BS in CS w/ No Experience (PNW)

Started by 170orDie, 04-25-17 at 01:00 PM

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170orDie

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Thank you all for your advice!

MYK

If you have specific areas of the country in mind, try to go to law school in one of those.  Exception: if you get into a T14, it would probably be best to go there.  Are the "nnnK" numbers you list scholarship offers or expected tuition costs over three years?  If you have to go deep into student loan debt, that will constrain your decisions after graduation.

Nobody knows what the job market will be like in 3-4 years.  I don't know about other markets, but where I am (Asia) companies are slowing down sharply on hiring due to China's economy starting to struggle.  CS is, supposedly, currently sought after.  Note also that desirability of field-of-degree is somewhat regional;  where I am, I would say at least 90% of work is hard-EE.

Also, if you go with litigation, nobody will care what your undergrad was;  you could have been a history or philosophy major.
"The life of a patent solicitor has always been a hard one."  Judge Giles Rich, Application of Ruschig, 379 F.2d 990.

Disclaimer: not only am I not a lawyer, I'm not your lawyer.  Therefore, this does not constitute legal advice.

170orDie

Quote from: MYK on 04-25-17 at 02:46 PM
If you have specific areas of the country in mind, try to go to law school in one of those.  Exception: if you get into a T14, it would probably be best to go there.  Are the "nnnK" numbers you list scholarship offers or expected tuition costs over three years?  If you have to go deep into student loan debt, that will constrain your decisions after graduation.

Nobody knows what the job market will be like in 3-4 years.  I don't know about other markets, but where I am (Asia) companies are slowing down sharply on hiring due to China's economy starting to struggle.  CS is, supposedly, currently sought after.  Note also that desirability of field-of-degree is somewhat regional;  where I am, I would say at least 90% of work is hard-EE.

Also, if you go with litigation, nobody will care what your undergrad was;  you could have been a history or philosophy major.

The number indicate the estimated total cost of attendance. I am interested in practicing in Seattle or LA/SF. In your experience do you see CS being still sought after?

fewyearsin

CS degree is good, but experience would be very helpful.  Once you go to law school, you will not get any more CS experience.  So you will be competing with other people with no CS experience.  If you had 5 years CS prior to law school, you would look better than those fresh grads, and there is nothing they could do about it.
This comment does not represent the opinion or position of the PTO or any law firm; is not legal advice; and represents only a few quick thoughts. I'm willing to learn, let me know if you think I'm wrong. Seek out the advice of a competent patent attorney for answers to specific questions.

MYK

Quote from: 170orDie on 04-26-17 at 03:02 AM
The number indicate the estimated total cost of attendance. I am interested in practicing in Seattle or LA/SF. In your experience do you see CS being still sought after?

If you're absolutely set on Seattle only, then of the three you picked, UW would be the obvious choice.  If you want to be more competitive anywhere in the country, then UT (assuming that means University of Texas at Austin) would be the obvious choice.

Quote from: fewyearsin on 04-26-17 at 04:16 AM
CS degree is good, but experience would be very helpful.  Once you go to law school, you will not get any more CS experience.  So you will be competing with other people with no CS experience.  If you had 5 years CS prior to law school, you would look better than those fresh grads, and there is nothing they could do about it.
Thinking about it, I mostly disagree with this sentiment.  Having had a job will show that you're employable, but the day-to-day stuff in CS is so remote from patent work that I don't see it as being useful.  If you've worked steadily as a waitress during undergrad, it shows just as much employability, frankly.

The rare occasions when I actually used any advanced skills at work, the companies mostly didn't care or actively ignored my work.  It was all just a day-to-day grind to produce functional code, and in the modern "bugs are ok as long as they're not fatal" mindset, they didn't even care if the code worked well.
"The life of a patent solicitor has always been a hard one."  Judge Giles Rich, Application of Ruschig, 379 F.2d 990.

Disclaimer: not only am I not a lawyer, I'm not your lawyer.  Therefore, this does not constitute legal advice.

MYK

Quote from: 170orDie on 04-26-17 at 11:44 AM
I would be very happy to live in Seattle, I have many ties there. Do you think I can have any sort of confidence in getting BL from UW? I know normally their stats are rather abysmal, but does the patent law route bump me up at all?

If you want biglaw, then UT.

Seattle has Microsoft, so there's a lot of software patenting going on there.  Downside: when the 800lb gorilla gets the flu, everyone feels it.
"The life of a patent solicitor has always been a hard one."  Judge Giles Rich, Application of Ruschig, 379 F.2d 990.

Disclaimer: not only am I not a lawyer, I'm not your lawyer.  Therefore, this does not constitute legal advice.

MYK

BTW, I wouldn't call UW's stats "abysmal".  UW grads get lots of good law jobs.

The reality is that there are not that many biglaw jobs, especially as electronic discovery and offshoring of document review are being used more and more.  The megafirms used to hire tons of cannon fodder who would be dumped after a year or two of reading billions of pages of documents looking for typos to exploit.  (Welcome to the glamorous world of litigation, comrade!)  Then they learned that they can do that in India for two cents a page, or by importing all the documents into a database and running a database query.
"The life of a patent solicitor has always been a hard one."  Judge Giles Rich, Application of Ruschig, 379 F.2d 990.

Disclaimer: not only am I not a lawyer, I'm not your lawyer.  Therefore, this does not constitute legal advice.

Dazed-n-confused

#7
Quote from: MYK on 04-26-17 at 12:46 PM
BTW, I wouldn't call UW's stats "abysmal".  UW grads get lots of good law jobs.

I second this.  I looked up these three schools on LST Score Reports and found

USC 73% employed in law jobs, 34% at "large firms" (quoted because their metric is >100 lawyer sized firms)
UT 75% employed in law jobs, 33% at "large firms"
UW 68% employed in law jobs, 16% at "large firms"

So while WU trailsUW trails the others slightly in overall employability and more significantly in larger firm placement, the stats aren't bad for what you'd pay.  Also, I doubt that the 16% number really reflects someone like you who has a higher-demand UG than your average English major.  Since you indicated you'd be happy with either biglaw or nice patent boutique, and would be very happy with Seattle, this seems like a no brainer to me.

Although UT for just another 20K (plus accrued interest while in school and until payment starts) would be pretty tempting to me - but then, I like Austin over Seattle any day of the week.
...purple haze... ...runnin' through my brain... ...and it feels... being hit bya train....



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