<p>? Neither. The country was founded by essentially a bunch of theologians, philosophers, historians, a crackpot inventor, duelists, and the occasional guerilla/rebel general.</p>
<p>I don’t think any of the Fathers were strictly philosophers or theologians. Can you imagine a New England county electing some dithering lazy philosopher to go to the Congress or to the Convention?</p>
<p>Anyways,</p>
<p>Jefferson - Lawyer
Adamses - Lawyer, Lawyer
Madison - Lawyer
Franklin - Crackpot inventor</p>
<p>Jefferson’s education was certainly primarily in political philosophy, although I stand corrected, since he did spend time (to my surprise) as a practicing lawyer. I knew about the Adamses, although I think it’s a stretch to consider Quincy one of the founders of the country (and in any case he was more a diplomat than a lawyer).</p>
<p>James Madison was not a lawyer, according to Wiki.</p>
<p>Off the top of my head, I’d have said the four “architects” of the country were a general (Washington), a lawyer/political philosopher (Jefferson), a mathematician/political philosopher/duelist (Hamilton), and a classicist/political philosopher (Madison). Honorable mentions, of course, to crackpot inventors, wealthy aristocrat merchants, silversmiths, and beer brewers.</p>
<p>lol, it was actually through wiki that I decided to throw Madison into the mix. I swear it says lawyer on his wiki. I’ll check when i get home since I’m writing this on my phone.</p>
<p>Lets see if I can figure out your honorable mentions</p>
<p>Crackpot inventor is Franklin. </p>
<p>Wealth Aristocrat Merchant is tricky because wealthy and merchant makes me Hancock. But the aristocrat part makes me think its either Gouverneur Morris or Randolph. Silversmith is obviously Paul Revere. And of course, beer brewer would be Sam Adams Light.</p>
<p>Ok, I’m gonna fess up to something. I also don’t consider Quincy a founding father. When I said Adamses I actually meant Sam and John. Not realizing that Samuel Adams wasn’t a lawyer.</p>
<p>oooh I knew that I smelt a good historical scuffle going on. There were indeed doctors who founded the country.</p>
<p>Dr. Benjamin Rush was a founding father (he signed the Declaration of Independence and was part of the Continental Congress I believe) and an influential figure in the medical annals of the early United States (especially during the Yellow Fever epidemic). I bet money that there were others, but Dr. Rush is the only one that I have studied.</p>
<p>I checked wikipedia and it does say that Madison was a laywer. I’ll admit that all I did was go to his wiki page and pressed ctl+f lawyer and when I saw that more than 2 results showed up, I assumed I was right and left. So if all those results were along the lines of “madison was definitely not a lawyer lawyer lawyer lawyer” then I’m sorry.</p>
<p>“Madison studied law sporadically but never gained admission to the bar.”</p>
<p>I went to medical school in the early 70s while my brother went to law school in the late 70s. Our school had a three year year-round curriculum which I don’t recommend to anyone. The class ahead of ours had three students drop out at least temporarily for “nervous Breakdowns”. The three year curriculum disappeared very soon after I finished. I teach in a medical school now. I would say that the first and third years are the hardest in med school. My brother thought the first year of law was the hardest.
The short week for doctors doesn’t exist around here except for those who are job sharing or raising children. The compensation for doctors has decreased over the last 20 years and continues to do so.
The difference in law is that there is such a wide range of abilities and no attempt to standardize the education in the last two years. As a result there are attorneys who make way more than any doctor will ever make, a large group who make about the same and some who make way less. We never pay an Intern $160K no matter what school he went to.</p>
<p>People generally ridicule this question all the time but the answer is easy, some lawyer work harder than doctors and some doctors work harder than lawyers. A neurosurgeon is a tougher role than a defense lawyer, accident lawyer, etc. But then again a primary care doctor can be easier than being a partner at a firm. There are different degrees of both careers. I personally took the LSAT and MCAT, so to anyone generalization either career, most people do get stuck between these two careers, there are tons of cases of people failing out of med school and going to law school and vice versa. As far as picking a major… if your daughter likes john Hopkins which is #1 on the chart of medial schools and attracts strong science students, she probably has more of a interest in science, Cornell is very strong in business etc. People over think careers and college… If your professional and intelligent and GOOD at what you do you’ll be successful, just because your good at science doesn’t mean you’ll be a good doctor. Same goes for political science or law. And the funny thing about med and law school. Med schools like majors such as political science and sociology because you have prereqs which are science based that you have to take anyways. Law schools prefer a bio major over a poly sci major. Its very interesting. Doesn’t mean generally bio majors go to law school and political science goes to med schools. But law and med schools love well rounded individuals.</p>
<p>
Law schools like higher GPAs and LSATs over anything else. At most universities, PolySci is MUCH easier than Bio to have a higher GPA.</p>
<p>engineering?</p>
<p>I am a law student and I have a few med student friends and no doubt I think we study as hard as eachother but…it’s true that they are told exactly what they need to know while law students are in the dark and given a few hints! They tell us nothing in law school and we have to figure it out. A majority of what I learn I must teach myself, lectures are a small part of it to guide us and if we don’t teach ourselves, we are basically screwed. If you ask questions, the leturers give you an open and ambiguous answer which is never solid or clear. I have to do a lot of reading and analytical thinking, trying to understand very complex statutes and cases (not to mention the legal principles that come out of the cases, many are changed or were wrongly decided and later changed again which complicates everything) then apply all that stuff to my arguments which all must make sense while having to back up every sngle thing I write with correct references and authorities. Lawschool messes up your mind and people don’t even realise just how complex it is until they are told in detail just what we have to contend with. When my friend and I switched papers just for fun, he found my work to be a boring complicated mind**** where I found his extremely interesting.</p>
<p>For those like “unbelievablem,” I continue to be disappointed in the closed-mindedness and inability to consider alternative possibilities that is sometimes the defining characteristic of humans.</p>
<p>The question: which is harder; medical school or law school?</p>
<p>unbelievablem’s answer: why even ask the question?</p>
<p>The assumption: the only reason this question would be asked is for purposes of considering into which occupation one will go.</p>
<p>The flaw: there is not one sole reason this question could be asked. For instance, the reason I came upon this message board is because of a Google search asking the poster’s question. The reason I want to know is because I am already an attorney and I am interested in pursuing a medical degree. I would like to know, for comparison’s sake, the degree of difficulty of medical school so that I can compare how my life will be based on how it was in law school.</p>
<p>The verdict: your response was not only completely lacking in value, but it degrades the original poster and makes you look like an ignoramus. There is a reason the question is asked, and to be quite honest, if you have not been to medical school <em>and</em> law school and can therefore intelligently answer the question, I don’t want to hear your opinion.</p>
<p>Only juries get to render verdicts.</p>
<p>I think this discussion board is interesting so I wanted to add a few of my own opinions.</p>
<p>The best point that I read here (through a quick skim) is that law is more difficult to teach and master. I am not a lawyer and have not attended law school, but I took a law class regarding how evidence is analyzed in law. I quickly learned that law requires incredible writing skills, fast processing speed, and ability to synthesize opinions from a vast amount of information. </p>
<p>Now, as an incoming med student, I can tell you that those skill-sets do not always translate to the study of medicine. I remember for almost all of my dumb biology classes, I would just memorize every word on the lecture slide, and then take the exam. Generally, I would get an A on every test because, quite frankly, I wasn’t asked to think. Hell, if the exam asked me to write in complete sentences, it was infinitely more challenging. Furthermore, any dumb person can eventually memorize a bunch of words. I’m sure all of you have heard of the “monkey analogy”–you can teach a monkey to learn any task with enough repetition.</p>
<p>However, these fields are asking for different skill-sets because the jobs that eventually follow generally serve different industries. A lawyer could be considered a businessman because he must master how to market himself for higher salaries while doctors could be considered employees because their salary is almost pre-determined. I do not mean to imply that no doctors enter private practice, because some do, but the vast majority work for public hospitals that receive patients regardless of the caliber of the doctors. </p>
<p>I think the question is interesting, and most people will not be able to answer it with a high level of credibility because few people have attended both law and medical school. But, I strongly feel that on average it is much more difficult to receive acceptance into a medical school than a law school. Acceptance into law school requires high grades and standardized test scores while acceptance into medical school requires all of the former along with community service, leadership activities, and other extracurricular activities.</p>
<p>In the end, who fares better? I’d say your salary is what you make of it. There is a great deal of flexibility in both fields which is why I think both professions are beautiful. No matter what, I’m bound to find something that strikes a chord (I hope!).</p>
<p>Hmm…resurrecting a thread starting in 2006 with no new posts in over two years…
I’d suggest starting something new…</p>
<p>"“Hmm…resurrecting a thread starting in 2006 with no new posts in over two years…
I’d suggest starting something new…”</p>
<p>“There is a reason the question is asked, and to be quite honest, if you have not been to medical school <em>and</em> law school and can therefore intelligently answer the question, I don’t want to hear your opinion.”</p>
<p>Uh, the common sense answer is that med school is much harder than law school, at least at a T14.</p>
<p>You don’t have to really attend class or do much work to pass classes. This is not true of med school.</p>
<p>With respect to “who works harder”, it obviously depends on the job.</p>
<p>My psychiatrist BIL works far less hard than I do as a lawyer, but that’s because he only feels like working three days a week. </p>
<p>However, he apparently had to put forth at least a reasonable amount of effort to get through med school, while I played computer games during class (those classes I actually attended) and crammed for tests in law school.</p>
<p>So med school > law school.</p>
<p>And “who works harder” depends on the specific job.</p>
<p>It’s common sense.</p>
<p>thread is over 2 years old and should be used for informational purposes only. Please begin new thread</p>