Archive for November, 2011

Top Law Schools

There is some debate as to which schools should compose the list of top law schools. There are a few schools that traditionally top the polls, but whether or not these universities are truly worth the cost is quite debatable. For those wishing to pursue a legal career path, though, it is important to know what these rankings actually mean.

The Three Tiers of Law School

Universities that offer a legal education are traditionally grouped into three “tiers” of fifty. The best schools are in the Tier One, followed by those in Tier Two and Tier 3. Traditional wisdom states that the best jobs to go Tier One students, while those in Tier 3 will have the most trouble finding employment. The most competitive bracket is Tier 2, with a number of public universities vying for prestige with some of the bigger-name American private colleges.

What Are the Top Law Schools?

As one might expect, the Ivy League is exceptionally well represented in the annual ranking of top law schools. Harvard, Stanford and Yale are traditionally near the top of the list. Columbia, the University of Chicago, and Berkeley usually follow not far behind, with schools like Cornell Law School, Duke, and Georgetown usually bringing up the remainder of the pack. These schools tend to have the best faculty, the most active donors, and some of the most competitive acceptance rates. Whether or not these schools are worth the price, however, is worth questioning.

A Realistic Look

Realistically speaking, the annual report of top law schools is incredibly skewed. Certain schools will always be in the top ten, and certain schools will never rise above the second tier. The quality of education at the top-tier schools is not necessarily better than that in the lower tiers, but the names certainly carry a certain cache with employers. Unless you wish to chase the top one percent of jobs, though, the top ten to fifteen law schools may not be worth the price of admission. Read the rest of this entry »

Film School Secrets – The Sure Route to Failure

One of the things that burns me up to no end is the fact that so many students go to film school and pay untold amounts of money for classes so that they will be able to realize the dream of becoming a successful film producer. Despite this fact, only one percent of them will even get a chance to make any kind of full-length film let alone make a great career out of filmmaking.

I think the fault lies with the way that the students are being taught in today’s film schools. Despite the fact that they learn about the history of filmmaking, universities don’t train their students to think for themselves and to become creative business people. Filmmaking is a business, and most students have no idea about how to network and make a business for themselves as a filmmaker. The issue starts with how the institution of public education began.

Going back many centuries top universities were institutions for the well-to-do and for the upper-classes. These were the only type of people deemed as being worthy of an education. On the other hand, it was expected that those of the lower class were expected to do menial work that didn’t require an education. Factory workers couldn’t read or write.

Only when the captains industries saw the need for their workers to be able to read and write and perform basic math, were people of the lower classes encouraged to obtain an education. That was when wide-spread public education got started to produce skilled but obedient workers.

Universities today are mostly based on the systems that were put in place from the start of public education. Students are given assignments, go from class to class when the bells ring and do their best to please their teachers. Read the rest of this entry »

The Business of Education in America

For over two hundred years the American education system has been based on the right of all its citizens to an education. Through this guiding principle America has led the world to expanded education opportunity for women, oppressed minorities, and populations generally. As the world has come to embrace the American philosophy, America is abandoning this core belief and dividing education into the wealthy, who can afford education, and the rest of the country that will not be able to afford it.

For several decades, American education was in retreat in the technical areas of science and engineering. To address these deficiencies, technical schools in secondary education and for profit colleges came into existence. They encouraged students not inclined to pursue additional education to enter technical fields and pursue higher education. Students that would not become engaged in a process of learning were suddenly involved. Students who could not make passing grades were suddenly making the A’s and B’s in vocational technical courses and for profit technical institutions.

Today, these two areas of education constitute a growing number of successful students actively involved in higher education. Vocational schools and for profit colleges are designed to encourage students to become involved in technical careers, and are often structured without much of the liberal arts training that accompany traditional degrees. There’s been a longstanding disagreement as to whether students should be funneled into specific and very narrow technical educational streams, or weather all students should be forced to obtain a more generalized education designed to move them toward undergraduate degrees and eventually to graduate degrees. Read the rest of this entry »