| | A major theme of the class seems to include that many, if not most, Columbia students will go out and pawn their licenses. This idea seems to strongly correlate with the vast percentage of students who go to work for a corporate law firm, though is not the only way this pawning occurs. What I want to ask is why do so many students choose this career path when most are aware of the consequences, for themselves and society, that result from that decision. This is something I am currently wrestling with, and will not deny that I am looking towards a possible career at a large law firm if I could get one. The dilemma I am facing is why do I want such a career, knowing that most associates seem to be miserable at their jobs, the ratio of pay/hours worked, and the chance of promotion is minimal within the firm so that will never have any real control and end up getting trapped in a certain lifestyle that becomes hard to escape from. From my perspective, it is hard to pinpoint the source, because I can't really believe that Columbia actively pushes it more so than other careers, and people find ways of paying of their loans one way or another, just the length of time it takes will differ. What I seem to question myself lately is do such large corporate firms actually give monetary rewards and prestige that is worth it and can actually be utilized towards a true career path. That I don't know. What seems to force so many students hands is that we are forced to choose a career after one year of law school, having taken no substantive course work or ability to explore different fields. This is a strange contrast to college where many of us took at least 2 years to figure out what major, and even longer to figure out what we want to do afterward. So why do so many of us choose to work for a large law firm?
-- DavidGarfinkel - 03 Feb 2010 | | | having determined after fourteen weeks that what I am making a
priority isn't a priority around here. | |
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< | * I want to reinforce two points from my earlier post. First, every decision has a reason, and we make that decision because it is our best option. At the time we make it, even though from outside perspective it may seem crazy, each decision has been compared to EVERY OTHER KNOWN OPTION (think "mens rea"). The factors I listed were just a few which may weigh on the decision, but like Sam said, not knowing of a better option often leads us to make an inefficient choice. I also disagree with Jessica-- I don't think we always know what we want; We often face choices where we really don't know which one will have the better outcome, and whether knowingly or unknowingly we rely on societal values to help fill these holes of uncertainty. Our culture, whether we like it or not, is part of our personality and helps define the schemas through which we organize information. This information is then used to make the "rational decisions" we are talking about. While I looked only at the Nordic culture, there is also a ton of research on the eastern/western cultural value dichotomy. -- MikeAbend - 03 Feb 2010
* I want to reinforce two points from my earlier post. First, every decision has a reason, and we make that decision because it is our best option. At the time we make it, even though from outside perspective it may seem crazy, each decision has been compared to EVERY OTHER KNOWN OPTION (think "mens rea"). The factors I listed were just a few which may weigh on the decision, but like Sam said, not knowing of a better option often leads us to make an inefficient choice. I also disagree with Jessica-- I don't think we always know what we want, and whether consciously or unconsciously societal values to help fill these holes of uncertainty. Our culture, whether we like it or not, is part of our personality and helps define the schemas through which we organize information. This information is then used to make the "rational decisions" we are talking about. Our culture affects our behavior, which is essentially the manifestation of all of our decisions. Above I looked only at the Nordic culture, but there is also a ton of research on the eastern/western cultural value dichotomy. -- MikeAbend - 03 Feb 2010 | >
> | * I want to reinforce two points from my earlier post. First, every decision has a reason, and we make that decision because it is our best option. At the time we make it, even though from outside perspective it may seem crazy, each decision has been compared to EVERY OTHER KNOWN OPTION (think "mens rea"). The factors I listed were just a few which may weigh on the decision, but like Sam said, not knowing of a better option often leads us to make an inefficient choice. I also disagree with Jessica-- I don't think we always know what we want, and whether consciously or unconsciously societal values to help fill these holes of uncertainty. Our culture, whether we like it or not, is part of our personality and helps define the schemas through which we organize information. This information is then used to make the "rational decisions" we are talking about. Our culture affects our behavior, which is essentially the manifestation of all of our decisions. Above I looked only at the Nordic culture, but there is also a ton of research on the eastern/western cultural value dichotomy. -- MikeAbend - 03 Feb 2010 | | |
I think there are some key reasons as to why people may take a position they would not "rationally" want. I think that students need to be aware of these temptations in order to avoid them. |
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