Studying law but not set on being a lawyer? (1 Viewer)

[notthedevil]

I was wondering if it would be a bad idea if I studied a combined law degree if I don't have a massive desire to become a lawyer in the future. I enjoy studying law and I'm interested in learning about it, but it might be impractical to lengthen my time at uni for something I likely might not really use.

Currently I wanna be an urban planner, so I've been looking at the City Planning/Law degree at UNSW, but it might be dumb to do that if my law degree doesn't really get used to become a lawyer. I guess if I did become a lawyer though my planning degree wouldn't end up being used anyways. It is 6.5 years long (urban planning degrees on their own are usually only 4 years) but I really enjoy city planning and I'm interested in law so I think I would be happy enough to sacrifice extra time if I'm learning things that I love, but it's still easier to just do a planning degree without law. The benefits though is that by the end I would be accredited with Planners Institute of Australia, and the Legal Profession Admission Board, so I would have some solid choices and credentials for different careers.

Any help is appreciated on whether its better to stick with city planning alone, or try a combined degree for the sake of personal interest/might wanna become a lawyer maybe.

 

[strawberrye]

Being in my final year of a combined law degree, I can tell you that choosing planning/law as a combination degree is extremely rare-probably one or two people out of each year's cohort would do it. And if you want to get admitted as a lawyer, you need to do an additional 6 months training after you graduate, so it comes to around 7 years (not accounting for potential extra qualification requirements to be a planner)-if that's not included in the degree.

I think you should definitely try out both, you will find a lot of law people don't become lawyers after graduating anyways, to be honest, 6.5 years is not that long in contrast to your whole working career, starting work 1/2 years later than your peers is not that big of a deal particularly if you want to explore your interests and find both to be interesting. And the best thing about a law degree is the critical thinking skills it teaches you which I think will help you in any career you end up choosing. Definitely try it out, and if you don't end up liking one or other, you can always drop/change/transfer courses-it is pretty common in uni. Don't feel like you need to make your one/only choice now and you can't change it sorta thing.

 

[Zoinked]

Not worth the money/time. 2 and a half years worth of income is one hell of an opportunity cost. Personally, I would blow my head off if I spent 6 years at uni.

My opinion is that you should study urban planning but then in your own time you can read things about the law such as http://www.austlii.edu.au/databases.html or a friends textbook, law journals, watch law youtube videos etc.