Comment by nradov
14 hours ago
A large fraction of philosophy majors go on to law school. It's great training for analyzing complex texts and writing logically sound arguments. These are timeless skills that apply to many areas even if the philosophical content itself doesn't have as much practical value in the labor market.
I worked at a state university for 8 years writing code, and I was in contact with many of its student facing offices. There is an office that is dedicated to showing that law school students have very positive post-graduation outcomes. Basically, they send them a survey asking them if they had full or part time employment, and if they said "yes" to it, the university counted it as a positive outcome. "96% of our law school graduates find work within 12 months".
I am quite confident that not only is philosophy a waste when it comes to finding gainful employment, going to law school to put that philosophy to good use is just doubling down on the same bad gamble. Large fraction? What about the remainder?
It really depends on the school. Most graduates of first and second tier law schools are able to pass the bar exam and find gainful employment as lawyers, or in a related field. But going to a "third tier toilet" law school seldom pays off, at least not financially.
>Most graduates of first and second tier law schools are able to pass the bar exam and find gainful employment as lawyers,
You believe this to be the case, because you're relying on the statistics provided by the office I described.
>But going to a "third tier toilet" law school seldom pays off, at least not financially.
This is a solid T2 school. But if you were working at Subway whatever hours they'd give you, they marked you down as employed for the purposes of saying their graduates get jobs.