<p>Hey guys, I am planning on majoring in either Media Studies, Political Science, or Sociology. My ideal choice is Media Studies, but I heard from a few people that law schools don't like this major. Is this true?</p>
<p>As long as you have a good LSAT score, who cares what major you are?</p>
<p>maybe law schools? lol which is why im asking in the first place…</p>
<p>Not good at picking up sarcasm huh? I’m saying if you have a good LSAT score the law schools won’t care imo.</p>
<p>Two things are the major factor in Law School admissions:</p>
<p>GPA and LSAT. Pick a major that you are interested in and that helps maximize your GPA.</p>
<p>cool thanks man!</p>
<p>Honestly, it does sound like a BS “easy” major. I don’t know if law schools care about that, but most students will. You should probably take some poli sci/sociology prerequisities as well and see how those go before picking a major. And don’t be afraid of doubling, it’s very doable if both majors are in L&S.</p>
<p>Law school doesn’t care about your major or how easy it is.</p>
<p>Picking a harder major will not benefit you (unless you are really interested in it)</p>
<p>Personally, I highly doubt that “law schools don’t care what major you are”. Most lawyers I’ve looked up have a background in a more traditional humanities, such as history or polisci. To put it this way: If I was a HLS or YLS admissions officer, I would have my pick of dime a dozen high GPA/high LSAT. At that point, its worth looking who actually spent 4 years doing something productive. </p>
<p>Of course, this is all IMO. But its reminiscent of the HS application scenario where “colleges don’t look at your AP scores until after you are accepted”, yet you are obligated to list your AP scores. </p>
<p>I think going to one of the traditional humanities would help you more, unless you really aspire to be a filmmaker. And its not like you can’t pick a traditional humanities major that isn’t easy too.</p>
<p>Well, what sort of law are you planning to study if you go to law school? That can have an affect – IP, entertainment law, stuff like that, you’d get a huge benefit out of Mass Comm. But seriously, it’s about the LSAT and your logic skills. I know an attorney who was a mathematics major. And another that was a CS major. It does not matter what you major in. Just so long as you have the logic capabilities or can fake them until you make it to get a good LSAT.</p>
<p>^Political Science is a Social Science, not a humanity.</p>
<p>You really can major in anything, and it won’t really matter. I have a friend who has an IB/Anthro double major, who is going to UChicago Law as of fall. I have another friend who was an IB/Psych major, who is at Cornell now. They really don’t care about what you study as long as you are good at it.</p>
<p>Okay, here is a word of advice from a senior who is double majoring in both sociology and media studies:</p>
<p>Sorry, computer is being screwy.</p>
<p>Okay, here is a word of advice from a senior who is double majoring in both sociology and media studies:</p>
<p>DO NOT MAJOR IN MEDIA STUDIES unless…</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You are reaaallllly into theory. We learn about the historical aspects of the media more than anything in the core classes. Nothing of much practical use. We even learn things that don’t seem to have much to do with the media at all. For instance: Freud and Foucault. I learned about both in soc theory too, which seems more appropriate.</p></li>
<li><p>You are okay with really harsh grading. I have not gotten one B in college and I expect to get 2 this semester in my MS classes. The grading is harsh because most people at Cal do not take the major seriously, and the profs decided that if they made the grading really hard it would give the major a better reputation. Uh, no. It still has a poor reputation and now there are just a bunch of disgruntled students. My GSI for one of my MS classes this semester even said, “I know the grading is really hard in this class. If you usually get As, you can expect to get a B, and if you get Bs, expect Cs”. w t f? Read reviews on ratemyprofessors for the MS teachers for more evidence of this.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>If you really want to study comm, go to USC or UCLA - these schools actually have reputable comm programs, unlike Cal, where there isn’t even a comm grad school and therefore the GSIs are all grad students in other departments… like school of information, anthropology, sociology, etc. </p>
<p>The only good thing about taking MS at Berkeley is that sociology and MS have a lot of overlap in elective classes and general requirements, so you can kill 2 birds with 1 stone. You must take 4 upper division core classes in MS, but outside of those, I think I am only taking/took 3 additional classes because 3 other classes I took for soc overlapped and counted for both.</p>
<p>Now about sociology… I highly recommend it. Berkeley has the No. 1 ranking for sociology at the grad level (or at least it did last year), so many of the GSIs are amazing. The profs are decent, the classes are usually interesting, and you have lots of choices in what classes to take. If you really want to major in media studies, try and double in sociology. It’s a great major at Cal, you’ll learn a lot, and they don’t have weird, unreasonable grading scales.</p>
<p>mapletree, do you know if many MS majors plan on attending law school? I honestly think that having a theoretical department will be better than a practical one because everyone tells me that law schools do not really like pre-professional majors (not sure how true this is). Also, how many hours a day do you average being a sociology and ms double major? If my goal is to go to law school, should i do sociology or media studies? I was looking at the career placement website and only one sociology grad reported that he was going to law school (and i think it wasnt a top school). thnx for the help.</p>
<p>From what I’ve heard, law schools don’t care about your major unless it’s pre-law (legal studies). They just want to see you do well in any field of study other than law.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how many MS students want to go to law school. The people I know who are headed in that direction are mostly majoring in political science, rhetoric, sociology and legal studies. If you are serious about law school, the most important thing to do is to protect your GPA like you’d protect your new born baby. Like the other posters have said, GPA and LSATs matter the most. If you major in MS you run the risk of having it pulled down and it’s not worth it. If you’re going to major in something that has a reputation for being a “BS” major, at least choose something that is not TRYING to be a harder major than it actually is. You know what I mean? Like, some people view sociology as an easy major… I would say it’s moderately easy (though the theory classes are pretty intense) but at least you can get decent grades in them without too much stress. Also, from what I’ve heard, rhetoric is a far harder major than people give it credit for.</p>
<p>I don’t think I’m the right person to ask regarding how much time I spend on both majors. I’m not a very good student in that I don’t go to the classes I find to be boring/a waste of my time and I have a very bad habit of turning in papers late because I do them super last minute. I thought about it the other day and there are 3 classes I definitely could have gotten As in that I got A-'s in instead because of late papers. </p>
<p>In terms of scheduling, I usually take 3 major related classes a semester and a P/NP class (internship class or decal). In addition, I took/am taking 4 classes in the summer. If you take 4 major classes a semester you shouldn’t have to take any summer classes at all.</p>
<p>So finally, if you want to go to law school, I would suggest being a sociology major, doubling with MS, or some other major, but NOT just a media studies major. I am majoring in both because I don’t plan on going to grad school for a number of years and I want my career options to be better. I figured if no one will hire me with my soc major, at least I have media studies to fall back on. Since you know that you’re going to law school for sure, I don’t know what the value of majoring in media studies is especially if your GPA might get hurt as a result.</p>
<p>hmmm but how come on the career services website, it says that only one sociology grad went on to law school? this is why im wary of being a soc major…</p>
<p>Not everyone reports back to the Career Center, that’s possibly why. Isn’t the response rate like 40%? And there’s privacy issues involved in reporting the data. Maybe you should go talk to the Soc department advising people to see if they have more data on what their grads do.</p>
<p>I just looked at the data from the career center. One person from soc went to law school as opposed to 6 for media studies. Did you look at the other things people went to grad school for in sociology? Social work, school psychology, etc. These are actually the same things I am considering going to grad school for. I don’t think it’s necessarily that sociology majors apply to law schools and don’t get in - more like they found other things they’d rather do. For instance, I have a 3.8 GPA, which is decent enough to apply to law school if I wanted (providing I do okay on the LSATs). Does that mean I will apply to law school? No. I’d rather get into social work. </p>
<p>But… despite all of what I just said, this is what I really think: are you really going to let a career center survey determine what you major in? Major in something that interests you. If you really love learning about the media, go for it. Seriously. Who cares what I say, or the survey says, or anyone else. Major in what you want, get a good GPA, and go to law school. The law schools are not going to be like “Oh my god, this person majored in SOCIOLOGY at Berkeley. Only one person in their career survey reported going to law school last year. This person is obviously not qualified… even though they have a great GPA and killer LSAT scores.” How ridiculous does that sound?</p>
<p>yeah i guess haha. btw i think ima follow in ur footsteps and double in sociology and ms. thnx for the help</p>