JD or MBA and working full-time

<p>Here is the deal. I'm 19 and will be graduating this summer with a BS in Business from CSU-Fresno. I've been working full-time while taking over twenty-units ever since I turned 17.</p>

<p>I am wondering how much time law school takes up as comparison to what I had done in undergrad. Would it be any tougher going to law school full-time (graduate in three years), while working 40+ hours a week, over taking about 22 units as an undergrad (with medium hard classes) and working the same amount of hours?</p>

<p>Although this isn't the MBA forum, I don't want to take up another thread, so I'll just ask here too. Does a full-time MBA require less time than a full-time JD?*</p>

<p>If I come to the conclusion that full-time law school or full-time MBA while working 40+ is not feasible, than I'll probably go part-time law school at McGeorge.</p>

<p>If it helps, I work 8-5 at a high-paced corporate environment. </p>

<p>*I know that comparing the purpose of an MBA vs. JD is like comparing apples to oranges. As silly as this may sound, I don't plan to be a lawyer, and even sillier still, I've done quite a bit of thinking and I want them both equally (MBA/JD concurrently is not an option for me), so I ask that you do not consider their value difference - only the the time they require to complete. Thank you.</p>

<p>My understanding is that most law schools will not permit you to work at all in your first year and no more than 20 hrs in your second year. I think laws school will definitely be tougher and more demanding than your undergraduate work was. Good luck and you should make time for yourself also.</p>

<p>No normal human being can work 40 hours per week and attend law school full time. You will either be horrible at your job or horrible in your law studies or, (most likely) both. Some law schools have part time programs for full time employees, but those programs take longer and the quality of the students varies.</p>

<p>There are many part-time MBA programs devoted to full time employees, but again it is very difficult to perform well in an MBA program when you have to worry about your job. Part-time MBA programs are often devoted to seasoned executives or exist a lower tier schools where the value of the degree isn't much. </p>

<p>If you wish to can find a part-time JD/MBA program and wish to work full time, you should expect to spend many years of little sleep and no fun.</p>

<p>In short, in my opinion, your expectation is unrealistic.</p>

<p>Thanks guys.
[quote]
There are many part-time MBA programs devoted to full time employees, but again it is very difficult to perform well in an MBA program when you have to worry about your job. Part-time MBA programs are often devoted to seasoned executives or exist a lower tier schools where the value of the degree isn't much.

[/quote]

This is what I was thinking too. I have good grades and a fairly nice resume, so if I were to go for an MBA, it would have to be at a good school. Otherwise, I don't see much of a point in it.</p>

<p>I know that this will sound very cocky, but I'm one of those (blessed) guys who seems to excel at academics. It takes me much less time to study than most other students and still somehow get good grades in all my classes except math (no, I don't sleep with professors, lol). When I was doing 22 units and working full-time, I was still able to make time to chill, go to gym, etc. I didn't have as much time as most of my friends to party, but not by much, and it was enough for me.</p>

<p>So, is a typical law school class much harder than, say, History or Political Science one would take in undergrad with a fairly strict professor?</p>

<p>Law school is generally considered a large step up from undergrad. Part of the question is, too, what kind of students your peers would be in law school compared to your undergraduate school at Fresno. Would they be stronger? In that case, you might have to work harder to keep up compared to how hard you had to work (not very, from what you tell us) at Fresno. On the offchance that you think they'd be weaker, you might find law school to be even easier.</p>

<p>It's often hard to understand while in college -- I certainly found this difficult to conceptualize -- just how much of the difficulty of your course depends on your classmates. It's often more than you might think. Even if classes are not officially curved -- and they usually are -- the content matter covered is matter that's "appropriate" to classes from the past few years, and so there's always an implicit curve involved in the difficulty of the class.</p>

<p>So if you plan on going to a law school that most of your classmates at Fresno might be attending, then I'd say it'll be a step up but not a dramatic one. If you find yourself going to a law school that's, say, of a different "tier" in terms of your classmates, then you might be involving yourself in a completely different ballgame.</p>

<p>Under ABA Standard 304(f), "[a] student may not be employed more than 20 hours per week in any week in which the student is enrolled in more than twelve class hours."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.abanet.org/legaled/standards/20062007StandardsWebContent/B.Chapter%203_20061005150125.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.abanet.org/legaled/standards/20062007StandardsWebContent/B.Chapter%203_20061005150125.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>
[quote]
Under ABA Standard 304(f), "[a] student may not be employed more than 20 hours per week in any week in which the student is enrolled in more than twelve class hours."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.abanet.org/legaled/standa...1005150125.pdf%5B/url%5D%5B/quote%5DThank"&gt;http://www.abanet.org/legaled/standa...1005150125.pdf

[/quote]
Thank</a> you for that post! Although I doubt that they'd have a way of really checking how much I work (I am an independent contractor), I am guessing that those rules were there for a reason. On the other hand, the little guy on my left shoulder has some great arguments in telling me to take it as a challenge and work over 50 hours while going full-time. Hmm...
[quote]
Law school is generally considered a large step up from undergrad. Part of the question is, too, what kind of students your peers would be in law school compared to your undergraduate school at Fresno. Would they be stronger? In that case, you might have to work harder to keep up compared to how hard you had to work (not very, from what you tell us) at Fresno. On the offchance that you think they'd be weaker, you might find law school to be even easier.</p>

<p>It's often hard to understand while in college -- I certainly found this difficult to conceptualize -- just how much of the difficulty of your course depends on your classmates. It's often more than you might think. Even if classes are not officially curved -- and they usually are -- the content matter covered is matter that's "appropriate" to classes from the past few years, and so there's always an implicit curve involved in the difficulty of the class.

[/quote]

You bring up an interesting point. Are schools that are generally recognized as catering to more intelligent or at least, more academically focused students, harder than, for example, "state schools?" To be honest, from what I have read on here and from what I've heard from a student who claims to have received his first Bachelor's in business from Berkeley, and who took an upper division course with me at Fresno, "it depends on the major." In other words, just because the students of a school are more focused on their academics, does not mean that the school will have harder classes (in terms of content) or tougher grading (especially if a curve is not used).</p>

<p>Your point still stands in that law students probably have a higher standard for what "tough" means, granted that they have already gone through four years of college. They also typically find their expectation for law school to be tougher than their undergrad to be met, as far as I can tell. What intrigues me is that I cannot help but wonder if law grads are simply susceptible to the human nature to see more negative than positive in their recent experience and believe their old past (undergrad school) to be more nostalgic than it actually was.</p>

<p>P.S. I didn't mean to come off like I slacked around at college. I've always studied my arse off before exams, and the partying and the chilling, if any, were done on Saturdays after morning classes. My coworkers and friends often consider my lifestyle very dull, but I honestly enjoy it. I've also had the opportunity to have very intelligent people in my classes and my friends were definitely very hard working too. I guess I just work better under pressure and a large workload as I am forced to always stay focused, something that I tend to do very well. I'll take a stressful work environment with potential for great rewards over a laid-back so-so paying job any day; not just for the potential financial reward aspect, but because I get more of a sense of fulfillment from it.</p>