Engineer goes to Law School

[HD2]

Hello all,

I graduated 3-4 years ago with an engg degree and have been working for an environmental engineering consulting company (salaried position). I passed the FE/EIT, and I am planning on getting my PE when it comes around. My employer has a 65-75% tuition reimbursement program for courses that are relevant to the company's objectives. I have been wanting to work on a part-time graduate degree, but unable to decide if I really wanted a MS in engineering or an MBA.

Recently, I took the LSAT exam and applied to a law school, and have been offered a 100% (tuition) scholarship. I figure it's hard to turn down free law school, and a J.D. can be useful in more places than just the practice of law. Some possible career paths would be environmental law, patent law, or just setting up shop in some small town and doing family/real estate/etc just so that I could live where I want to live.

Anyway, I would like to go part time and continue with my current company, since my wife can't pay the mortgage and the bills while I go back to school. Being in the consulting industry, we have billable time requirements (i.e. 30 hours a week or 35 hours a week must be billable). I'm trying to figure out what I should ask for from my employer, given that I will not need to ask them to pay any tuition thanks to the scholarship. Working 4 days/10 hours a day would give me a free day to study and I don't anticipate a problem getting that arrangement approved. Also, I don't expect a problem getting them to pay for my books as well.

Hopefully some of you have been in a similar situation, and can shed some light on other options that I could present. The way I figure is if I don't ask for anything, I definitely won't get anything. So I'm trying to get the company to support my part-time schooling as much as I can.

Any advice will be appreciated.

 

[Beggar]

My suggestion would be to talk to some folks who're either attending or have graduated from the school that you're considering.

From what I hear, you're going to be hard-pressed to go to law school and work full time.

Make sure you know what you're getting yourself into.

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Bring back the HP-15

http://www.hp15c.org

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[sms]

My sister in law was a chemical/environmental engineer at a plant and went to law school part time. She used the company tuition reimbursement program, and when she graduated told her boss she wanted a position in the legal department or she would be moving on. She has been in the corporate legal department for 5 years now, and is making way more money than she would ever have made on the engineering ladder.

 

[HD2]

Thanks for the tips.

Beggar, I'm looking at working full time and going to school part time, starting at about 6 credits (2 classes). We'll see how it goes from there. Maybe I'll sock money away for a couple years, then stop working for a year to finish up the degree in shorter time. But I'll give it a shot, starting out slow, since I'm not paying for it, and we'll see how bad it is.

I know someone that is going to law school full time right now, and they are absolutely swamped. But they are taking 18 credits and working about 20 hrs/week.

 

[mabn]

Does your scholarship cover part-time schooling as well? Just asking as many scholarships require a full course load.

 

[HD2]

Yes, the scholarship covers tuition regardless of the credit load.

 

[IPGBen]

HD2,

I did evening school while having a 40 hr/wk job, fully payed by my employer. This was during the time I was doing shift work. I did all the studying in my own time and nothing during work hours. Not even the practical assigments I had to do. I went to school for 4 years.

Let me tell you that your wife needs to fully support you and also needs to know that you're up for some very busy times!
If doesn't feel like it, have some very deep thoughts about it!
If she does, you'll have the best "coach" there is.

Grtz
Ben

 

[HarrisDE]

HD2,

I went back for an MBA while working 40+ hours per week. It took me 7 years to complete 60 hours. While the company paid for the degree, there is a disadvantage...

Working full time you can not participate in any internships. If you are looking at leaving your company or industry, good internships are critical. I was not beholden to my company for the money they spent on my degree but I was unable to leave because of "career inertia". I could not convince other firms (banking/finance) that I had anything for them.

With that in mind, one of my friends went back for law school after working as an engineer for a few years. He quit working and took out loans. In his first break he got an internship with a good firm. Now he works 30-35 hours a week at the firm while going to school and is making almost what he did as an engineer. Career-wise, he's got a pretty good lock on what he wanted to do.

Grüß Scott

 

[HD2]

IPGBen - Thanks for the advice. Good way of looking at it. I'll have to talk it over some more, that's for sure.

HarrisDE - That is something to consider. Sounds like your friend figured out a pretty good way to get through school and expand career opportunities. That is an interesting alternative.

Thanks.