should i go to law school or pursue a masters in urban planning?
-going to a california state university in southern california in fall of 08
-planning on double majoring in political science and urban planning
-need to decide now…so i can enroll in Lsat practice coureses or gre practice courses
-i already know about joint jd/urban planning degrees, i just want to concentrate on one not both
Tagged with: california state university • gre practice • political science • southern california • urban planning
Filed under: gre course
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I know lawyers out of work, but no urban planners. Basically if you can get into a top tier school that will guarantee the big bucks after graduation do law, otherwise do urban planning. You will get a safe secure job in the government. Not big bucks, or great prestige, but a safe secure employment for sure.
Thanks
Bill
It really depends on what you want to do. Neither degree is very versatile initially, so you should sit down and think hard about if you want to be a lawyer or an urban planner (or whatever they call people with those degrees – developers?).
I often hear about how a law degree allows one to pursue a number of different careers, but the truth (as least as far as I’ve seen) is that getting law degree prepares you to be a lawyer. If you practice law for a while and then decide to do something else, then you might be able to do that, but it will be perceived as strange if you attend law school and then get a non-lawyer job.
I similarly assume that urban planning school does not set you up to pursue non-urban planning type jobs either.
Also – I’d check out what kind of law school you think you can get into. The job prospects from a top school (Top 14, or Top 20) are remarkably different from a Tier 2, 3, or 4 school. If you’ve got a high GPA (3.7+) and think you can pull off a high 160s score on the LSAT, then law school might be for you. Salaries are high and you will have a good choices of jobs coming from a top school. However, if your grades are closer to 3.0, you will probably be stuck attending a lower tier school, which will severely impact your job prospects (assuming you don’t graduate top of your class). I suspect companies/agencies that hire out of urban planning schools are less snobby, and care less about where you went to school.
Ultimately, I would suggest you take some time and figure out what *you* want to do, and what you think your realistic prospects are for going down that path. Urban Planning and Law are very different areas of study – if you are really torn between them maybe you should take a year off and think about what you want out of life – get a cool job or internship for that year, and then proceed with your plan once you’ve figured out what you want to do. Talk to some people who work at jobs you would like to have.
Don’t let a time crunch, or a Yahoo Answers response decide your entire life’s plan.