Andrew, nice essay. The thought process that you describe is one that most law students can relate to, though probably only subconsciously. Incorporate whatever you want. I'll be happy to take another look at this anytime (this semester or beyond).

I'm adding section numbers to the essay so that I can refer to them below.

My recap -- In Sections 1-3 you describe the false thought process that you used to justify the decision to go to law school, in Sections 4 and 5 you describe the real thought process that led you to law school, and in Section 6 to talk about how your awareness of your real reasons are going to influence your short-term career decision-making.

Update (5/18) - Andrew, I'm adding my rewrite to the end of this page. So, my original comments are in BLUE . My rewrite and related comments are in GREEN. Enjoy. - Saswat

THE SELF-DECEPTION ALL-STAR

-- By AndrewCascini - 13 Apr 2010

1. The Problem

Go read my law school application's personal statement. It’s bullshit.

I wasn’t attempting to deceive admissions, though. It wasn't that I didn't want to go to law school, but to get admitted, I had to explain why I wanted to go. Since I couldn't explain why, I needed bullshit.

I delivered like a champ.

You start attacking the Rational Man right from the get go. I think that it would be more effective to instead "build up" the Rational Man into someone that the reader thinks is a sensible and prudent person in Sections 1-3, so that you can more effectively knock down his thought processes in Sections 4 and 5. I think that you can get rid of this section entirely.

2. The Adviser

Like any sane person I wanted to get the hell out of Ann Arbor after graduation. But, despite that, I wanted to live and work in Michigan for the rest of my life. At the beginning of my senior year I visited a university career adviser. She told me, considering the recession and my history degree, that my most realistic options for working in state were learning a trade or going back to school.

Learning a trade and going back to school seem like the two extreme options. Did the recession really eat up everything between them? What about getting a mundane office job somewhere in Michigan. If those jobs were gone, you could say so explicitly. Despite what your adviser told you, did you try to get a normal job (for a U of Michigan grad with excellent grades) anyway? If so, you might want to talk about that effort, since it would help build up the Rational Man into somebody who the reader thinks is sincere and reasonable.

3. The Rational Man

A trade? I shuddered at the thought, but that's not how The Rational Man would respond. The Rational Man would gather the data before rejecting a life of labor out of hand. I was the Rational Man, wasn’t I? So I created an Excel spreadsheet comparing job prospects. I had columns for the salaries and I found vocational stability projections. I also knew I wanted a fullfilling job, so The Rational Man put a column labeled – I shit you not - “fulfillment potential.”

My spreadsheet listed law school (which I didn't know a damn thing about), separated and highlighted, up at the top. Two rows lower was a list of fifteen choice industrial occupations.

Why did the Rational Man only consider law school (and not business school, med school)? Why didn't he consider travelling the world for a year until the recession recovered - that would have been an experience AND may have been an better financial investment than going into debt for a law school education? (I know that the point is that the Rational Man was not actually rational -- but maybe there are some extra details that could go here).

The Money

Average salaries for these jobs ranged from around $35K-$60K – good money in Michigan. But after law school, thought The Rational Man, you can get these wonderful firm jobs. NALP reported that they were paying first year associates over 100K per year! Overjoyed, I put "100K" in the "salary" column next to law school.

The Social Utility

What do plumbers do? I asked myself. Plumbers unclog toilets, the Rational Man responded. What do lawyers do? Lawyers help people and advance society, of course. Also, maybe I owe society the benefit of utilization of my intelligence. Any individual with normal faculties could be an electrician, I assumed for some reason, but only the smartest can be lawyers, I assumed for some other reason. Thus, by going to law school I would ultimately be efficiently benefiting society. With such exhaustive analysis complete, I gave law school the top score under “fulfillment.”

Law school. At last, I had arrived at my choice like The Rational Man I was.

4. The Truly Rational Man

My conclusions came up lame. I knew this at the time too.

The Money in Earnest

Bullshit. Law school, when analyzed strictly from a financial investment perspective, is a poor decision for nearly all applicants, all things considered. That didn't even begin to consider the highly bimodal salary range for lawyers if I wasn't "fortunate" enough to work in a firm. In terms of balancing earning power to risk, law school was the clear loser.

Did the rational man actually know about the bimodal salary structure when he put "100k" in the salary column before law school? Did he choose to remain ignorant for fear of finding out that law school isn't as great an investment as he wanted it to be? It would be interesting to make explicit what the Rational Man was possibly thinking.

The Social Utility in Earnest

Also bullshit. The notion that I was “too smart to not go” was narcissism gone wild. My stellar grades and aptitude test scores were poor empirical measures of intelligence, and even if we assume they were perfect indicators of brilliance I had also ignored the thousands of people in Michigan alone who, because of a whole myriad of repressive social processes, were unable to be evaluated by these methods. As for social impact, I'm not sure how to go about measuring the “utility” of a profession. Even if we could, I'm not sure how to categorically weigh lawyers against, say, plumbers. Is a good plumber really worth less to society than a good attorney? Is there any reason to think that I would be a good attorney? There should have been a column for “megalomania factor” on my spreadsheet.

I liked the ideas you laid out in the subsection "The Social Utility" of Section 3. Here, I don't think this section provides the strongest possible counterpoint to those ideas.

The fact that there are innately brilliant people in Michigan who are languishing away without access or opportunity to become lawyers doesn't change the analysis - the Rational Man isn't engaged in some large-scale social engineering project - he is simply concerned with maximizing the marginal societal welfare through his choice of career. The analysis is the same no matter how underutilized those Michiganites "without access" are, right?

I do not know if a plumber or a lawyer is worth more to society, but let's assume that both professions have some net worth. The fact remains that a much smaller percentage of the population is capable of being a lawyer from a good law school than is capable of being a plumber. No matter how ill-conceived the LSAT and GPA admissions criteria of a good law school are -- they are barriers that the average plumber cannot pass, but that the Rational Man did pass. As a result, the Rational Man can contribute back to society in different ways than a plumber can. If the Rational Man cares about the marginal social utility of his career choice, he still has the same decision to make as laid out in Section 3.

What had really motivated my decision? My mind reeled, so I ignored it. I got in to Columbia, so I went.

5. Eureka

One week ago, I read the following words:

"During the predatory culture, labour comes to be associated in men's habits of thought with weakness and subjection to a master. It is therefore a mark of inferiority, and therefore comes to be accounted unworthy of man in his best estate. By virtue of this tradition labour is felt to be debasing, and this tradition has never died out."

I set down my pencil and closed my eyes. I have found it.

It didn't matter what being an electrician versus a lawyer was truly about, because the image of becoming “an attorney” became a proxy for achievement in my mind's eye. I'd reckon it has something to with those fancy glass doors. A plumber, a construction worker, an industrial worker - even to the son of an auto working family, those were repugnant positions of futility, of toil. Despite the spreadsheet, I evaluated prospective professions not by actual qualities, but by their projected appearance. Worse, I "stacked the deck" through self-deception by looking at certain statistics in order to make going to law school seem to be the best choice. Cloaked in the process of rational decision making, I reverted to anthropological needs by taking the bait and swallowing the hook. Agency versus contingency indeed.

I like the way you phrased this Section. The Rational man had a "fulfillment" column in his spreadsheet. Isn't the feeling of achievement you from your job part of fulfillment? Did the Rational Man take that into account, or did fulfillment mean something else to him?

6. The Crossroads

So now what? It’s time to stop thinking about this present absurdity and start thinking about where to go from here. I must first decide whether or not to come back. I’ll be distracted by a legal job this summer, but my mission still must be to constantly ask myself without deception whether I’m enjoying my life or whether I’m hating it. If it’s more of the latter than the former, I’m getting out.

After my small awakening, I won’t be led by the nose to the profession that projects strength if it makes me weaker in the end. If I’m not here next fall, I might be holding a plunger.

But isn't making a long-term career decision based on your temporary enjoyment short-sighted? Being a 1L at Columbia and working day-to-day as, for example, a small practice lawyer in Michigan probably have nothing in common. The Rational Man and the Truly Rational Man seem to be motivated by a host of factors: living in Michigan, having a socially meaningful career that exploits unique talents, prestige and money. The Truly Rational Man also acknowledged that there are many people, in Michigan alone, without access to opportunities. I think that these objectives, on whole, would be better met as a lawyer than as a plumber. If that's true, wouldn't it be rational to plow through law school, and maybe even a couple years at top legal organization in NYC or elsewhere, to gain the skills to go back to Michigan and work on these issues? You wouldn't be able to do that if you had a plunger in your hand a year from now...

WRAP-UP COMMENTS I liked this essay. As I pointed out above, I think that in a rewrite you could draw a sharper line between the Rational Man and the Truly Rational Man by building up the credibility of the Rational Man in Sections 1-3 (rather than attacking him from the get go). Also, I think you could dig even deeper into the Rational Man's and the Truly Rational Man's thought processes in the ways that I have described above.

THE SELF-DECEPTION ALL-STAR (RE-WRITE)

1. The Adviser

Unlike most graduates of the University of Michigan, I wanted to live and work in Michigan for the rest of my life. I visited a university career adviser during my senior year, who informed me that, given my history degree and the current economic recession, my most realistic options for staying in the state were learning a trade or going back to school.

2. The Rational Man

A trade? Initially, I shuddered at the thought, but that's not how The Rational Man would respond. The Rational Man would gather the data, and weigh the positives and negatives of any career option before rejecting it out of hand. And I was the Rational Man, wasn’t I? So, I created an Excel spreadsheet to "rationally" compare a tradesman's life, with that of an advanced degree holder. My spreadsheet was seemingly thorough - I had columns for the salaries and job stability of various professions. But that wasn't all. The rational man would also weigh his personal happiness along with hard statistics – so, I created a column called “fulfillment potential." My spreadsheet listed law school, separated and highlighted, up at the top. Two rows lower was a list of fifteen industrial occupations.

The Money

Average salaries for industrial jobs ranged from $35K-$60K, which would be enough to live off of in Michigan. But, on the other hand, a law school degree would allow me get a "firm job," and NALP reported that firms were paying first year associates over 100K per year. I put "100K" in the "salary" column for law school.

The Social Utility

There were many selfless and "rational" reasons to pick law school over a trade (or so I thought). Lawyers truly help people and advance the state of society, while plumbers...unclog toilets. Also, society would benefit from the utilization of my high intelligence if I were to become a lawyer, but not if I were to become a plumber. Therefore, by going to law school I would ultimately be efficiently benefiting society. I gave law school the top score under “fulfillment" for these reasons. At last, I had arrived at my choice like The Rational Man I was. Or so I thought.

3. The Truly Rational Man

My conclusions came up lame. I should have known this at the time.

The Money in Earnest

Even with a $100K+ firm job after school, a legal education is a poor financial investment for nearly all applicants, given the amount of debt and the financial opportunity-cost of attendance, among other things. Also, there was no guarantee that I would be one of the "lucky few" that earned this kind of money – most graduating lawyers actually make much less. When comparing my potential earning power to the risk incurred, law school was actually the clear loser compared to a professional trade.

The Social Utility in Earnest

The idea that I had a duty to society to attend law school because I was “too smart to not go” was narcissism gone wild. My colleges grades and aptitude test scores, while impressive, were obviously imperfect measures of intelligence. Despite my supposed "rational" thought processes, I had simply assumed that a lawyer provides more utility to society than a plumber. But, is a good plumber really worth less to society than a good attorney? Even if true, was there any reason to think that I would make a good attorney? Rather than attempt to answer these questions, I ignored them. I got in to Columbia Law School, so I went.

4. Eureka

I read the following words a week ago:

"Labour comes to be associated in men's habits of thought with weakness and subjection to a master. It is therefore a mark of inferiority, and therefore comes to be accounted unworthy of man in his best estate. By virtue of this tradition labour is felt to be debasing, and this tradition has never died out."

I had found it.

It didn't matter what being an electrician versus a lawyer was truly about in terms of money, societal value, or any other exclusively "rational" metric. I wanted to be an attorney because the profession represented "success" in my mind's eye (maybe it had something to do with those fancy glass doors). Though I am child from an auto-working family, or maybe for that very reason, professions like plumbing, construction, and industrial work represented repugnant careers of futility and toil. Despite my attempts to be rational, I evaluated prospective professions not by their rational merits, but rather by their (irrational) outward appearance. "Prestige" and "appearance of success" should have been only one small factor of my analysis, but, in reality, they were the only considerations. I "stacked the deck" through self-deception in order to make going to law school seem like the rational best choice. Rather than act rationally, I reverted to anthropological needs by taking the bait and swallowing the hook.

5. The Crossroads

So now what? I must first decide whether or not to come back based, this time, on a truly rational decision. I’ll be distracted by a legal job this summer, but cannot lose sight of this important, and life-altering, decision. I won’t be led by the nose to the profession that projects strength if it actually makes me weaker in the end. If I’m not here next fall, I might be holding a plunger.

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