thinking about dropping out of law school...

Fragle

Fragle

Member
Jul 27, 2005
2,051
0
36
Germany
....well not exactly quitting studying altogether. but let me start at the beginning

i'm studying law in the sixth semester (out of nine....after that i'd have to do two years of legal clerkship, so basically i have 3 1/2 years to go before i could start working as an attorney or judge or whatever).
now, the thing is, i don't enjoy it....at ALL. i just don't see myself working as a judge or DA for the rest of my life.
for the last 2 years i've been thinking about studying to become a teacher, at a grammar school to be more precise. the more i think about it, the more i'm sure that i want to do this...but the fact that i've already spent 3 years studying law, and that i'd be almost 30 years old before i could start working and start earning money (i'm 23 right now) if i changed subjects now keeps me hesitating. but then again, NOW would be the right time, otherwise i think it will be too late really....

it's a really really tough decision for me, having to start all over again, and throwing away 3 years of work. but then again, what's 3 years compared to the rest of your life? and i just can't picture me doing law stuff over and over...unlike teaching.
maybe i should have done this much sooner....but now things are the way they are, there's no turning back.
tbh i'd love to work professionally in the audio realm, but let's be realistic, the chances that you can feed a family by doing this stuff are devastatingly low. being a teacher comes in second in my wish-list so to speak....
btw, if i studied to become a teacher i'd earn pretty much the same as i'd do working as a judge, but the difference is that only like 5% of the law graduates get a chance to work as a judge (which i'd like to do if i continued studying law), whereas being a civil servant is more like the rule than the exception when being a teacher.


guys i'm sooo fucking close to calling it quits on my law studies....
 
From the sound of the situation, it seems like going for the teacher thing is the way to go
 
You can't transfer any of the credits at all into what it would take to become a teacher? I'm not familiar with the details of the German Uni system, but in America, it's relatively easy to apply what we call 'general education' credits (maths, sciences, language, literature, humanities, history, etc... stuff that every educated person should/is required to take courses in) to another field.

Starting over entirely is almost unheard of, we'd lose maybe 2-3 years at the most if we quit in the middle of a law degree.

I'd definitely go the teaching route, though, even if it did take a few extra years. Fuck spending more time studying something just to be unhappy doing it!
 
no, there's no way of transfering credits...actually, law school ends with a state examination, just like teaching, but the latter is modularised whereas law is not. two different shoes altogether.

the thing is, despite of the fact that i don't enjoy law at all, i'm fucking good at it. i don't have to work hard at all to get decent grades...and on top of that i want to start earning money asap, i've been in no-money situation for way too long now.
but then, the thought remains that doing this for my lifetime will prove very very dissatisfactory. i just don't get any joy out of it. of course there's no guarantee that teaching will be any better, especially because it can be very stressful at times, but i just got this gut feeling that it's the way to go. reason tells me to go on with law though, it's just my gut and my feelings that tell me otherwise
 
As much as I understand the fear of doing something you hate for the rest of your life, reason says to stick with law. If you're good at it, and don't have to try hard, then you'll be set monetarily for the rest of your life. Law is one of the top paying professions in the world, and you haven't even started working it for real. Maybe your enjoyment will jump once you start working out in the real world? It certainly did for me with audio engineering. Learning academically was never something I enjoyed, and as soon as I finished up with school altogether I felt like a noose around my neck loosened and I could breathe and enjoy life my own way again.
 
Please, please, please don't ditch something as worthwhile and secure as Law for something as fickle and pipe-dream as Audio Production.
 
I'd finish the 9 semesters and see how its going afterwards...you can still become a teacher after that, but you dont lose all the effort you put into the law stuff.
losing 3 semesters because of finishing isnt as bad as loosing 6 because of quitting imo.
even if you still had to do the two years of legal clerkship, at least you finished the shool, and have your degree.

but if you really dont want to work with it anyway your guts know best I think^^
 
Just a couple comments...

Don't focus too much on it using terms like the "rest of your life". You'll freak yourself out. Most people hold several jobs in their lifetime and move around a bit. So don't psych yourself out with thinking you'll be locked into one thing for the rest of your life.

Also, the working world is quite different than school. You may not enjoy something in school, but once you're out in the "real world" you may find a way to put your skills and what you learned to use in a way that is more enjoyable or rewarding for you.

You can always do audio stuff as a hobby and afford some great gear with a good job. ;)

Either way, best wishes figuring it all out.
 
I'd say just finish law school and if you don't want to do the internship, you could stay in school and become a teacher. Or give the internship a chance and see how you feel after the first couple months, then change.

If there's any advice I could ever be worthy of giving to other people, it would be: FOLLOW THROUGH even when it gets tough because you can always change your mind after you finish.

For me, there is nothing worse than looking back on all of the effort I put into high school and getting into a top mechanical engineering school, and deciding not to go because at the time I just "wasn't into it." And now I sit in my parent's basement, going to a SHIT college, much more miserable than I was when I didn't feel like going to college. DO IT.
 
thanks for the input!

one word about law school: i'm 1,5 years short of finishing the SCHOOl part of it. while it's technically a degree of it's own, without the 2 year internship and second state examination after that it's work NOTHING. it is damn near impossible to get a job just by having passed the first state exam in law, without the second. you're not even allowed to work as a lawyer/judge/DA/etc without the second exam. so, technically we're talking short of halfway through.
with law, the only thing that counts is the final exam. you have to write shitloads of exams to get there, but none of them count, none. none of them are even in the same range as far as difficulty goes. he point i'm trying to make is that being good right now doesn't say a whole lot as far as the final exam goes, as it's apples and oranges really. it's like learning how to mic a guitar amp vs. doing a full blown production, you get the idea.
yes it's true, school itself doesn't tell much about how working in that profession will be. law students are required to take several internship while attending school, and so far i've interned with a lawyer and in a court...and out of these two i could ONLY see me as a judge.
having that said, i'll repeat what i said in my first post: only 5% of the students even get the chance to work as a judge and DA (pretty much the same over here btw), the vast vast majority ends up as one of countless lawyers trying to make ends meet. no rule without exception obviously...

that's where the teacher thing comes in (aside from actually liking the thought of what i'd be doing), most of them work for the state with all the benefits that come with it, the money is basically the same as for a judge.



oh, and one thing to clarify: I will NOT drop out of school because of audio!!!!! i am NOT stupid!!! ;) ;) ;) the whole audio thing has got nothing to do with that!!
 
-Gavin- said:
Please, please, please don't ditch something as worthwhile and secure as Law for something as fickle and pipe-dream as Audio Production.
Click to expand...

+ a million!
(impossible to catch you on AIM lately btw)

back to topic:
it's a different thing to become a teacher though, in you case I'd say do it.

BUT finish law school to get your degree.
then you can still do your second exam and the practical stuff later if you decide to.
you'll also be able to use your law degree to teach Rechtskunde I think, so that'd even improve your chances to find a job as a teacher
 
There are a lot of people that wish they could have the opportunity to study something "lesser" than law school, let alone actually being able to do it.
Don't take it for granted that you're able to study this, keep going at it dude.
 
Don't link too much studies with work. It's a totaly different story.
1- What you see during university is totally different than the real deal.
2- Often people that get the degrees, after the school will do something different

So don't quit and when you'll finish you'll see what the real life can offer to you
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

skuller
law & order
Replies
2
Views
322
Bar
skuller
S
AdamWathan
Thinking about packing it in...
Replies
31
Views
1K
Bar
drew_drummer
D
jangoux
Thinking about quitting playing guitar
Replies
27
Views
1K
Bar
Erkan
E
PortionThief
Thinking about enlisting in the Marines
Replies
9
Views
618
Bar
PortionThief
P
T
So I'm thinking about giving guitar lessons...
Replies
9
Views
3K
Bar
LydonB
L
Top Bottom
Back