It was a tongue-in-cheek response to how an elitist would be able to work with or for non-elitists in industries with may non-elitists, and so yes getting paid would be one way.
“So people are “non-elite” if they didn’t graduate from a prestigious educational institution?”
imo, only an elitist can answer that question.
I believe elitists are those that ask rhetorical questions, or are they?
Circling back to this thread after a week off after a conversation I had recently.
I think one of the biggest differences today vs. when I went to school in the 90’s is that it is a lot harder to get a job with a generic degree than it was 25 years ago. There are so many kids graduating with strong technical business degrees like finance and accounting that a generic business major or worse, a humanities major from a prestige private is going to have more trouble getting some jobs than they did 25 years.
Furthermore, the dramatic increase in STEM graduates in the last 10 years also puts pressure on the traditional prestige privates. The big state schools have invested a ton in STEM majors in the last 20 years, and many of them are very good now. Look at the rankings of Computer Science for example, and a lot of the prestige privates trail state schools. And if a kid does not pursue a STEM major, how far is that history degree from an IVY or U of Chicago going to carry someone in the technology field? The big state schools have a lot of capacity, and pump out a lot of graduates, and those graduates give the state schools a big advantage in some fields because they create a virtuous cycle of alumni recruiting new grads who in turn recruit more grads down the road.
So accepting not everyone wants a STEM career (roughly 20%-25%…assuming significant growth the past 5 years… of all conferred degrees are in STEM fields), would an art history degree from Brown or big state U have a greater ROI is the (i think) the question for the thread. Would you think the “network” from a large state university will help you more…or would the Brown (other elite) one be more valuable?
Not sure I understand why a history major wants a job in technology, but how far is the CS degree from MIT going to carry someone who decides to teach English, or wants to be a curator in a museum?
Agree that there has been a change in expectation of what skills a graduate from undergrad brings to a job. There are certainly STEM based jobs that require STEM education and some jobs that require virtually no STEM background skill, and in fact require skills in writing, speaking, other forms of communication, interpretative reading, etc… that are hallmarks of a rigorous humanities type major as @EyeVeee points out. However, a lot of jobs which used to take humanities types without much if any STEM type skills are looking for employees with some quant skills because so many jobs have become data driven. A STEM major with good communication skills may be very attractive in some fields that used to be dominated by humanities types. If you are a humanities major, and you want to be marketable, you better pick up some quant type classes. That goes for state schools as well as prestigious privates.
That seems like an argument for all students to get some general education (regardless of how much general education is required by their colleges). However, it is not always the case that a student can predict which out-of-major subjects will be useful in the future.
It is not just STEM or finance/accounting careers. I recommend that any student that wants to be a lawyer NEEDS to take accounting classes. I do not see how it is possible for someone to be a corporate finance lawyer today without at least some accounting background. The transactions are just too complex.
I can not tell you how many times in my career I have come across an agreement where the math is not written correctly or there are holes in the covenant language because the lawyer that drafted it didn’t understand the underlying accounting and finance impact of the deal. And it is a lot better now than it was 20 years ago.
Interesting comment.
Broadly speaking, I know of partners concern that young attorneys need more familiarity with understanding how to read financial statements, but not to the extent that a course in financial accounting or managerial accounting requires. Most law schools offer a course titled “Accounting for Lawyers”.
I’d say it is always a good idea for general marketability of almost any job that you can demonstrate communication, teamwork and quant skills. I think distributional requirements are a must to get a complete education.
@CTDad-classof2022, agree 100% on lawyers. I think one of my strong points as a former lawyer was that I am relatively good at math (and not afraid of it). It made my transition to banking easy. Must say I learned accounting on the job as a young associate, but a very necessary skill for transactional lawyers.
But do most law students take that course (or any other “X for lawyers” courses where X is a topic that lawyers commonly encounter but may have difficulty understanding or applying law to)?
Accounting for Lawyers is a very popular course.
For estate planners and trust/probate attorneys, too. Basic understanding of accounting, business records, financial statements, Excel, taxes, etc.comes in very handy. At a minimum it lets you talk coherently with non-lawyer professionals. I don’t think you need to know fancy international finance, but you should know enough to manage a small firm.
Plus, litigators can blow settlement agreements (or miss opportunities for creative solutions) if they don’t know enough tax and finance to spot pitfalls and long-term consequences.
What blows my mind is how terrible attorneys can be at valuing a potential case before they take it on, especially in trust litigation. Or, they don’t understand their own firm’s cash flow.
I am a corporate finance attorney. Also a CPA. So I agree that its very helpful. But I disagree its necessary. Very few of the attorneys I would with have formal accounting training. Many of them doing incredibly well in the specialty.
Agree that formal accounting coursework–while helpful–is unnecessary for lawyers.
Surprisingly, at least two Big 4 accounting firms do not require accounting courses for M&A tax work. Seem to prefer JD /LLM (taxation) degrees to accountants with CPA licenses.
It would depend on how you define complex but law firms dealing with say asset distribution in divorce cases which can be complex in CA, hire CPAs. Wouldn’t corp legal team work with corp finance on complex cases?
I don’t think that’s the case, as nces numbers (I think eyevee mentioned as well) show that only 18% of the 1.8M bachelors degrees in 2016 were STEM. I don’t think the percentage has grown, maybe even declined. Possible that the numbers have grown, but again there’s 1.4M non-stem degree grads in 2016 compared to 350K stem grads.
They are good but it’s not like they graduate a ton of stem grads, UCLA’s top 6 majors list only one, maybe 1.5, stem majors: biology, business economics, political science, psychology, psychobiology and economics.
Many of these students may start in a STEM major, but end in something else.
As a client in corporate finance, I will disagree. All it takes is one mistake or misunderstanding to turn into a disaster on a deal. Some firms will pull in a separate lawyer to do the detail financial drafting in deal docs, which is fine, but in 25 years I have seen some major mistakes, and more often, big bills piling up because we have to go through docs over and over to get them right. No client likes to pay for on-the-job training.
This is why any major deal is managed by very experienced individuals. Classwork will never deliver this ability…it takes maturity and experience.
Taxation doesn’t require debits and credits…it’s legal interpretation, process, and estimation. A JD/LLM is infinitely more appropriate to transaction work than figuring out how to record it in the books. Even goodwill accounting, which is always a mess, requires more interpretation and analysis than accounting.
Without question, you want to avoid mistakes. Something you see a lot is people focussing on something that burned them in the past. Basic human nature. You have limited resources/priorities and must focus on the most significant issues and avoiding past mistakes is critical. I clerked for a bankruptcy judge after law school. Found out after I started that weeks before my offer, the judge had a decision reversed on appeal for a pretty basis accounting error. Made sense when I learned that.
But what I can say (and we all come to the table with our own experiences) is some of the absolute best corporate finance attorneys I know/work with (probably most) do not have any formal accounting training.
If you want to avoid paying for on the job training, you should only work with very senior partners. Associates (epecially young associates) are all about on the job training. Even true for many young partners. People graduating law school know next to nothing practical in terms of specific areas of the law.
In the end, most decisions are $$$$$ and priority based, no billionaire would pick a public uni over an prestigious private, no matter if it’s the best ROI or worse. It’s a dilemma for people like us who can’t buy a seat in elite colleges or can’t stretch our limited dollars to pay their bills so we try to justify sour grapes to ourselves.