Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering • Hacker News Board

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

#31

Post by arjunnarayan » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 7:29 PM UTC

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'm not surprised. The "logic" section of the LSAT (traditionally said to be the hardest part of the test) is much easier if you know some computer science/discrete math. A lot of questions can be quickly parsed into some sort of constraint satisfaction problem, and using the right tool (drawing truth tables/constructing a directed acyclic graph) means you can get to the answer much faster.[1] Since the LSAT is a time-pressure based test, this gives you a big advantage. Of course, the reading comprehension parts are still hard, and engineering gives you no advantage there. There's also lots of selection bias potentially going on - engineers who go on to take the LSAT are rare. Who knows how that prior correlates with ability.

Somewhat relatedly, it's been well known that for CS PhD admissions, at least with native English speakers, the GRE Verbal is a better predictor of PhD performance than the GRE Math. It's unclear how much of this is top-end compression in math though (almost everyone going to a top CS PhD school gets a 790 or 800 on the GRE Math, so there's no signal left there, whereas verbal has a higher spread. A 720 on the verbal is 98th percentile).[2]

[1] I know this because in 2009 as a college senior, I took some practice LSAT tests, and found the logic section endlessly delightful and challenging in a timed setting - I was this close to applying to law schools before I changed my mind and did a CS PhD instead. I know it sounds like a weird choice, but 2009 was a weird soul-searching year for me for various personal reasons.

[2] All of this has changed since 2011 when the GRE scoring system changed to a 130-170 scale from the old 200-800 scale, along with changes to the test itself. All of my points are probably obsolete.

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

#32

Post by pkaye » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 7:32 PM UTC

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…

Also I hear that computer automation is taking out the low hanging fruit in the legal profession like sifting through massive amounts of documents.

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

#33

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 7:34 PM UTC

Engineering has exploded with foreign students who will leave the US with a degree that prints money in their home country. Not so much in America. They need to look at the numbers closer to see where the US students are actually going.

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

#34

Post by sanoli » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 7:35 PM UTC

krschultz wrote: post #9

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.

Believe it or not, there are already large swathes of people that get engineering degrees because it is a good paying, stable, respected job. Probably 1/3 of my graduating class would have said their primary motivation for getting an engineering degree was the solid salary.

Here in Brazil it's been a trend, more and more people going into engineering so that last year it was the undergraduate course with most applicants. And we have A LOT of law schools, probably more than any other country (no joke). Why so many going into engineering? Simple, there's a shortage and a job is almost guaranteed if you're a reasonable engineer, and the pay is good.

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

#35

Post by theVirginian » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 7:35 PM UTC

arjunnarayan wrote: post #31

theVirginian wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm not surprised. The "logic" section of the LSAT (traditionally said to be the hardest part of the test) is much easier if you know some computer science/discrete math. A lot of questions can be quickly parsed into some sort of constraint satisfaction problem, and using the right tool (drawing truth tables/constructing a directed acyclic graph) means you can get to the answer much faster.[1] Since the LSAT is a tim…

Interesting to read that. I have always thought of CS as a discipline that involves creating and testing competing explanatory models of the world similarly to the way that a lawyer might construct an argument to represent a series of events or a mathematician might construct an equation to represent a set/series of data.

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

#36

Post by donaldr3 » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 7:36 PM UTC

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

Is that accurate? Googling around shows a few different results, all with engineering doing well, but not listed as highest.

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

#37

Post by granfalloon » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 7:37 PM UTC

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…

As a lawyer, I think I'd actually be in favor of the opposite approach -- law school (maybe just one year) with no bar exam. I guess the bar has some value as a "last line of defense" against totally incompetent people entering the profession [1], but it's really just a giant memorization frenzy with no real practical benefit. It's expected that you'll get a large chunk of the test wrong and forget everything in a couple months. Law school, on the other hand, is where people are introduced to legal writing, reading opinions, legal research, and thinking logically (something that isn't a big deal for many undergrads.)

It kills me because law school is way too expensive and way too long, and may well be unnecessary for a lot of people. But I understand the need for some kind of meaningful credentialing, since the harm one can do as a bad lawyer is usually more dangerous than what can be done by a bad engineer. (Mostly because any law grad can go and hang a shingle the day after they are admitted.)

[1] I don't mean to imply that failing the bar means one is incompetent! Extreme incompetency is a sufficient, but not necessary, condition.

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

#38

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 7:39 PM UTC

arjunnarayan wrote: post #31

theVirginian wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm not surprised. The "logic" section of the LSAT (traditionally said to be the hardest part of the test) is much easier if you know some computer science/discrete math. A lot of questions can be quickly parsed into some sort of constraint satisfaction problem, and using the right tool (drawing truth tables/constructing a directed acyclic graph) means you can get to the answer much faster.[1] Since the LSAT is a tim…

Standardized test scores aren't that important after your first professional job. For some reason, though, the financial industry is infatuated with GPAs.

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

#39

Post by granfalloon » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 7:39 PM UTC

arjunnarayan wrote: post #31

theVirginian wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm not surprised. The "logic" section of the LSAT (traditionally said to be the hardest part of the test) is much easier if you know some computer science/discrete math. A lot of questions can be quickly parsed into some sort of constraint satisfaction problem, and using the right tool (drawing truth tables/constructing a directed acyclic graph) means you can get to the answer much faster.[1] Since the LSAT is a tim…

To your [1], I actually think studying for the LSAT has been the most intellectually enjoyable part of my legal career so far!

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

#40

Post by doktrin » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 7:40 PM UTC

theVirginian wrote: post #24

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…

> It is mundane routine paperwork that can be automated or done by assistants.

In my experience, this is 100% true. I spent a few years working in "legal technology", which is just industry parlance for categorizing documents into "databases" (really just proprietary applications that compete over how best to read data from a flat file).

At the time (2009 - 2011), a ton of work was being done by teams of contract review attorneys. Entire rooms would be filled to the brim with these guys, paid anywhere between $20-$40 an hour to tab through page after page of document metadata and images.

The entire industry was on the verge of being completely upended, and this is in fact starting to have effect. The article on topic modelling and LDA that's also on the front page today is particularly germane, as there are in fact implementations of topic modelling and LDA for the legal technology world.