quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

xpost - haha oh yes, that is a whole other variety of standards/expectations, sure

iatee, yes, I don't disagree -- although I guess the idea was that I do get the sense of a different type of exacting life standards (often having to do with more concrete yardsticks of "success") that drive people toward law, sometimes. yeah, being driven toward particular goals is the same whatever those goals are, but there seems something maybe particular here to the spread of goals that animate some people toward law schools with firm expectations of that $200k firm job at the end? (I'm not trying to imply it's all materialistic or about money/power for anyone -- I'm lacking the words to pinpoint the exact thing.)

haha maybe just ignore me until I figure out what I mean

a question - are med students/doctors as "bad" in this regard as law students/lawyers? I'm just trying to think about other occupations that involve this sort of academic gauntlet with high monetary rewards.

Obviously PhDs don't expect the kind of salaries JD/MBAs do, but I wonder if they have a similar sense of "Obviously I'm going to get a tenure-tracked position since I got myself into this top-notch school and did all this work." Which, I agree with Nabisco, is not always exactly the same thing as a "sense of entitlement" because there's an element of hard work + doing what you were told were the right things to do to make something happen. Top law schools are sold as such a sure bet that to not get a job after making median grades would be like losing your house after making all your mortgage payments.

nab, word you bring to mind for me is 'aspirational' - there's this socially-rooted aspirational thing that seems unique to law school (and would apply to people at lower ranked law schools too.) It's like, this is our ticket out of the low/middle classes? And I guess having *that* dream crushed adds a layer of misery to the 'high-achiever doesn't get what they want' misery.

in the humanities at least, prospective Ph.D. candidates are warned many many times that there's no "obviously" about it, but i think on some level there is an unrealistic sense that the outcome can be controlled if you just get into a good enough program.

xpost

"Obviously Northern Louisiana Women's Christian A&M will be all over themselves to offer me their tenure track Comp Lit position. I mean, how many other PhDs from top-10 programs could possibly have applied? It's $38K a year in the bank."

:(

"Hey, I don't need $160,000 a year, and I don't really want to work 80 hours a week anyway. I'll be glad to take one of the myriad jobs that just pays a decent salary for a sane workweek."

(well, that's more the internal voice of the lower ranked law school student)

for $38k a year, I'd be living pretty high on the hog.

it goes a long way in northern louisiana

okay, I am kind of useless and talking out my ass here because I can't quite articulate the thing I mean, BUT -- iatee -- I think the thing that has surprised me about a lot of top-tier law students I've met in NYC is that they seem not to be driven by conventional aspiration but almost by the opposite. as in, the idea isn't that with hard work it's a ticket to some higher class, but rather that hey, if I have the opportunity and mental capacity to do well at a top law school and have a high-powered degree and high-paying job, why would I backslide into doing something quotidian or thankless or easier or more "fun?" (this isn't just in terms of material wealth or anything, either, because it can apply just as well to other types: if I can have the kind of world-shaping technocrat career that ends in a cabinet position, wouldn't it be almost lazy or dumb not to? etc.) this is just a vague sense/observation, obviously, and it's often totally admirable and great and makes me feel, well, lazy and dumb for having taken up the sensibility of a lot of middle-class people my age who I guess feel so securely middle-class that we think we can go study poetry or whatever. (haha as in: wait, they're right, there was nothing about my intellectual capacity or education opportunities to keep me from being well-paid or powerful or influential, and I am totally going to see this when we're all 50 and they have way more resources and independence than I do.)

nabisco OTM

wait, they're right, there was nothing about my intellectual capacity or education opportunities to keep me from being well-paid or powerful or influential, and I am totally going to see this when we're all 50 and they have way more resources and independence than I do

do you get your college alumni magazine?

makes me feel, well, lazy and dumb for having taken up the sensibility of a lot of middle-class people my age who I guess feel so securely middle-class that we think we can go study poetry or whatever.

yeah

I don't know if "securely middle-class" is the right word for what I feel is my sensibility about this ... more like, "no way I will rise to upper middle or upper class status" so I might as well do something I think is interesting.

x-post to the person who asked if the same occurs with med school....

I think the one thing that separates law from medical school is that, according to my friends who are currently in law school, you are pretty much screwed if you do not go to a top 20 school. I think residency programs are much more forgiving when it comes to where you attained your medical training because factors such as your board scores are much more important, and anyone who studies extremely hard can potentially do very well on the boards - very few medical schools have programs that give their students a considerable advantage when it comes to the boards because most of the studying comes down to you.

you are pretty much screwed if you do not go to a top 20 school

i'm guessing whoever said this was in the same category of law students who hold themselves to ridiculous standards. imo/ime it's totally wrong.

but that's like a pet peeve of mine so i'll shut up :(

xp - screwed in terms of what?

I haven't met a ton of med folks, but as a side note I will say that the bulk of the ones I've met seem in some part motivated by the fact that there is this incredibly long, incredibly hard thing you can do, at the end of which you will have this amazing ability to heal the sick -- no matter where you are or what's happening, you will have in your head this thing that's one of the single most important human skills there is.

yeah but can they *promote justice*

you are pretty much screwed if you do not go to a top 20 school

i'm guessing whoever said this was in the same category of law students who hold themselves to ridiculous standards. imo/ime it's totally wrong.

― permanent response lopp (harbl), Thursday, 27 August 2009 00:19 (6 minutes ago)

You're probably in a far better position than I am to evaluate this. I think you're right that it's an exaggeration, but I also think it's at least a big gamble to go to a non-top-20 school for the full $40-some-odd-thousand-dollars a year plus living expenses entirely on loans, especially if you don't have a very clear, specific career track you want (e.g. you're pretty sure you want to do a certain kind of public interest and have done the math with debt size vs. whatever loan forgiveness program applies).

I only have anecdotal evidence, but I've heard plenty of stories in the last couple years about people graduating "good" non-top-20 law schools with at least decent grades and no job.

the fact that the supply of lawyers is continually going ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ and the cost of law school is continually going ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ makes me think that that particular statement is only going to get more and more true over time

And the recession is actually driving more people into law school -- classes are oversubscribed this year.

yeah, it's true you have to get much better grades, etc. at a lower-ranked school but "screwed" is an idea used to exploit insecure potential applicants xxp

I feel like if anyone is exploiting insecure potential applicants, it's the tier 3 and 4 law schools

i dunno, thinking about that

i mean, they all are, for sure. but i was thinking more of what was upthread about mega-overachievers being disappointed than just plain "this is my ticket to success" stuff, which is also there, and is also bad.

so glad I decided not to apply this year, and am looking at lol humanities phd programs instead

ah yeah what you said at 7:34 probably xxp

(just for the record I really didn't mean to suggest anyone's motives anywhere are "bad" -- only that it's super-interesting to me the way different pursuits sometimes self-select for people with wildly different expectations of themselves and the world)

hey, if I have the opportunity and mental capacity to do well at a top law school

I knew someone who applied (and got in) to a bunch of tier 1 law schools last year, and I once grilled her about why she wanted to go to law school, and after hemming ad hawing basically ended up saying "well I think law school would best take advantage of my skillset."

I also pointed her to the ILX thread about law school being a pit of hell and she said "uhh, what is this place"

people who go to law school because they can't figure out anything else to do for an office job are basically terrible

(having thought about it at a couple of points in life and been lucky enough to get to do something completely different)

maybe it's just because there's not enough exposure in your early twenties to what you can do in a different lane - law school is just so generic "I'm gifted but more like with words not math or science so much"

additionally from personal experience all the engineering/hard sciences oriented kids I hung out with were really really really smart, if I had spent more time around the middle of the bell curve engineering students I might not have been so intimidated by everything? Then again, I purposefully avoided math whenever the opportunity presented itself at that age

in talking to my friends who went to law school, i think i would have actually really liked the education--as a "gifted w/words not numbers" guy--but the thought of actually being a lawyer is awful.

what is the lawyer equivalent for science majors/phds?

My physics Ph.D. friends were all pushed to be quants; I figure the bottom's also fallen out of that.

For biology majors, PA school.

i guess it's patent law still?

i no longer get cold-called by quant recruiters

to be fair about motivations, there are obviously still plenty of people who go to law school because they're actually really interested in the law and how things work; or because they're passionate about government or human right or something and want to use the degree to make a positive contribution to those areas; or because they're just inclined toward the kind of logic and thinking involved in law. but yes, there'd definitely seem to be a higher proportion of people who see it as a means to an end than you'd find in some other fields.

I work at a hoity toity law firm and I can say with certainty that 95% of people we take in are from top 20 schools. Its kinda retarded but thats just how we do things. The other 5% are from renowned local schools.

We have one guy whose a partner here who went to a super shitty lower tier school and hes basically the great white hope for those who did the same, but the odds of making it like he did are slim to none because hes basically insane.

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/01/18/williamshatner_narrowweb__300x436,0.jpg

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/health/views/04greet.html

As the world braces for a second wave of the swine flu that broke out in the spring and resulted in the deaths of more than 2,100 people worldwide, the disease is altering long-established patterns of everyday greeting. Handshakes have been cut short, kisses aborted. Warm embraces have been supplanted by curt pats on the back.

Annual deaths from malaria: 2.7 million

Tracer Hand I think you need a hug, but of course now I don't dare.

Plus I'm too busy bracing for a second wave of Killer Pig Fever