Self-assessment, part 2: Law School?

Another track I am considering for myself is law school. I have done lots of online research and read some books, notably The Law School Admission Game and Should You Really Be a Lawyer?: The Guide to Smart Career Choices Before, During & After Law School. What my research lacks, compared to my grad school research, is talking with real practicing and non-practicing lawyers, law students, and other people in the legal field. And the most helpful bit of research to see if law school is right for me is to actually get my feet wet in the legal field itself.

As with grad school, there's a plethora of material out there that warns people not to go law school these days.

• Exposing the Law School Scam: quite extensive blog. A collaborative project.
• Inside the Law School Scam: a clean, unpretentious, articulate blog written by a law professor. Law schools and their professors, as you can see from my links, are often blamed for encouraging law school to students in order to rake in more money, but it seems this current professor strays from the flock.
• When Law School Becomes a Bad Investment: from the Washington Post.
• Is Law School a Bad Investment?: from Business Insider.
• Law School: As Bad As You've Heard: and always read comments from articles. Notably this one: "Graduated in the top 3% of class, top 20 school, law review, 5 years of biglaw, unemployed for 18 months, losing the house, and wife leaving.
• Think you’re safe? I did too." Okay, hope the wife wasn't leaving because of no paycheck, but damn. And he's not the only one with bad news.
• The Girl's Guide to Law School: this is written by a Columbia '06 grad who did get into BigLaw (six figures, work-crazy life) and other things. She started this rather extensive and beautiful site as a guide for women to get the most out of law school, along with several myths she (and numerous other sites) debunks. She also uses the right it's and its and has a smart, simply-designed layout, which all make me quite happy. It's useful to note these myths:

1. Lawyers Make a Lot of Money
2. Student Loan Debt is “Good Debt”
3. Law School Gives You Three More Years to Decide What to Do With Your Life
4. Life as a Lawyer is Exciting and Intellectually Challenging
5. Getting a Law Degree Opens Lots of Doors
6. You Can Trust a Law School’s Employment Numbers

To summarize: "the prospects for those legions of new lawyers have been grim, a fact hardly unbeknownst to them...in the past few years, young lawyers faced a glut of competition from other legal professionals; plummeting wages; a reduction in openings in and offers at big law firms; and cripplingly high student-loan debts. When the recession hit, thousands of young lawyers suddenly found themselves trying to work off six figures of debt in pay-per-hour assistant gigs. Granted, things are looking better. But the National Association of Legal-Career Professionals still cautions that "entry-level recruiting volumes have not returned to anything like the levels measured before the recession." 
(Source: slate.com)


It seems this material has affected the number of applications to go down in the past years, which I think is great.


And despite all of these sources, I'm still intrigued. As I said in the beginning, I must extend my research by talking to more people involved in the legal field itself.


I feel that my set of skills and interests (writing, research, analysis, reading, attention to detail, logical and deductive reasoning, argumentation, strong work ethic, etc.) align well with what it takes to be a lawyer. But what about my values? I'm not just talking about the moral skepticism of certain cases I might be forced to undertake. I'm also talking about... well, it's the same deal with my largest concern that stops me from going to grad school, which I'll cover in part 3.


In any case, I'll be talking with more legal folks, and I have been researching being a paralegal so that I can get my feet wet into the legal field without throwing away three years of my life and $100k+ of my parents' and my own money (and instead saving money and gaining valuable experience). This is the mistake that thousands of law students make. One of the books I mentioned earlier makes a great analogy to this ridiculous problem: would you buy a $30,000 car without first test-driving it? Would you put an investment in a $100-400,000 house without first stepping foot inside? Nonetheless, many students decide to go to law school because

• they have no idea what else to do with their liberal arts degree that's not "prestigious" or "respectable" or earns lots of money (lulz)
• their loved ones, especially their parents, expect them to and/or want a lawyer in the family as much as they want a doctor or an engineer (but too bad, you were too dumb to not major in the sciences)
• these loved ones, as sincere as they are, insist that their child is apt to be a lawyer based on only some obscure notions (e.g., Law and Order, John Grisham novels) of what it means to be a lawyer
• the students themselves have those obscure notions without ever setting foot in a law firm
• as with grad school, they want to ride out the economic recession by staying in school another three years (completely ignoring the mounds of student loans; fellowships are non-existent for law students and scholarships are hard to get)
• the myths outlined above by Alison

With spiky hair and blowing wind in an indoor court room!

...and so on. I pick these specific yet common reasons because they also apply to my initial reasons for considering law school, though I'd have to replace John Grisham and Law and Order with the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney video game. :3 "OBJECTION!" "HOLD IT!" and my favorite, "TAKE THAT!"

But like I said, different from grad school, I'm not completely giving up on law school altogether. I want to try being a paralegal or legal secretary first. I've also reasoned that, should I like the legal field after some experience, I can maximize my chances of "success" by getting a high LSAT score and going to a T14 school. I already have the GPA and recommendation letters set, and I'm sure I can write a good personal statement. 

At the same time, who knows? Even if I do like law, get in the top of my class at a top law school, and land a respectable job, will this lifestyle be conducive to my happiness? 

This all comes down to what makes me happiest, and consistently. And after much reflection this semester, from both my academic and social lives, I've come to realize... [HOLD IT!]

Part 3 awaits.

[Addendum to Part 1]

      Reasons Not to Pursue a Ph.D.

 

This guy responds to the Economist article I previously linked. Indeed, it *is* a sad reality.

"Well, it's nice to quote Kant at a cocktail party, but it seems that most of the money is being made by C students."

Apparently he's quite a prolific writer. Check out his YouTube channel. He's certainly made something out of himself without the need to put letters after his name.

Self-assessment, part 1: Grad School?

[This will be a three-part series of posts.]

Apologies for the freeze in blog entries. I'll need to figure out how to squeeze in time during school to do this because I really like writing entries. For now, I'll take advantage of my winter break to get back up to speed.

I've been home for three days, and while I ensure myself much relaxation, I guess you can say I find a lot of "fun" in researching options for my future. I don't find this as a duty or an assignment; it naturally comes out of my nature of being incredibly risk-averse and loving research.

I've firmly established that I will not go to an advanced-degree school right after college. After much online research and discussions with alums and professors, I know that real-world work experience will help me. I can save up more money, build my resume with experience, network, and think more seriously about whether I want to go back to school, what kind of school I want to go to, when, and why.

This is especially good advice for humanities and social sciences (from here on out, HUMN/SOSC) students. For engineering and natural sciences students, grad school is still a wonderful thing to pursue: while no grad school decision guarantees a person a higher-paid and more prestigious job that one will enjoy, it seems that the majority of these folks seem to be in good standing. They also have more funding given to them as they are still in grad school. Debating between a master's and a Ph.D. may be worth reconsidering for even this cohort (see Infographic on the Costs of Going to Grad School). Again, this cohort would do well to also explore the rest of my post since NIH/NSF grants are starting to dwindle.

For people like me, however, grad school is especially becoming more and more of a really stupid decision. Just take a look at these links:

"Adulthood waits."

100 Reasons NOT to Go to Grad School: it's only up to the 70s at this point, but it's quite a vast and eye-opening blog. It also has links to other sites of similar flavor.

The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time: from one of my favorite sources, the Economist.

Articles from The Chronicle of Higher Education:

So You Want to Go to Grad School?: by Thomas H. Benton. It's a pretty good summary of the demerits of grad school for HUMN/SOSC. Keep in mind that this man recognizes he is one of the "lucky few" English Ph.D.'s in a tenure-track position, but he writes these articles to warn people before investing in grad school to make informed decisions.

Is Graduate School a Cult?: also by Thomas H. Benton. My religion pundit self will refrain from commenting on the sad use of the word "cult" here, but nonetheless, it's an interesting read.

So You Want to Get a Ph.D. in the Humanities: alright, I gotta admit... The girl sounds scarily like me, like the mentality I have had for a long time about why I would want to go to grad school. The feeling echoes a comment in the next link (and here, I agree that it's NOT funny because it's so true).

"So You Want to Get a Ph.D. in the Humanities: 9 Years Later": also by Thomas H. Benton. Read the comments too. One of them says something like, "It's too true to even be funny." Fortunately, it's funny for me since I haven't leapt into a Ph.D. program (yet?).

The Big Lie of the "Life of the Mind": " She was the best student her adviser had ever seen (or so he said); it seemed like a dream when she was admitted to a distinguished doctoral program; she worked so hard for so long; she won almost every prize; she published several essays; she became fully identified with the academic life; even distancing herself from her less educated family. For all of those reasons, she continues as an adjunct who qualifies for food stamps, increasingly isolating herself to avoid feelings of being judged. Her students have no idea that she is a prisoner of the graduate-school poverty trap. The consolations of teaching are fewer than she ever imagined. " This article speaks to me the most.

A Letter From a Graduate Student in the Humanities: this is written by an English Ph.D. candidate who responds to Thomas H. Benton and other doomsday writers of grad school with pleas for solutions for grad students and Ph.D.'s who are struggling with finding a job inside and outside academe.  

You can also do a quick Google search with keywords such as, "grad school, should I go to, costs of..."

-----------------

But first there is the question: why graduate school? Let's be honest, Jasna. Well, shamelessly put...

• I love school and learning. For much of my life I have been in this environment and could not have imagined myself anywhere else. I love intellectual challenges; I want that "life of the mind."
• I want prestige. Because I have a very high GPA, great relationships with my professors, and go to a reputable university, I feel entitled to get an advanced degree such as a Ph.D. as a tangible measurement of my self-worth. I am egotistic. Furthermore, these credentials mold me as an exemplary applicant for graduate school.
• I love researching and coming up with new ideas.
• I want to surround myself with other intellectuals. I love stimulating discussions and people who have high intellectual capacities like me.
• I love teaching and counseling. 
• All of the above said, I would incredibly love the idea of being a tenure-track professor. In the ideal situation, I will be my own boss, get to research and write about what I love, inspire young minds, counsel these young minds, have great benefits for both myself and my kids (free education!), and be called "Professor [Marie]" or "Dr. [Marie]." Wouldn't that be fancy? Plus, many of my favorite people are professors, and it is natural for me to want to be like them.
• I am graduating with a humanities degree. There is no other direct path for me to take with a religion and East Asian studies degree, other than to teach at the grade school level or go to a seminary. And hell no, I'm not going to any seminary (though I would like to teach grade school for some time).
• I am pressured by my family and friends to get an advanced degree. This is similar to the prestige bullet point. Because I have been known as an intelligent and continuously successful student, my loved ones expect me to get a prestigious, elite job that requires great intellect and all that crap. And if you know me well, I hate ruining people's expectations; I love going beyond people's expectations. 
• This pressure is further hindered by the fact that I am a first-generation immigrant. I have had this drilled into my head that my parents went through shit tons of difficulty and brought my brother and me to America for all the opportunities it has, for us to have a better life. Underlying all this sincerity is the expectation of doing "better" than my parents because of my greater opportunities here than in our home country. My brother is finishing med school to become a doctor; it's only expected that I get a Ph.D. or J.D. Otherwise, I feel that I am wasting the gift my parents gave me in being able to live here. I feel inadequate compared to my brother and am letting my parents down.

I don't mean to brag. I just mean to be frank of my elitism and subsequent insecurity. And the truth is, I know that graduate students and freshly minted Ph.D.'s think just like me in these regards.

But the other truth is, graduate school is a long, brutal, and expensive ordeal that in many situations does not involve much fruitful, intellectually curious discussion. It's cut-throat competitive during and after for those rare tenure-track jobs and insecure, slave-labor-like adjunct positions. And if you find yourself not getting either of those things (or you're dissatisfied with wandering the country as an adjunct), you'll in many ways be seen as overqualified or just plain inexperienced for jobs outside of academe.  

[See Occupy Wall Street for even more people who feel entitled. Some of them even "only" have bachelor's, though others also have Ph.D's.]

So, here are the majority of my concerns with grad school. I have one other major concern, but I'll leave that with the rest of my concluding thoughts to the third and final part of this Self-Assessment series.

Narrating "the" World

This entry is in response to WanderingThinker's question from my first entry:

"Out of curiosity, do you hold more faith in Catholicism now then you did back then in high school? (your tense left me unsure) Or do you hold beliefs in line with a different particular religion or more of a view separate from any particular faith given your studies of religions?"

The question of what my beliefs are has more and more become a difficult thing to answer, especially because of my studies in religion and philosophy. But I'll do my best to answer in a cohesive way...

Long story short, no, I do not hold more faith in Catholicism than I did in high school, but I embrace the practices and ethical teachings of Catholicism more so than before, and I find Catholicism to be a beautiful religion. I also embrace and find beauty in the practices and teachings from other religions, namely Soto Zen. As a result, I've come to form my own "religion," which evolves as I evolve. But here is the long story, anyway:

Taken from Paul Brockelman, Mark C. Taylor, and other postmodern religious scholars, I believe that religion is a person's narrative, or interpretation, of the world. How does the world work? What is valuable in the world, and why? What are people, animals, plants, *life*... and how do they operate and affect me? With this definition of religion, essentially all conscious human beings are religious, for in the act of being conscious, one interprets the world in which he or she lives. In the wake of globalization and the realization of multiple languages, religions, cultures, political-economic systems, scientific theories, and so on, there is no absolute truth, and being trapped in our linguistic reality (Heidegger, Derrida), we are unable to refer to or assert the reality of a translinguistic or transcendental Other (read: in Western language, "God").

Despite this limitation, the possibility of a transcendental being itself is still in the air. We just cannot firmly assert one way or another its existence; our assertions at this point rely on our faith, our individual interpretation or narratives of the world.

That said, I loved studying and practicing Soto Zen Buddhism in Japan last year. I cannot say that I'm an official "practitioner" of Soto Zen because I find many of their requirements to living the detached life too difficult, haha. Frankly, I get bored meditating for so long and so regularly, and I rather enjoy material things, pursuing my desires, and dressing nicely (though I'm not obsessed). I also am quite attached to the idea that I have a self, an ego. But I do like the philosophy a lot, especially the idea of the interconnectedness of all beings, and I highly recognize the benefits of meditation and moderating the chasing of my desires. I very much like the Eightfold Path, which Buddhists believe is the way to end one's suffering.

When I am very upset and there's no one around to comfort me, I remember my days in Japan when my classmates and I would chant the Heart Sutra in Japanese every morning. Please take a look at it here. Its multiple contradictions echo the limitation of language, encourage freedom from desire (for desire is the cause of our suffering, as well as our happiness), and insightful truths in our (self-contradicting) world. Now, as I said, I would chant this in Japanese, and the Japanese itself is unintelligible because it is based off of the sounds of the Chinese characters from which they derive (in other words, even a native Japanese speaker wouldn't know what I'm saying). But this act of almost sheer "mindlessness" in chanting gives me a soothing feeling. My mind clears because I am not thinking of anything; I am just chanting.

I get a similar feeling of mindlessness when I am at Catholic Mass. At Mass, Catholics and the priest recite almost the same darn things every time, and it feels like a script. For most of my life, I found this ritual incredibly boring, and I loathed it. But now I am calmed by its habituation, and the fact that everyone around me is doing it (especially when we are singing--I really like singing) as well is powerful. I am also comforted in being in a place where I have been to my whole life. Now, I think the priest would actually want me to think about what I am saying and *mean* it when I respond with, "Amen" or "Glory to you, oh Lord." But oh well, I will privately get from Mass what I want. :)

I also enjoy the sermons by the priest. I may not believe in the resurrection of Jesus or the persona of the Lord, but I do like the weekly contemplations on ethics and the virtuous way of living. They keep me actively reflecting on my day-to-day actions.

Soooo, I take from these religions (and others) various practices and philosophies to help me live a calm, virtuous, examined life. Remember what Socrates said, after all! As for my "dogma," I believe that all life forms are interconnected, constantly affecting one another. We are continuously creating ourselves and each other. To steal from a Zen monk's interpretation of reincarnation, we are continuously being reborn in other people, and vice versa, by the way we affect each other. [An even more powerful metaphor is the Hindu belief that all beings are personas of God, and thus the utmost reverence and respect for people should be given.] There is a spiritual force within all of nature, the universe, and ourselves, but I don't see that force as being like the Father figure of Christian Catholicism. But because that force exists, I think that there is no fate, that whatever happens is dictated by what is decided in the present, and that no one thing is in control--which, at the same time, means that all life forces are in control.

To recognize this non-dualism, this impermanence and dynamism of life, is to see things "as they are" (to sound Buddhist again), to accept things as they are, to seize this fact and take responsibility for your life, and to respect all beings, as well as yourself. My increased "knowledge" (which is also an interpretive endeavor) in economics, political science, religion, etc. and especially natural science (with the wake of string theory, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, and Einstein's energy equation) increase my reverence for and fascination with the dynamics of life.

First World Problems

For the hell of it, I'll also make this blog a tech-gaming-anime review place. Logically, it would follow that I'd then start reviewing something, but I can't yet. I can say, though, that I hate myself because...

I finally gave in and bought this damn thing:

with this damn thing:

I had wanted a new iPod Touch for a long time. I've been using my daddy's old and free jailbroken iPhone 3G 8G from, I don't know, 2006 or 2007? (Z0MG that's ancient and small!) I've been making do with it with some tweaks, but tonight, finally, finally it just refused to even wake up iTunes, and when it did actually register with the program, it didn't want to sync anything. I could just re-jailbreak it, but I don't want to go through that mess again, and anyway, I want more space because I'm like every other spoiled American out there who needs her 32 gigs of digital nonsense.

I was debating back and forth tonight, all night, between getting a "like-new" used or an actual new one (I'd save 40 dollars for used, but it would be black and, well, used), as well as which cover to get. I love, love, love my current Stormtrooper case for my iPhone, but I couldn't find a similar geeky thing for the iPod Touch 4G (most cool cases are for iPhone, sadly). Then at 5:02 a.m., I bravely, hesitantly, cowardly pressed the "Place your order" button for the new white 32 GB iPod Touch 4G and Otterbox Commuter Series case (black/white).

Goodbye, 70% of my last paycheck. Goodbye, that wee part of my soul. But the wounds will soon heal... until the iPod Touch 4S serendipitously comes out a week later (but probably/hopefully not?).

And no, NO I will not go out shopping on Friday.

EDIT: I had to revise this blog a number of times for egregiously embarrassing errors. +5 a.m. = ... I can't even find the right words right now. I need to sleep because I have a long drive in four hours. I'm a smart girl. Night/morning.

Hello, world.

So I start a new blog, Eudaemonia, towards the end--but not quite--of the first semester of my senior year. It's an odd time to start, methinks. So what am I doing here?

I just finished a long conversation with an old online friend. I had not talked to him in years because of a conflict we had, but we have both decided to look past that conflict and try to be friends again. It's worked, for the most part. He is still that fun guy I grew fond of with our mutual love for general nerdiness. At the same time, he is also that arrogant prick I grew to despise. Now, I first got to know him when I was in high school, when I thought I was mature (what, assuming I am now?), trapped in my Catholic high school and video game bubble.

As far as Catholicism went, I recognized that I hold little faith in it, but I still respected it for what it was, as well as for the great education their kind of school gave me.

Then there was my friend I mentioned earlier, who had this popular modernist worldview that all religions, especially Christianity, are backward, for the uneducated, full of lies, etc. He rolled out the usual refutations of the Bible--the problem of evil, the multiple contradictions, the ridiculous laws it contained that, for example, justified slavery or cruel treatment of women. I already knew, as a wee high school girl, that my friend's refutations rested on very simplistic understandings of the Bible and Christianity. One flaw, for example, is that official Catholic doctrine embraces evolution. Yes, friend, the Bible can actually be interpreted on something higher than the literal view, and in multiple ways. The ends of these conversations either trailed off into nothingness or to him admitting that, perhaps, he had more of an issue with certain groups of religious people rather than religion itself. Progress, perhaps?

Tonight, he brought up questions about religion and the Bible again. And his views apparently had not changed after all these years. He brought out the same refutations, the same notion that religion has no inherent worth, and so on. At this point, I could at least use my advanced studies in religion and postmodernism to better articulate my thoughts. Again, though, the conversation eventually ended up like before, and I have a good feeling the conversation did not open his mind up as much as I had wished.

Reflecting on his lack of value he saw in religion, I concluded that he probably has not had very many enriching experiences with religious people or people of different cultures. I am sure that, despite the tons of money he owns, he still must not have traveled out of the U.S., let alone out of home state or Florida (for family vacations, of course). He is probably still deeply affected by the zealousness of his parents' Baptist church and the Bible-thumping South he lives in. This is understandable, and the act of writing about it calms me a bit. Yet he very much exudes the gamer and fantasy reader he always has been, and now I see this in a negative view: at his age (mid-twenties), he is still trapped in his self-serving world of video games, LOTRO, and Star Wars.

I got quite disgusted after rationalizing all of this. How could he live such a selfish life, not really serving others, not really going out there and experiencing the world, and not expanding his mind? At this point the adage that education is not limited to the classroom struck me hard.

At the same time, this whole conversation and the disgust I felt helped me to discern what I did NOT want to do with my life. I have been struggling with this for a lot of this semester. I had contemplated on, after all, having a simple life with simple pleasures--going to work 9-5, coming home to play video games and eat, spend time with family, and sleep, and then getting up to do the same thing again. What was wrong with the simple life, I thought. What was the point of me chasing after these prestigious programs or finding difficult things to do just to challenge myself? But after talking to my friend, I found that I at least don't want the extreme end of the simple, selfish, close-minded life.

And so goes the creation of my new blog, Eudaemonia. I chose this name because I feel that I am truly on a journey now in finding my own virtuous life that makes me, for the most part, happy. And what is happiness for me? That is what my journey is about. I at least know, at this point, that I do not want that simple, selfish life. At the same time, after my happy rejection from Teach for America, I know that I do not want that chaotic, completely selfless life. But more on that later.

For now, I must sleep. But in the meantime, I say, welcome to my blog!