<p>The timing is a bit unclear to me… Where are you planning to live immediately after graduation and when does your H graduate from law school? Does he already have an offer from a law firm? Or, is he planning to go out on his own? Those might be the determining factors. </p>
<p>Baruch is a fairly well respected CUNY school. If you are settling in NY for a while, then a degree from Baruch is not a negative. You will be employed, most likely, in your chosen field and then your employment record will probably carry more weight than your degree. If you move back to Cali, then your UC schooling will still be on your resume and you can explain your unusual circumstances–I doubt it will be held against you. In fact, it will more likely be proof of your tenacity, flexibility and dedication.</p>
<p>Having a baby and going to school and/or working is a challenge no matter the circumstances. No commute is a joy. And the SoCal traffic is a nightmare–probably even worse than NY’s. I know, I used to live in Newport Beach and work in LA. And, now there’s the price of gas to consider, not to mention the costs associated with the baby, as well. </p>
<p>Does your H have an opinion? Or, is it your decision alone? </p>
<p>I don’t know what to advise you to do…6 months (even a year in the scheme of things) isn’t very long..but I think it’s mostly a question of how each of you will cope with the stress and separation. </p>
<p>Best of luck and congrats on the birth of your child.</p>
<p>Baby is due July 2008.
If I go to UCLA i would go for Spring 2009,Summer 2009, and maybe Fall 2009 depending on how class goes. that is a total of 8.5 Months
If i go to UCLA, i would Live in San diego, so that the baby can be with my mother when i commute to school and so that i dont have to pay living expenses. My husband would fly out and see us every 10 weeks at the very least. </p>
<p>He graduate law school in Dec 2009- he doesnt plan on working right away, he does plan on getting a nursing BS (it is only like 7 classes and it is his backup plan in case he can not make ends meet with just JD) He would keep his nursing job probably during the first year of law employment no matter what b.c of money. We do not think he would get offered much- we do not know though, he goes to Touro , not an NYC school but a Long Island school… the starting salaries they list are pretty low. </p>
<p>My husband REALLY wants me to eventually finish UCLA- this has to do a lot with the fact that i worked really hard to transfer to UCLA and it was sort of a big deal to me considering that we are so poor(by we i mean my mom, i was not married yet) and a lot of sacrifices were made from everyone to move me to LA and to have me go there. I personally also have a special attachment to the place i guess b/c it meant A LOT to me to get into UCLA. </p>
<p>I think through talking to everyone here it personally doesnt seem like i have ANY desire to go to UCSD … I think i am more willing to be away from my husband and to do the commute if i have to, for UCLA but not for UCSD. </p>
<p>hmmm ok lol i think atleast now i know that i really do not even like the UCSD option. … explains a lot considering i was accepted there 2 times and decided not to go all for hopes of UCLA.</p>
<p>I just really do not want my baby to grow up poor and the only way i feel that is possible is if i get the BEST education… I know i could easily just go to Baruch, but is that the BEST option</p>
<p>I’m sorry not to have read the entire thread carefully, perhaps others have suggested this already, but just in case: have you considered moving your family to California as soon as possible after the birth of your daughter?</p>
<p>Your husband would presumably be able to get a job as an RN.</p>
<p>He could presumably transfer to a California law school. Since you plan to live in CA long term anyways, a CA law degree will be more helpful than a Touro law degree.</p>
<p>You could live within reasonable commuting distance of UCLA.</p>
<p>You could complete UCLA without an enormous commute.</p>
<p>I want to second or third some of the advice you are getting not to make your plans too firm until you see how you react to “tiny cuteness”. (It’s much more than that.) </p>
<p>My wife is a very driven, successful person. Our courtship got drawn out because it was hard to get appointments with her – we would make a date a week in advance, and then it would have to be rescheduled twice due to more pressing demands. And that was in college. Two weeks before our first child was born, she had definite plans for a big six weeks of maternity leave. It was almost a year before she returned to work . . . part time. And then we had another child. She didn’t fully return from her maternity leave for three-and-a-half years, and what she came back to was very different from what she left.</p>
<p>I’ll also say that, twenty years later, those 3-1/2 years are nothing more than a blip in her career. Having children paused her a bit, and redirected her, but she got onto a great career track when our second child was a year old, and in short order she was moving mountains and commanding armies.</p>
<p>Also . . . yes, life with a small child is much easier if your mother is nearby and willing to help.</p>
<p>M, There are different issues here that need to be sorted out…</p>
<p>You say "He would keep his nursing job probably during the first year of law employment no matter what b.c of money. "</p>
<p>IMO, this is completely unrealistic. First,people just don’t hand out full time legal jobs to JDs who have no legal work experience. Many firrms, corporate legal departments, and even government offices do most of their hiring through summer programs. Even those who don’t want to see some legal-related work experience. </p>
<p>Second, in almost any beginning job in law, you work too many hours to work another job. There are very few part time jobs for beginning attorneys. There are many experienced attorneys, including new moms, who want to work part time. Why hire someone with no legal experience whatsoever when there are long lines of experienced attorneys who want part-time jobs? </p>
<p>Additionally, certain jobs require you to sign a written commitment that you will not work at anything else. Part of the reason for this is that lawyers have to be careful about conflicts of interest. </p>
<p>I am not trying to be cruel..but seriously, IMO, if your H follows this game plan he is virtually guaranteeing that he will end up being a nurse. If he’s okay with that, fine. If he isn’t, he really needs to rethink this plan. </p>
<p>Among other issues here…it sounds like you all want to end up in Cali. Even if he passes the NY bar and gets sworn in–a process that usually takes at least 8 or 9 months, it’s unlikely that he can get a job in Cali out of Touro unless he has taken and passed the CA bar. I really don’t see why he’d put himself through studying for two bar exams–and two of the tougher bar exams–to get a nursing degree in NY. He will have to take time off from any job–as a nurse or a lawyer–to study for the CA bar exam.</p>
<p>Several other mothers on this board have posted about how easy infants are, they sleep all the time, it’s no problem to haul them around with you… </p>
<p>That is true of some babies, but not all. As the parent of the No-Sleep Baby, I caution pregnant women not to make plans involving sleeping babies until they find out if their own baby is a sleeper. My son, from birth, slept less than eight hours out of twenty four, in one to one and a half hour bursts. He did not sleep through the night until he was over two years old. I am not exaggerating. I look back on that time as a blur of exhaustion. </p>
<p>Now the No-Sleep Baby has turned into the Loves-To-Sleep Teenager </p>
<p>Not many mothers look back on their time with their infants and wish they had spent more time working.</p>
<p>Cardinal Fang, my S didn’t close an eye from 6 AM until midnight until he was at least three months old. If he hadn’t slept that six hours I would have lost my mind. Not only that, but he wanted to nurse at least 40 minutes out of every hour and a half, and he wanted to be held at all times. He also demanded that one walk around so that he could look at things. If his needs were met, he was charming. If not, he cried. And cried. It took me hours to accomplish the simplest errands. Go to class? No way.</p>
<p>Anyway, I gather that the OP’s baby will be at least 6 mos old when she starts this. Personally, I think that living with her parents and commuting BY TRAIN a two or three days per week is perfectly doable. I’ve commuted by both train and car, and for 1 to 2 hours each way. I would not drive if the train is available: you can’t do anything constructive such as classwork, it’s tiring, and it’s environmentally unsound to boot. Sleep is another possibility, and sleep is definitely good for a mother of a young child. :)</p>
<p>Better to take the UCLA route and get it over with than to stretch things out by transferring. And I do think that a degree from a “better” school will help when she first enters the job market. (I have no opinion of whether UCLA is generally considered significantly better than UCSD, not being a Californian.)</p>
<p>The situation with the OP’s H and his degrees is too confusing for me, but I would second the cautions of those who point out that graduating from law school, especially comparatively obscure law schools, does not necessarily equate to a legal job. I’ve known people who invested considerably in such degrees and were unable to find work as lawyers. (I’ve also known people who went to regionally-accepted but nationally-obscure law schools, did well in terms of being on Law Review, and got jobs at good firms. It depends.)</p>
<p>Well, S1 did not sleep through the night until he was nine months old. S2? Not until he was four. I used to feel murderous toward a neighbor who had a child born at the same time and boasted that her child slept through the night at ten weeks. Still, the times they did sleep were longer than the times they were awake once they were a bit older, especially when they entered the crawling and walking phase. But I did caution that babies can be colicky, fall ill, etc.. so it’s best not to make firm plans until the baby is on the scene.</p>
<p>Another one for a non sleeping, difficult infant…not that that should put you off o.p.; still love him to death…stilll a little difficult 15 years later…one of the things I wonder if it would have been different if I had paid more attention to my pregnancy and less to my career.</p>
<p>Having the grandma and extended family involved would make the most sense, IMO. No cost for housing or babysitting, 24 hour care whenever it’s needed, the guarantee of love and attention for the baby…that solid family support is worth the commuting time. The UCLA plan would also be the shortest of the separations, would give the grandparents a precious 9 months of living with their grandchild and is commonplace in the family’s culture; if so, there are reasonable expectations in place, and it should work out fairly smoothly.</p>
<p>I don’t understand what he wants to do with both a nursing and a law degree. Law school is expensive and time consuming, since he’s already making a decent salary as a nurse why wouldn’t he spend the tuition money on whatever he needs to get certified as a nurse in california?</p>
<p>Gosh, reading some of this really makes me worry about what she is going to be like. I already know she is awake from like 2am to 6 am doing her kung fu routine… hopefully when she realizes that its dark and the other humans sleep she will consider the same.</p>
<p>In terms of my husbands degrees… The job he has technically requires a BS in nursing, he just got lucky. He is also foreign educated and this creates problems .. New York is one of a handful of states that gave him a liscence. The problem with taking the one class that California wants in order to get an RN liscence for CA is that none of the NY schools were letting him enroll in 1 nursing course without enrolling in a nursing program (the nursing programs have 2 year waiting lists) Taking the course in a california community college for example, is a possibility, but, financially - how would we afford to move to california and pay our bills b4 he recieved his liscence. </p>
<p>He wants to have a BS in nursing for sort of 2 reasons- one is that he wants an American RN liscence so that he doesnt have to deal with this stuff if he needs to work as a nurse elsewhere. Two is that if you want a managment job in nursing you would need a BS. Then there are management jobs within his company and there are jobs for attorneys within his company- for his company it would look better if he had a BS + JD. Also, we do worry about the economy, the abundance of lawyers and we know that nursing, especially in the upcoming years will be in high demand, it is just safety net. He feels that if it was just the two of us, we could wait it out if needed but with a baby on the way, he wants income he can always count on, and nursing provides that. Law is more what he enjoys, what he feels he can do more in but at the same time being that his degree is coming from a school where the average starting salary is under 80k, he is realistic about it as well. And in terms of why he doesnt just stay a nurse- for one he doesnt really enjoy it that much and it was not his intended profession ever… it was just a good job to have while he supported himself through school - it is one of the few jobs that pays real money for a 2 year degree.</p>
<p>Not sure if anyone has said it yet, but does UCLA offer distance/online or partially online courses? That could cut down or eliminate your commute.</p>
<p>No they do not. They only offer distance classes through Xtension and that doesnt count as actually attending UCLA. Sometimes you get lucky and there might be a class that has broadcasts- but those are usually courses that have A LOT of students and few courses have that…</p>
<p>Going back a few posts. … If you stay in California and finish school in San Diego or LA, alot really will depend on your baby’s “personality.” I finished college with a newborn daughter, who I often took in a pumpkin-seat to class with me. She was an angel, dozing quietly most of the time. (I’d leave the room on the rare occasion when she fussed.) I could never have done that with my second daughter, a screeching demon from Day One. She never stopped carrying on until she was six or seven years old!</p>
<p>I am wondering if there is a way to petition UCLA to waive their final 35 out of 40 units in residency requirement in extenuating circumstances such as what you are facing. Perhaps you could talk to someone in the Women’s Center there by phone and explain your situation. (Try for someone as high in their hierarchy as possible, who has been around UCLA for a while, and who can find out easily if such a petition has ever been granted.) If such a petition is possible, it would probably be helpful if the chair of your department would write a note supporting your request. Also, see if there is a Dean whose specific duty is to work with students who are encountering problems and talk with that person as well; find out what person or committee would review your petition, if such a petition is possible. Find out exactly what criteria or factors the committee finds the most compelling and maybe have your law student husband help you draft the petition with those factors in mind. It just seems to me that if UCLA would let you take 35 units at another university during your junior year, they might be willing to entertain the idea of allowing you to do so during your senior year. It’s worth a try.</p>
<p>Nester, but do you think that is feasable when i am a transfer student? I do not think UCLA would be willing to grant a degree to a student that only took 26 units out of 180 in their school. I think it would be different if lets say i was there from freshman year, i know they allow you to take your last units abroad on education abroad program for example, but i wonder how willing they would be to grant me a degree with only 26 units from the the UC system.</p>
<p>Malishka–
I’m sorry, I missed that you were a transfer. It’s true that 26 units sounds like a small number to be able to graduate, but I still think it’s worth finding out exactly how many UC units are required to be taken on campus for a transfer to be able to graduate. If transfers are able to do things like junior year abroad and off-campus internships, maybe the number of on-campus units required is lower than you’d think. But with the low number of total units thrown into the mix, I agree that the chances of getting UCLA to grant the kind of petition I was suggesting are probably very slim.</p>
<p>Have you looked into Excelsior for your husband’s nursing degree? They have accredited, external degrees. Last I checked, it was geared for someone just like your dh-- who has clinical experience and needs the degree. </p>
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