in this forum, but I can't locate them at the moment), so if you're settling on the degree because you're "not much of a science person," or simply because you think it's a practical choice for a law school bound student, you're not doing yourself any favors. Be a bit wary.</p>
<p>Have you attended any sort of "major fair" at your college, or spent time in the career planning office? Make sure you know what's out there...the non-mathy sciences, other humanities, liberal arts in general. And have you taken communications courses, or are you just assuming that it would be an okay path?</p>
<p>I know people who've majored in communications and gone on to find and excel at wonderful careers. I don't have a grudge against the degree, but the reasons you give for your preference make me skeptical (especially given that it's not exactly a recommended major for law-bound students, even if it is an acceptable one).</p>
<p>I'd echo the last post, but add that a Comm degree isn't going to hold you back at any but the finest law schools. If you look for it, there's plenty of academic rigor (e.g., quantitative analysis, survey methods) in a Comm program.</p>
<p>But, yeah, I'm not a big fan of "pre-law" and would suggest you study what you want, not what you think others will want.</p>
<p>I don't even think that a communication major would hold one back from admission to the very top law schools, so long as there is rigor in the coursework for the major. As is often mentioned on this board, you are much more likely to do well in a course of study that interests and excites you, so any major chosen because you believe it may be an easy way through college may ultimately disappoint you when it comes to your grades and your college experience. If you are truly interested in communications, go ahead and make that your focus. </p>
<p>Top law schools look to fill their classrooms with a diverse and engaged student body. Law schools need bio majors and business majors, communication majors and engineers. So, while I wouldn't recommend a "pre-law" major, your choice of a college major, whether grounded in the humanities or in the sciences or with a pre-professional focus, is unlikely to be the reason why you may be one day rejected from one law school or another. Study engineering if that is your passion. Study finance or economics. Study communication or horticulture or history. In fact, you may want to major in one area and take coursework outside of your major that is completely unrelated, and which takes you out of your comfort zone. In any event, please don't approach college as a four-year game where you merely try to "get through" it (college is way too expensive for that anyway).</p>
<p>Law school needs students who have shown themselves to be smart, hardworking and successful in school. You can demonstrate those skills in almost any major.</p>
<p>I agree that you should study in a major that truly interests you.</p>
<p>HOWEVER.</p>
<p>I just can't shake the image in my mind of elite college football players being introduced on TV during bowl season and seeing that the majority of them are communications majors. Bear in mind that few of these guys will graduate and they chose their major based on degree of difficulty. I know it's an unfair stereotype but you should continue to ask as many people as you can about whether they associate this particular major with jocks or boneheads looking for an easy degree. There certainly wouldn't be any negative stigma with an English degree.</p>
<p>That said, if a student's GPA in your communication major is high enough that it clearly indicates that that student wasn't merely trying to squeak through, then perhaps it's less of an issue. Look, there is no question that there is an instantaneous level of respect for someone who graduates with an engineering or biochem degree, simply because those majors are perceived as difficult. However, when it comes down to students with high enough GPAs and high enough LSAT scores to even consider applying to top law schools, then I think that what a student majored in is much less of an issue (particularly if that student took courses in other disciplines and did well in those too). Law schools will take notice of what your major was, the same way that they will take notice of what college you attended, and make judgments based on those facts. No facts that I've ever seen, though, have led me to believe that the perception of the difficulty of your major in college is a make or break factor in law school admissions.</p>