<p>Go talk to some PhDs who spend their careers bouncing around as lecturers in a bunch of different schools, and see how they feel about it. At least two lecturers I knew said it sucked. It's part time, the pay is crap, and you teach way too many classes.</p>
<p>Not getting tenure is crap. Just look at all the articles on the net from post-docs and lecturers.</p>
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I'd be curious how successful he is at both. I mean, there is only so much time a human being can work, and there are only so many hours in a day. He must be cutting corners somewhere. You'll never make partner that way.
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<p>I think he is already a partner.</p>
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Hmm... I disagree. I think that it becomes the exception to the rule. In statistics, when we do regressions, we don't throw out a data set if we have an outlier. We just call it an outlier.
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<p>It is logically irrational to render an absolute statement and discard evidence to the contrary. Statistical evidence is just that, statistical. It does not purport to render absolute claims with respect to its findings. It merely reveals probable results. </p>
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Sure it will. You spend more time doing law review, and you're bound to get better at it.
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<p>I am not sure if you can get that much better. If you are good enough to attend Harvard Law School, then you are probably good enough to write for the law review. Of course, not everyone can participate in it.</p>
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Not in all cases. Most philosophy is not that closely tied to the law. Legal jurisprudence is a particular case.
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<p>Two words: analytic philosophy.</p>
<p>The entrance exam into law schools, affectionately and officially referred to as the LSAT, is predicated on principles of logic, which originated from philosophy.</p>
<p>Alright, but i'd love for you to demonstarte how the various branches of philosophy have a direct correlation to the study of law, and not just the skills acquired in the study oh philosophy (which one could get from other subjects in a similar manner, such as textual analysis, logical argument, paper writing, ect).</p>
<p>Well UCLAri,
Suppose I grant you that not getting tenure makes an academic career a failure. If you think it is such a crappy deal, and are so wary of it, why then are you embarking down the academic path? Are you simply so confident in your abilities, that you are sure you'll get tenure somewhere? Explain to me your reasoning.</p>
<p>No, I just am willing to take chances.</p>
<p>And I have no issue with going the government work route if the academic career doesn't pan out. I don't see myself doing the post-doc route over and over again like so many people I know.</p>
<p>...are making anyone who reads this crazy.</p>
<p>Let's look at the practical aspect of a Ph.D. and JD. The JD alone will make even the stalwart types in the world want to cry. While One L (Scott Turow's book) is not necessarily an accurate picture of law school, it comes closer than anything else I've seen. So consider doing three years of that. Then, on top of that, you want to try to get a Ph.D.? and stay sane? Please. That's at least eight grueling years of academics for a very vague career goal. </p>
<p>This is one of the things that drives me nuts - when people just go to school because it seems like a good idea and they don't know what they are doing with their lives. May I suggest that working for a few years is easier on your bank account, your sanity, and ultimately will be much more beneficial than pursuing a degree that you may or may not use - or worse, be forced to use because your debt load is so huge that you don't have other alternatives?</p>
<p>Argue all you want about the eventual outcome - but the real question is if anything is worth eight years of hell, just becuase you don't know exactly what you want to do and want to cover your bases.</p>
<p>Actually, AA, while I know what you mean, I wouldn't be all that militant about it. We're not talking about somebody with a marketable engineering bachelor's degree for which it really is highly feasible to go out and get a decent-paying (not great, but decent-paying) job right out of college. </p>
<p>We're talking about somebody with a history degree here. Hey, I like history a lot. But honestly, what kind of job are you going to get with an undergrad history degree? Sure, if you go to an elite school like HYPS, you may be able to parlay that history degree into a nice career in management consulting or investment banking, for those kinds of employers are far more interested in the prestige of your school than in what you studied there. But what if you don't? What are you going to do? </p>
<p>So maybe it seems silly for people to hang around, say, a doctoral program without knowing what they really want to do. Maybe. On the other hand, maybe they are making a rational economic choice given the available options. For example, if you're a history doctoral student on a fellowship or on some TA/RA-ships, you might actually be equivalent financially to how you'd be if you were working a real job. After all, a fellowship or TA/RA-ship might only pay 20-25k a year, but hey, that's about what a guy with a history degree would be making in the real world. Couple that with the fact that you're probably going to get subsidized health-care through your school, get free access to the school gym, maybe get access to subsidized graduate-student dorm housing, and a wide range of other school benefits that you probably won't get as a low-level working stiff. I remember when my brother was a graduate student at Stanford, he was living in graduate-student dorm housing that was only charging him about $400 a month. Yeah, that's right, $400 a month to live in Palo Alto. Anybody who knows Silicon Valley knows that that's a Steal with a capital 'S'. Any other equivalent rental place in that area would run you easily $1k a month. </p>
<p>The point is, because of the financial structuring of doctoral programs, you're often times getting paid to learn, and that may be better than actually having to work for a living. Let's face it. A lot of undergrad degrees really don't deliver very much for you except get you into graduate school. I'd rather be a doctoral graduate student than have to take a low-level crappy job. I know a LOT of college graduates who are working low-level crappy jobs.</p>
<p>sakky,</p>
<p>To be fair though, PhDs, if they are actually willing to go outside of the academic market, can do fairly well in jobs that people usually overlook.</p>
<p>And you seem to suggest that people with history BAs are all poor and on the streets, which is pretty far from the truth. I know history BAs making decent salaries. You have an obvious hard science/engineering bias, but the reality is history majors do find jobs. And not McJobs, either.</p>
<p>nspeds,</p>
<p>Okay, I need to know how this professor of yours simultaneously managed to publish enough to get a tenure track professorship AND become a partner in a law firm. Considering that the average attorney works upwards of 60-80 hours a week in his first few years, and the average professor works 40-50, we have a problem. He must have had some sort of commute, and he had to sleep at some point (and maybe eat.) </p>
<p>I don't doubt you, but I don't see how he did both concurrently. It's like being in Korea and Brazil at the same time.</p>
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Okay, I need to know how this professor of yours simultaneously managed to publish enough to get a tenure track professorship AND become a partner in a law firm. Considering that the average attorney works upwards of 60-80 hours a week in his first few years, and the average professor works 40-50, we have a problem. He must have had some sort of commute, and he had to sleep at some point (and maybe eat.)
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<p>All I know is that he is what he is. It would be impertinent of me to request further information from him or provide any additional details. If you do not doubt me, then you should take my word for it.</p>
<p>It's rare, but there is such a thing as a part-time partner in a major law firm. (Scott Turrow is an example.) It's much more common to practice law part-time as a partner in a small law firm. I don't think nspeds was suggesting that the professor had two full-time jobs simultaneously.</p>
<p>I had a professor in law school who had argued most of the land-mark cases in the subject he taught. He maintained a fairly active law practice while teaching law.</p>
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To be fair though, PhDs, if they are actually willing to go outside of the academic market, can do fairly well in jobs that people usually overlook.
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<p>I never said that those with PhD's can't find decent jobs outside academia. In fact, I discussed this very point in an old thread when I stated that some of those hanger-on adjuncts and gypsy lecturers who are frustrated with their lot in life need to give up and do something else, like teaching in high school. If you're happy being an untenured adjunct and lecturer, then fine, you should do that. But if you're not happy, and there's little chance of your getting tenure, then you probably ought to consider leaving academia, and if you refuse to do that, you have nobody to blame but yourself. </p>
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And you seem to suggest that people with history BAs are all poor and on the streets, which is pretty far from the truth. I know history BAs making decent salaries. You have an obvious hard science/engineering bias, but the reality is history majors do find jobs. And not McJobs, either
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<p>Did I ever say that ALL of them end up like that? I don't think so. But you know as well as I that many do. And look, I'm not just picking on the history majors. Plenty of college graduates from plenty of majors end up in crappy low-level jobs, even science majors and on occasion even engineering majors. I've seen plenty of college graduates waiting tables, clerking at the mall, collecting change at the toll booth, delivering pizza, and all sorts of other low-end jobs.</p>
<p>Look, the reality is, there's a lot of crappy jobs out there. Not everybody who graduates from college gets a decent job. Plenty of college graduates end up taking crappy jobs. What a wonderful world it would be if every college student out there had a great job waiting for them upon graduation. Unfortunately, that's not the world we live in. </p>
<p>And the truth of the matter is, this sort of thing is far more prevalent amongst the humanities students, and to a lesser extent the social science students, than it does with the hard science and engineering students. That's an indisputable fact. Look at the starting salaries of the science and engineering students vs. the humanities students. The truth is, like it or not, technical degrees tend to be more marketable than nontechnical degrees. Not every time, and not for every person, but the tendency is clear. </p>
<p>Hence, my point is, if you're faced with a choice between stocking shelves at Target and studying for your doctorate, I'm thinking that the latter is looking pretty good, particularly if you can get a cushy grad-student fellowship and stipend. </p>
<p>In fact this is precisely the sort of thinking that the history majors that I know went through. They're in history doctoral programs right now, even though they've said they've admitted they never had a clear reason for going. When I asked them why they went if they had no clear reason to go, their answers were simple and candid - their undergrad degrees couldn't get them decent job offers. </p>
<p>Now it should be said that they did graduate in the teeth of the recent economic downturn and things are better now, but still, I think it's not news to anybody that when the economy declines, grad-school enrollments increase. Depending on the economy and your own personal circumstances, sometimes you really are financially better off being a graduate student than working.</p>
<p>Good points all (this is the kind of debate I lurk around CC for), but let me interject.</p>
<p>I attended Princeton's Graduate School fair today. It wasn't huge, but it had a fairly good sample of schools. I asked about joint PhD-JD programs from my point of view - I'm interested in antiquities law and legal history.</p>
<p>They were much more encouraging about it than I thought. The schools I asked - Columbia, Michigan, and Harvard, all have official PhD-JD joint programs. No doubt, it's harsh. But you can do it.</p>
<p>sakky,</p>
<p>Fair enough. No need to get all wordy about it. ;-)</p>
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I had a professor in law school who had argued most of the land-mark cases in the subject he taught. He maintained a fairly active law practice while teaching law.
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<p>This is quite different than being a history professor, though. Teaching law and being an attorney jibe better in my opinion.</p>
<p>Maybe I believe too much in devotion to a narrower field, but I just don't see why you would go and be a doctor and lawyer simultaneously. :-P</p>