Hey y'all. Since I'm technically living in the south right now, and since I'll be going to college in Texas, I figure I ought to use y'all more often.
Probably the most common response to when someone says they're going to get another degree on top of a graduate or even post-graduate degree is "Why?" Why would you want to spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours getting another degree when you've a perfectly serviceable, well-paying job?
There are a couple reasons, in general, and specific to the sciences.
With a law degree, you get to, you know, be a lawyer. You get all of the prestige and respect (and bad jokes) that come with that. Even in our technological world, research scientist doesn't carry with it the same oomph, the same gravitas that lawyer does.
But, more importantly, lawyering pays better than science does. For all lawyers, across all types of law, the median salary is $113,000 per year, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. This is even higher for patent attorneys (the main field of law that scientists go into, as it requires a science degree), at $175,000 per year, according to CNN Money. Compare this to an average median salary of $74,000 for all graduate-level life and physical science professions and you begin to see the appeal. Combine that with the fact that after four years of undergrad, and at least 6 years of graduate education, you've spent several hundreds of thousands of dollars only to make $30,000 per year more than the median salary (around $40,000 as of 2010) and it's understandable that a research scientist would want to take a gamble and move on up.
Finally, law degrees open doors. 38% of the members of the House of Representatives and 55% of the Senate hold law degrees. Barack Obama and 21 other presidents were lawyers. 9.2% of Fortune-500 company CEOs have law degrees, mostly from prestigious universities. Now let's look at scientists. Of the 43 presidents of the United States, only ONE has had any sort of STEM degree (this was Herbert Hoover, a mining engineer) and NONE were scientists. Of all of the 535 members of the United States Congress, only 6 have science degrees. It is easy to see why a scientists who has more on their mind than being in a lab or in academia for the rest of their natural life would see a law degree as a wonderful option.
Tomorrow I'll look at business degrees, and on Thursday, I'll look at other assorted post-graduate degrees, such as a Masters of Public Health.
Until next time, see y'all.
Thomas
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