Value of a Criminology degree? Forum

[HarveyBirdman]

I originally picked a criminology major because it was the closest thing to law that my school offered, and I didn't like the idea of doing political science. Now I'm reading how...looked down upon?...this major is. It's not the dreaded (for some reason?) criminal justice major, but it's basically the same thing. I just picked it because I liked the subject, and thought law enforcement would be a good backup plan to law school.

Should I add another major to this? I've been thinking about completing one in Russian to become fluent. Then if I did that, is there any sense in doing the criminology major still, or should I just quit now, probably have enough for a crim minor, and pursue the Russian?

(The book I'm reading now, How To Get Into Top Law Schools by Richard Montauk, talks about criminal justice/criminology degrees as if doing one is the dumbest decision anyone could make in their entire lives. I'm just like.."huh??" )

[iamlife1001]

that is the worst of how to get into law school books.

fyi, people with violin degrees get into top schools, so no worries.

[coqui]

def change your major to russian and make crim a minor...i've seen urms with good enough numbers (for urms) not get into t-14 schools because of the major...search in lsn and you'll see...a russian major would be interesting too and maybe a little bit of a soft

smart thinking getting that book early

[hotburrito]

that is the worst of how to get into law school books.

fyi, people with violin degrees get into top schools, so no worries.

yeah, but what's holding back criminology majors is a (admittedly elitist) preference for liberal arts degrees over vocational degrees. you can't get a degree in criminology at hyp, but you can study music.

[VictoryFord]

i think this advice isn't that good. iamlife seems to be on the right track. if you have the right numbers and ps and ecs and recs and we you will get in. major is less important than these; it's probably below ug attended too.

[iamlife1001]

def change your major to russian and make crim a minor...i've seen urms with good enough numbers (for urms) not get into t-14 schools because of the major...search in lsn and you'll see...a russian major would be interesting too and maybe a little bit of a soft

smart thinking getting take book early

a

i thought this was a joke, until the last line.

Also if you want to major in russian in order to become fluent, i am guessing you already speak some russian, probably as a result of having biological ties to the country. If so taking russian would not be seen as a hard major. If you really want an impressive major take math or physics, but if a harder major causes your gpa to decrease by even a slight amount (.1) for example, the change would probably not prove beneficial in terms of law school admissions

So just pick a major you know you will do good in and read Anna Ivey's book instead of that piece of junk you currently have

[iamlife1001]

that is the worst of how to get into law school books.

fyi, people with violin degrees get into top schools, so no worries.

yeah, but what's holding back criminology majors is a (admittedly elitist) preference for liberal arts degrees over vocational degrees. you can't get a degree in criminology at hyp, but you can study music.

and why are you taking it for granted that criminology major are being held back; and the rest of your argument isn't much better either

[Bosque]

Change your degree to engineering. That way you will be one of the cool kids in law school.

We are all planning on hanging out by the water fountain in our leather bomber jackets and pelting passers by with questions about the Carnot cycle and bipolar junction transistors. If you want to actually get a drink, you have to design and explain a Colpitts oscillator, then build it. Then at the end of the day, we ride off on our motorcycles fueled by pure awesome.

[gobucks101]

<---soc/crim major. 166, 3.64 LSAC, 3.7 UG. 4/4 so far.
If you are sure of law school, no reason to switch majors. Write your name legibly, on the tests put "Society is to blame. Stupid capitalists!", and use those A's to boost that GPA. USNews doesn't put emphasis on majors over GPAs, so law schools don't. You won't beat out an engineer with your GPA, but the consensus on these boards seems to be that they will take an easy major 3.5 over an engineer 3.0.

[Bosque]

That is why you should just get a high GPA in engineering. And then join my totally awesome law gang.

[thistimereborn]

Go to film school. You'll have a blast making movies and hanging out with cool people, and you'll still end up in the T14 , just like people who trudged through political science degrees. Assuming you do well on the LSAT. GPA should be easssse.

One up.

[Kohinoor]

Go to film school. You'll have a blast making movies and hanging out with cool people, and you'll still end up in the T14 , just like people who trudged through political science degrees. Assuming you do well on the LSAT. GPA should be easssse.

One up.

Wat?

[thistimereborn]

My bad. I meant that some people put themselves through unfun/uninteresting undergrad degrees because they think it will help them get into law school.

What I'm saying is that you can still do a fun degree and end up in a top law school - you don't need to sacrifice your interests/happiness in undergrad to do so.

[HarveyBirdman]

The author of the book does talk in this tone that just...pisses me off. I guess it's elitist, but it's also something else. Yes, he went to Stanford for law school, go him, but what has he done with his degree besides write books on getting into top law schools and MBA programs, and apparently working for some consulting firm that helps people (that presumably have the money) better craft themselves to appeal to these programs? Seems like his own life goes against what he preaches in the book, that "a law school degree is simply for the practice of law, and if you don't like the practice of law, quit wasting my time reading my book."

But there are also a lot of quotes from admissions people, and I swear they also talked about looking down upon criminal justice/criminology degrees, as in giving less weight to someone with an excellent GPA who majored in such an "easy" discipline.

I don't have any ties to Russia, I'm simply taking the basic language series, 101-104, because you have to take a language for a degree from my school's college of arts and sciences. I like Russian and the idea of being fluent, and I think if I could study abroad and knock out a bunch of credit in one summer, a Russian major would only add a year to my undergrad length, totaling at 4 years. Added expense deters me.

And who said criminology was a vocational degree? Do you know what the curriculum is? I'm not playing around in fake crime scenes or learning how to direct traffic. Criminology falls within sociology, and I'd say, is clearly a liberal arts major.

[hotburrito]

And who said criminology was a vocational degree? Do you know what the curriculum is? I'm not playing around in fake crime scenes or learning how to direct traffic. Criminology falls within sociology, and I'd say, is clearly a liberal arts major.

i'm sorry. i don't know anything about criminology, obviously. i do think, however, that whatever anti-criminology bias that exists (if it does) can be attributed to an elitist preference for the kinds of disciplines you would find at, for example, an ivy league school (discounting cornell's ag school). like other people said, however, it's more important that you something you enjoy and can do well in. best of luck with your decision.

[AR75]

The author of the book does talk in this tone that just...pisses me off. I guess it's elitist, but it's also something else. Yes, he went to Stanford for law school, go him, but what has he done with his degree besides write books on getting into top law schools and MBA programs, and apparently working for some consulting firm that helps people (that presumably have the money) better craft themselves to appeal to these programs? Seems like his own life goes against what he preaches in the book, that "a law school degree is simply for the practice of law, and if you don't like the practice of law, quit wasting my time reading my book."

But there are also a lot of quotes from admissions people, and I swear they also talked about looking down upon criminal justice/criminology degrees, as in giving less weight to someone with an excellent GPA who majored in such an "easy" discipline.

I don't have any ties to Russia, I'm simply taking the basic language series, 101-104, because you have to take a language for a degree from my school's college of arts and sciences. I like Russian and the idea of being fluent, and I think if I could study abroad and knock out a bunch of credit in one summer, a Russian major would only add a year to my undergrad length, totaling at 4 years. Added expense deters me.

And who said criminology was a vocational degree? Do you know what the curriculum is? I'm not playing around in fake crime scenes or learning how to direct traffic. Criminology falls within sociology, and I'd say, is clearly a liberal arts major.

Yeah, CJ degree here (the death knell ). Oddly enough, when I went to tour my school, the head of admissions wanted to make sure that I knew there was a difference between CJ and the practice of law.

Thanks, dumbfuck--that sure says a lot about you letting me in, eh?