Hi,
I’m trying to decide between UIUC (30k/yr) and Cornell (70k/yr) for ChemE. I’m in state for UIUC, and I have Chancellor’s and James Scholar there. For Cornell, I’m a tradition fellow. I’m hoping to go to law school, but my situation is unique in that my parents will pay full for my undergrad and can afford both, but they won’t pay for law school so going to a cheaper undergrad isn’t necessarily beneficial. I have a lot going for me at UIUC and genuinely love the campus, but people can’t stop talking about the prestige of Cornell. What are your thoughts?
Sounds like you want to be a patent attorney. It may be better to major in ECE or CS but chemical engineering is OK too. In today’s patent landscape, chemical engineering trained patent attorneys have work but electrical engineers, and computer related degrees get more work. Biomedical engineers also have good options. There is simply a lot of filings in medical devices, semiconductors, and anything computer related and a slight shortage of top trained electrical engineers that go to law school.
If you are very good at organic chemistry though, chemical patents are also challenging to draft and there will be work.
Quite a law firms in the midwest seem to prefer electrical/computer engineers, over chemical engineers, is my experience. (I am a materials scientist and patent agent and also worked as a US patent examiner, no law school training ).
To have the best options in patent prosecution later, take a lot of computer related classes if you can fit that in.
Take a lot of reading and writing classes too. You need a high GPA, a top LSAT score. With that, I think New York State law schools will favor Cornell grads. New York has some very top law programs but Illinois offers many good law programs as well. I think there may be very SLIGHT regional preferences at some law programs. UIUC is a very big school, so you will have a bit less personal attention. Look up pre law advising at both schools and get a sense for what is offered. My sense is Cornell will be a bit more personal but harder to earn As in chemical engineering.
Also look up law programs that focus on IP law now, and see what they require to get in. Doing your homework on law schools now may be slightly helpful to make up your mind between UIUC and Cornell.
The USPTO used to send US Patent Examiners to law school, after working one’s way to GS-12, I think. It takes a few years to get to that pay curve. That benefit may come and go, depending on the administration, but you can get a lot of legal training and get payed while working as a US Patent Examiner at the PTO. There are now a number of locations for satelite offices, Virginia being the large central PTO, but offices are in Denver, San Jose CA , Dallas and Detroit. It may be a good way to save money for law school. Law schools LOVE accepting US Patent Examiners.