My uncle was a tax lawyer. He loved his work and was always telling us stories about how he saved people money. My BIL works as a lawyer for Google he does a lot of work on international law which he seems to find interesting enough to talk to us about and he doesn’t seem to be overworked. (He doesn’t always agree with all the decision that are made BTW!) I have local friends who do real estate closings, wills and the like and like being in business by themselves. I also know some lawyers who hated their work and found other things to do or retired the minute they could.
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Like lawyers like to say, “it depends.” 
It depends on the field and employer, too! Some in-house folks’ life is not boring at all. The take home $$ might be less, but oftentimes there is some equity compensation, so if the company does well, those stock options or grants can mean serious $$.
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Nothing said here is untrue. I would not advise any college graduate to base their decision to enter law on these stock packages or in the hope of interesting in house work. The more senior in house roles are taken by former equity and non equity partners, these are the positions where an attorney sees a wide variety of responsibilities and situations. Most attorneys who enter big law will last 2-6 years, then enter a Junior to low mid level in house role where they perform the same minute task for 40-60 hours a week depending on the company. The referenced Google job above is an outlier and most current Harvard law alums in the private sector would trade their lot for it.
My only regret is that the original major I chose wasn’t particularly employable. I went back to school and got a masters degree in IT. So far I’ve had a quite satisfying career. Neither school was ranked particularly high, but it never hindered me from getting a job. I’ve interviewed for several prestigious places too, including Amazon and Google. They’re overrated.
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I graduated from a specialized high school in NYC, and like @mathmom and @tomtownsend, I feel like my college-prep experience more than prepared me for college. I had a lifelong interest in journalism and went to Northwestern, then as now the very best school for the discipline, if you ask me. The classwork was great, but the internships that the school’s pedigree helped me to secure were invaluable (including spending a whole academic quarter working at a newspaper through an NU program). So, too, was my work on the university’s daily newspaper. Academic credentials aren’t absolutely determinative in journalism, but they provide a useful shorthand, and the top echelons of the profession are crowded with graduates of NU, Columbia (master’s only), Missouri, Syracuse and a few others. The Ivies are well-represented as well, despite not having undergrad journalism majors. I’ve done very well over nearly 30 years, and I credit my high school and college for giving me a firm grounding and a good start. From there, my work experience has built on itself – but it probably would have built from a lower level with a less-prestigious degree.
I agree with @itsgettingreal21 and @Catcherinthetoast, too: My wife and I are deeply gratified that our D19 and S22 can pursue their dreams without concern about student loans or constrained school choices. Since I’ve mentioned I’m in journalism, you can be sure that’s mainly thanks to my wife, but I kick in my little part. 
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Raised by a divorced mother of three, often working two jobs. I got up at 6-6:30 every morning from age 11 until a week before leaving for college to deliver newspapers, to make money. Qualified for reduced price lunches in high school.
Worked hard, attended a fairly highly ranked school for Engineering, had my first employer pay for most of grad school (business), at the same school. Worked 30 years, mostly for one of the world’s largest professional service firms and retired at 53.
Looking back, I don’t imagine that if MIT has accepted me, my other college application, it would have been better.
But who knows?
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Fascinating thread. I attended a respectable private university on a full-tuition merit scholarship, as my family could not afford to contribute anything more than the occasional $20 for pizza and snacks. I received a good education, though in hindsight I don’t think it was the best “fit” - I was a fairly bookish introvert on a Greek-dominated campus, and it was tough to find my people. I think my grades and test scores might have allowed me to attend a more selective school (I didn’t really realize that was even an option in a pre-internet age), and I’ve often wondered whether I would have had a more enjoyable 4 years elsewhere. In fairness, it all turned out fine - I met my wife there and we now have 3 kids that I treasure, and I went on to a top law school and then a high-paying BigLaw job that got my legal career started. Law was probably not the best career for me, honestly, and litigation in particular was a suboptimal choice, but I found a way into in-house practice after 12 years. I think I was just looking for some reasonably lucrative career that could be entered based on objective metrics like test scores rather than personal connections, which I didn’t have. In that sense, it was a success.
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Ph.D.s are not just for academia. In my healthcare field, and others, a Ph.D. is either strongly recommended or required for clinical practice.
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I agree. A PhD is practically required in many advanced fields of research. Even in currently the most employable (and one of the most lucrative) field, Artificial Intelligence, one needs a PhD to have a chance to be at the forefront of the field in the industry. But here there’s a different problem. Most top college graduates in AI won’t bother because they can easily get $200k-ish jobs upon graduation. and they would have to give up at least $1m in income in order to pursue a PhD.
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I will admit to doing a PhD purely for fun (and because I didn’t want to leave college). It definitely was both an enjoyable experience (met my spouse, did lots of sports and other extracurriculars) and useful in my career, due to the intellectual prestige of the college and subject - I still get offered jobs because of it 30 years later, despite doing something that was obscure and certainty not useful at any point thereafter.
The practical benefits were not in what I studied but by giving me time to grow up (I’d skipped a year in elementary school and another in high school) and teaching me to write an in depth thesis (there was no writing as part of my undergrad degree). It led into technical and then strategy consulting which is typically a prestige sensitive career, and my path would have been pretty hard to follow if I’d gone to a less well known college (my first post-college employer mainly recruited people with prestigious STEM PhDs, it was somewhat similar to SRI).
Before college I grew up in a poor town but with parents who were both teachers and valued education, though neither had a university degree. I attended a highly ranked private high school where many students went to top colleges and had told my parents at age 8 where I was going to go to college. I only applied there and was admitted, so in that sense my path was pretty well mapped out from an early age.
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This article by the late HBS professor Clayton Christensen was an eye opener for me and I am waiting for an appropriate time to share it with my D22.
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I haven’t seen anyone here in my position.
I graduated from a Patriot League school in 1982 and worked for two years in my chosen field before marrying a Notre Dame grad/Naval Officer and followed along for his navy career. I worked everywhere we moved, and there was a path, but not really a career. It seems there were years I stayed home with the kids. (1994-2005 I wrote books and did a lot of volunteer work). I went back to work in 2006 in e-commerce. (Now I’m thinking about retirement.)
In retrospect, I wish I’d had more of a career, and I’m advising my daughters to not take the time off that I did.
The school I went to would have opened more doors if I had stayed on the east coast and I know it was a positive factor in being hired for my current position.
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Same here, twenty years ago state college and state medical school with minimal debt. Got a high ranking residency that led to a high ranking internship and an excellent career. For med school it has always been about doing well where you are and minimizing debt unless you are looking for an academic research based career.
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I followed my H around the country for his career. I worked for the first 8 years of marriage and really felt we were finally settling down but things didn’t go as planned and we moved again, causing me to have to walk away from my dream grad program and job (I had been accepted in the spring and we moved unexpectedly that Fall). I never went back to work in my field. I stayed home when our D was born and was busy with a small business for a few years and volunteering, but I didn’t go back to work until after she was in college. I worked for a bit more than a year but with Covid and family it wasn’t fulfilling and I missed my “freedom.”
I often wonder what my life would have been like if I had stayed in my career path. On the other hand, it would have been a life where I was missing holidays and after school events, and we would have needed a nanny.
I’m at the point now, that I treasure my relationship with my D and H more than anything, and I’m not sure that would have looked the same if I had been working full time. The growing up years happened so fast too that I’m overjoyed that I had the luxury of not missing any of it.
I want my D to have a career but I want her to be in a situation where she’s able to make her own choices as to whether to work full time, part time, or be a SAHM. I don’t think there is any one right path.
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I actually turned down a highly-ranked school out of sheer obliviousness, but it turned out to be the right thing. The school I chose was a terrible fit, but it was also 2 hours from NYC with a bus that went right there, and I had a boyfriend whose parents had a fancy UES apartment where I was (and still am) welcome, so I spent a giant amount of time in the city going to museums, wandering around, doing the things that would wind up important to me. Including going to the clubs. And ran around, did study-abroads and abandoned them for make-your-own-adventure semesters. Best thing. I also paid nothing for undergrad, so I came out ahead. I’m not sorry about the career stuff I came out doing; it was interesting and has served me well, even though I don’t work in that world anymore – I left it after…three years? Something like that.
I then turned down two top-ranked grad schools (applied to one, was just collared by the other) before going to a top-ranked program in a third field. I didn’t choose it for the ranking; I chose it for the program and the faculty. They gave me a pile of money too, which was nice. And yes, the ranking’s been very helpful, but for all the wrong reasons. It impresses people who don’t know any better, and in the end it allows me to jump queues in a way that damages the field. In the end it’s been best as a sort of home – there aren’t a lot of us who’ve been through this program, and it’s a sort of siblingship. I can’t say they’re all wonderful people but much more often than not their work’s something I respect. And some are wonderful people.
I think I’d have done the work I do regardless of what I’d gone to school for – I’d have followed my nose to the same places. But that’s the thing – if you’re the sort of person who’s going to be an academic darling, you’re just going to go on writing your own ticket wherever you want to go, so long as the opportunities are there. You won’t really need a school name to open doors for you because you’ll do it by yourself anyway. It just might take you a little while to become aware, on your own, that the doors exist. The same is without doubt true of the best students I’ve had.
In the end, incidentally, I’m glad I didn’t go to that original undergrad school. I think I’d have come out unfit for life, and of course I wouldn’t have spent all that time in the museums.
My main regret’s that I didn’t go through about 7 or 8 years earlier. While I was watching one of these ubiquitous Fran Lebowitz things I realized that if I’d been born a little earlier, I’d have gone to Studio 54 and not Limelight and Danceteria. I’d have ditched college, moved to the city, gotten a bookstore and/or editorial job, and hung around with those people, not baby yuppies and international deb ball types. And that – that’s a swap I’d make in a heartbeat.
But I got no complaints.
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I attended CC for four years, goofing off and getting put on academic probation. After that needed wake-up call, I attended a Cal State. I got a degree in English Lit. I’m very thankful for that degree, because it enabled me to do what I do now.
It never occurred to me to apply anywhere but the college that was closest to my home, and prestige literally never entered my mind. I was fine attending a commuter college. To me, going away to college was an East Coast thing I heard about in movies.
I wanted to see the world. So I did. I got a job with a now-defunct airline and saw the world. I was based overseas and had the best time in my 20’s and early 30’s.
I met my husband, we traveled a lot, and we had kids. I had a big break of no work and raising kids. And the kids got old enough to start traveling, so as a family we have had trips all over the world.
So, no, I don’t think I’d be better off if things had worked out differently in terms of education. Travel is very important to me and I’m aware that I have been lucky enough to be able to afford it. The lifestyle I had then was far more important to me than any career.
I had no career goals until I was in my 40’s. I began thinking about what I wanted to “do.” As the kids got older, I began volunteering at a couple of places. One of those volunteer positions was at a local community college in the writing center. And that was when I started my career. I loved helping students with their writing projects and I especially loved helping them with their transfer essays and apps for four year colleges.
My current work is a direct result of me getting my degree and, decades later, volunteering at the community college writing center. I love what I do. Sometimes it takes a while for people to figure out what they want.
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I’m a tech guy - 1st computer in 4th grade and just learned everything (hardware, programming, etc., on my own). I went to the University of Miami for 1.5 years (had an initial dream of doing computer special effects for movies, hence the UofM film school route), then transferred and finished up at NJIT (little did I know in the pre-internet era that my SAT’s scores would have gotten me into the the Ivy’s/MIT/etc back then… oh well).
There were literally only 2 computer courses in college where I actually learned something I didn’t already know, and at the start of my junior year I was already working in the field (part time so I could finish college).
Due to the timing (early 90’s), college didn’t matter much for computer programmers… I believe I would have had the same career with or without college.
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College prestige doesn’t really matter in my field. I’m a physical therapist, graduated from Boston University with a Master’s degree in Jan 1996. In order to practice as a PT one must graduate from an accredited school and pass a national licensure exam. One could argue that the “top” schools prepare students better for the exam (they all post their pass rates), but in terms of having a successful career, college choice doesn’t matter. Once you are licensed, it’s all the same.
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I attended an Ivy. I enjoyed some parts of my experience there - the day-to-day life, the other students, the exposure to brilliant, yet often inaccessible, faculty. I don’t regret my choice. But I can’t rate it highly as an educational experience, since the preparation in my undergraduate major was patently inadequate for pursuing doctoral work. I often felt the curriculum was not challenging, but that was because I was immature and not hungry or experienced enough to seek out to fill the gaps in my knowledge on my own. I know now that higher education is mostly about credentialing and proving to others what you already know and have learned on your own, but I naively and obstinately continue to believe that it shouldn’t be that way. And that I, as a top student in the major, should have received more guidance and preparation, rather than getting pats on the head.
Anyway, that led to a doctoral program at another Ivy. I can say that my undergrad degree was a useful name to get me admitted there. I did remedy my deficiencies in skills and passed my coursework, but I left with a Master’s because I was not sufficiently enthusiastic about being a knowledge producer instead of a learner. That grad school experience was less fun but was more challenging and led to much more intellectual growth. So I am glad I went.
To earn money, I pursued a professional master’s at a high-ranking state school. That was not very challenging until the thesis work, which turned out to be very important in setting the direction for my future career. I learned a lot outside of school by being in a very diverse and funky college town setting.
The career that followed has met my expectations, and even led to going back for another master’s at yet another state school to grow some skills. That was the most difficult academic work that I had to do anywhere, even though that might have partly been due to my advancing age and lack of formal background in the subject. But certainly the best purely academic experience I have had, even if it does not align well on other social dimensions.
A strange path, to be sure, and I would not have done things differently. The lesson that I took from it, which may not be widely shared, is that a top school in the Ivy sense is a place where your classmates are potential network contacts, not friends, and that everything is a resume-building opportunity rather than a true learning experience. If you are an aggressive career-builder, it may be a good fit. I wasn’t really like that. Maybe every school is like this these days, and there isn’t an alternative. I am in that category mentioned by the poster above of someone who is paying the bills and saving a little, so I guess I do not have a “career” in the sense of something leading to financial independence. I graduated college in the 80s and am still working, so that puts me in the lower 99% for sure.
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That wasn’t my experience at Northwestern, which was less prestigious when I went there than it is now but still was a top-20 school. My friends are friends first and contacts second, if at all. Many of them have nothing to do with my field and wouldn’t be much help if I tried to exploit them. I’m sure that’s the case at the Ivies, as well.