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So you're what, 23 or so? Why are you so anxious to go get a job? You can take this any way you want to, but dropping out of law school right now and taking an engineering job may end up being the biggest mistake of your life. This is not about the money. It's about the fact that a JD (or just about any doctorate, for that matter) opens up many more doors than your BS ever will. This doesn't mean that you have to be a lawyer. You can go into business, management (strategy or operations) consulting, and other fields. A BS in engineering is becoming more and more worthless with every year. I know this sounds snooty, but this is the truth. You need at least an MS to get a good job, and even then you'll likely end up being an engineer all your life. Is that what you want to do? Are you sure? Cause engineering can get pretty boring pretty quickly. Wouldn't you rather open more doors than shut them?

As for putting poker on your resume, it has already been discussed many times. You can put it in your hobbies section, but don't put it under employment. The upside is tiny, but the potential downside of doing so is huge.

Anyway, the bottom line is you should stick with law school, get that degree and accomplishment under your belt, and then see what you want to do. There are many career paths for people with a JD besides "lawyer," but you'll never get to find out if you make the mistake of dropping out now.

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Thanks for your input. You have some good questions. I appreciate you pointing out that there are other things I need to think about.

I'm not sure that I want to be an engineer for the rest of my life. But it is what I want to do now. I don't really doubt that going to law school right now was a poor decision. I pretty much knew what I was getting into and did it anyway because I was too discouraged or lazy to keep searching for a job after a few months.

At the beginning of law school they give this speech about how most lawyers are unhappy for various reasons. Then they give a list of reasons you should quit right now. "You shouldn't be in law school if..." you're doing it for the money, you're doing it because you can't think of anything else to do, you don't like writing, etc. Pretty much everything on their list applied to me. Because I'm pretty stubborn I just thought, oh well, whatever, I'm doing it anyway. Not that I had any other options.

Your advice about a JD opening non-law doors is somewhat true, but the consensus, even among faculty in the law school, is that if you don't want to practice law you're better off not going to law school. It's not really a general degree that applies to many other fields like an MBA-type degree is. You pretty much just learn the law. Although it will open up some doors, I'm not sure they'd be to anything I'd be interested in, and the opportunity cost isn't really worth finding out right now. Not to mention many of the doors would be open without the JD.

I do realize that there may be a time when I feel like going back to law school would be a good idea although it doesn't seem like it at the time. Before leaving school I would at least make sure that I would be able to reapply in the future without any hit to my GPA from incomplete classes or whatever. Having started before would make it harder to be readmitted but I'm fairly sure I'd be able to get in again. I should also point out that I wouldn't just drop out and start looking for a job, I plan on continuing to work on school and just look for jobs in the mean time.


I see that you don't think poker in a resume is a good idea, do you think it's better than putting nothing at all?

If you don't mind me asking, what do you do/what advanced degrees do you have? I'm not asking to challenge you or anything, I'm just curious.

Thanks for taking the time to write all of that, it really did give me good things to think about.