Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering

qz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 113 posts

Re: Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering

#21

Post by woah »

mohap wrote: post #11
woah wrote: post #8

We'd better improve our interview techniques before the flood of lawyer-like engineers who are only in it for the money arrives. My recommendation- avoid brain-teasers that can be crammed for. Assess based on open-source contributions, which show craftsmanship, architecture, and love of coding.

What I don't understand is why can't somebody love to code and not maintain a public github repo? Sometimes you want to keep things private-- it shouldn't have to mean the best stuff you developed has to be on github in order for you to get a good job as a programmer. It's on the technical interviewer to test out programmer's skills. Too many non-technical recruiters these days are passing on candidates because they…

I don't think that it is possible to test the skills that matter for writing real-life, maintainable code in a few hour's interview.

Re: Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering

#22

Post by [deleted] »

dragonwriter wrote: post #14
rayiner wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically, the solid pay and good prospects have been a primary driving criterion for people going into engineering. The Silicon Valley idealists who want to "change the world with food delivery" is the new phenomenon, not the other way around.

> The Silicon Valley idealists who want to "change the world with food delivery" is the new phenomenon The Silicon Valley idealists who want to "change the world with food delivery" are (as a broad class, not every specific instance) largely PR faces created for marketing purposes by and for people who want to make lots of money, and know that having some kind of compelling mission (even if that "compelling mission"…

[deleted]

Re: Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering

#23

Post by iak8god »

patio11 wrote: post #15
mcantelon wrote: post #12

I guess all the "everyone must code" propaganda, to lower labor prices by increasing supply, is working.

For definitions of "working" which include "We have almost recovered to the number of CS degrees issued in 1985 ."

Tangential, but I'm curious: your comment seems to imply that that are now fewer CS degrees issued per year than in 1985. Is that what you meant? Can you point me to the numbers?

Re: Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering

#24

Post by theVirginian »

imcrs wrote: post #7

Law has changed since the 80s and 90s. The profession was much more of a bloodsport. Less cases settled, far less went to arbitration, and more money was spent when a case did go to trial. Nowadays the culture has shifted almost completely to keeping costs down and settling things outside of court -- either settling outright or through a mediated arbitration (much less expensive). It's no surprise to me that law scho…

I interned in a law firm my entire senior year and now hold a BA with majors in Government and Philosophy. These experiences would leave me well primed to go to law school which was my original intention after graduation. After spending time in the firm however it is really eye opening to see how the business is rapidly changing. There is an over supply of young lawyers these days for a number of reason.

First, there are too many low quality law schools churning out people who can barely pass the bar. Those schools take home the tuition money and the young graduates have a mountain of non-dischargable debt with nowhere to turn. The rate of unemployed young graduates is actually probably even higher than figures show because schools will pay a small stipend to recent graduates so that they can say they are "employed" when the yearly figures for former students employed 6mo out are released. It's all about taking home the tuition for these schools and they shamefully advertise how demand for lawyers will increase and job prospects will remain high.

Second, the business has become vastly more efficient as firms begin to adopt digital case management systems and can now conduct research online instead of having to sort through volumes of old books. You know when you see the generic shelves of law books in offices? Yeah those just sit there collecting dust now. They are for show because all of that information has now moved onto the computer. The legal industry has been slow and late to adopt technology but it has made lawyers vastly more efficient than they could have been before. Even things like being able to email scans of documents can speed up the process astronomically. As older lawyers who cannot use computers begin to exit the workforce and younger ones who can move up in the ranks, firms just do not need as many people working as they did before. The vast majority of legal work is not what you see on TV or in the Ellen Pao case where it is a battle of the brains in real time for a court room. It is mundane routine paperwork that can be automated or done by assistants.

A lot of this stuff can even be done at home by your average person with products like turbo tax that enable the average person to not need representation for basic needs legal needs anymore.

I no longer plan on going to law school and have been taking online courses in programming/reading a ton of programming books since I graduated in hopes of turning what has been a long term hobby of mine into a career, hopefully combined with politics or law. (I am thinking campaign research/advertising online or legal software on the law side.)

Re: Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering

#25

Post by mcantelon »

iak8god wrote: post #23
patio11 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For definitions of "working" which include "We have almost recovered to the number of CS degrees issued in 1985 ."

Tangential, but I'm curious: your comment seems to imply that that are now fewer CS degrees issued per year than in 1985. Is that what you meant? Can you point me to the numbers?

Yeah, that seems very unlikely. The population was lower, tech wasn't mainstream, and being a nerd was the opposite of fashionable.

Re: Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering

#26

Post by guelo »

theVirginian wrote: post #18
geebee wrote: post #13

Another factor to consider here is a rise (if any) in engineering undergraduate degrees. I know that grad engineering degrees to law degrees seems like more of an apples-to-apples comparison, but there's a big difference. A history major who goes to law school goes from not lawyer to lawyer (assuming he or she passes the bar). Engineering graduate students, on the other hand, almost always have a background in their…

Actually, engineering students statistically score highest on the LSAT out of any undergraduate degree

I think this is because an engineering undergrad degree is way harder than most other degrees except maybe pre-med types. That means there's a substantial weeding out effect plus all the extra studying helps shore up the general knowledge that the LSAT tests. In general, poli-sci or history majors have spent the previous four years idling.

After I got my EE degree I took the GRE and GMAT and aced them, getting 95th+ percentile, without studying at all. I then enrolled in a MBA program and was shocked at how easy, and unrigorous, the courses were compared to EE classes.

Re: Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering

#27

Post by logfromblammo »

kps wrote: post #17
woah wrote: post #8

We'd better improve our interview techniques before the flood of lawyer-like engineers who are only in it for the money arrives. My recommendation- avoid brain-teasers that can be crammed for. Assess based on open-source contributions, which show craftsmanship, architecture, and love of coding.

> Assess based on open-source contributions, which show craftsmanship, architecture, and love of coding ... and personal time allocation that reveals things you're not legally allowed to ask directly.

I used to write code in my free time before I married and had kids. I used to do a lot of stuff in my free time before then.

For a self-insured employer, the fact that I have a family makes me more expensive to employ. Hiring only young, single males or young, single, and sterile females allows them to raise base salary offers without inflating total compensation.

But they are not allowed by law to use the size of my family against me in the hiring process. Technically. Practically speaking, they do it anyway, and the law is unenforceable. If there's a potential legal problem, it's easy to fall back on the "not a good cultural fit" cushion.

If you don't expect someone to be contributing to their github repo on the clock, on your dime, don't check it as a criterion for employment.

Re: Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering

#28

Post by patio11 »

iak8god wrote: post #23
patio11 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For definitions of "working" which include "We have almost recovered to the number of CS degrees issued in 1985 ."

Tangential, but I'm curious: your comment seems to imply that that are now fewer CS degrees issued per year than in 1985. Is that what you meant? Can you point me to the numbers?

Seems my joke is out of date: we've actually hit the 1985 number again! Whee! Granted total degrees doubled over the interval and CS is virtually flat but whee!

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d14/tables/dt14_322.10.as...

Re: Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering

#29

Post by theVirginian »

guelo wrote: post #26
theVirginian wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, engineering students statistically score highest on the LSAT out of any undergraduate degree

I think this is because an engineering undergrad degree is way harder than most other degrees except maybe pre-med types. That means there's a substantial weeding out effect plus all the extra studying helps shore up the general knowledge that the LSAT tests. In general, poli-sci or history majors have spent the previous four years idling. After I got my EE degree I took the GRE and GMAT and aced them, getting 95th+…

I wouldn't be so quick to write those majors off, they involve massive amounts of reading and writing; both skills that I heard many engineering students say they felt they were lacking in. Furthermore both of those majors score highly as well and the marginal difference is not large. I don't think that its the difficulty of engineering that lends itself to the LSAT I think it is the emphasis on problem solving and logical thinking, which is essentially what the LSAT tests.

Re: Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering

#30

Post by dylanz »

I used to contract at a company and worked beside David Pollack (of the Lift framework), who came to the software world after being a lawyer (I think for most of his life). I'm sure he explained the "why" when I asked, but all I could think of was "Very cool! A lawyer likes this stuff too!". I still have a blast at my job, and one factor of people taking up engineering from other trades could be their found passion for it.
Post reply on HN