Hey everyone! I will be an undergraduate freshman this fall. I am very excited about the school I am attending. However I am always planning my life ahead. There are so many universities I know I will want to experience. I know I want to get my masters and go to law school. These are the schools that I dream of for my graduate education:
Penn
Columbia University
University of Illinois
University of Michigan
Northwestern
Do you think I will be drowning in debt? Should I just focus on one school for all of my degrees? I just want to experience going to college in so many different areas. I want to have the Big Ten experience and I want to go to school in a large city. Is this unusual for someone to earn their undergrad degree from one college, JD from another and masters from another? I am a person who feels like they are not exercising their full potential if they do not experience everything.
I think this makes little sense. Grad school is generally less of the “college experience” than undergrad, too. What is your career goal? I assume it is not “perpetual student”. Why don’t you get an undergrad degree, then get a job in one of those cities? Then someone pays you, instead of you paying them.
If your career goal requires a masters or JD. then consider going back to school.
Depends. How much are you already borrowing to pay for college?
What will your total debt be when you graduate?
Masters degrees and law degrees usually are expensive. Unlike PhDs (which often are fully funded), you may have to cover the full cost (unless your parents or an employer pays for some of it). After 4 years of college, 2 years in a M.A. program, and 3 years of law school? Yes, you could be looking at some major debt, especially if you aren’t getting any help along the way. Furthermore, a law degree isn’t necessarily the cash cow you might think it is.
Take it one step at a time. If you plan to go to law school, it’s very prudent to keep the debt to a minimum. The earning potential of experienced attorneys isn’t much more than software programmers.
@Mandalorian. I got a JD and went to work for an electric utility to practice before a state utility commission. I quickly realized that I needed better accounting and finance skills to excel. Several of my colleagues had gone to night school to get MBAs, my boss encouraged it, and the company would help pay for the degree. Under those pretty unique circumstances, it made sense for me to go back to school and it has worked out very well for me in my career. I now have my own solo practice in another state, specializing in utility-commission work and related transactional matters.
But, I agree with your advice. Normally, the opportunity cost of going back to school for another advanced degree will never be recovered. And that was a crazy four years of working 50 hours a week, studying, and commuting 40 miles to school two nights a week.
It is just as silly to think about specific grad schools before you set foot on a college campus as it would be to think about specific colleges before you set foot in HS. Give yourself time to settle in at college, see what you enjoy etc. Try to get summer jobs in areas of interest. Give yourself the opportunity to learn, grow, get new experiences, and leave the door open to changing your goals over the next few years.
Yes, I agree with happy1. You have to give your interests and professional goals time to shape first. Your career goals and specific interests may change a lot in the next few years - you may decide that you don’t want to be a lawyer (as MANY undergraduates do), or you may change what you want your focus for graduate school to be.
Also…it is impossible to experience everything. You’ll have to shake the belief that you’re not reaching your full potential if you don’t experience everything, because it’s literally impossible. Besides, there’s value to building depth in particular areas versus building your breadth too widely.
Focus on enjoying your freshman year - including trying out classes in majors and other subjects you’re interested in, exploring different clubs and activities, visiting the career center to begin exploring what you like (and don’t like), and talking to some junior and senior undergrads about their journeys and career explorations and internships. That’ll help you better prepare to make your own decisions when the time is right.
And remember you select your school based on the best thing for the field you plan to enter. Columbia, Penn, Northwestern, and Michigan all have top-ranked law schools; UIUC’s is probably fine in some areas of law but isn’t in the top tier. That will affect your career planning. And those universities are all generally good, but of course they have different strengths in different academic areas - and there may be some that are better in a particular area that aren’t on your list. That’s why you need to wait until you’re a bit further along to make a list. Grad school isn’t like undergrad; you’re not there for the “experience.”