I have a very good friend Xiao Tian, who got an offer for a master's degree in law from a prestigious university in the United States during the Spring Festival, and plans to quit his current job as a lawyer and go to the United States to study in the fall of 2024.
Although the colleges that admitted Oda are very good, both in the overall ranking and the ranking of law majors, they are in the top five in the United States, and they are among the top schools, I still very seriously advised him to consider it and not to resign easily. Xiao Tian is now doing cross-border business in a foreign-funded law firm in Beijing, with a pre-tax salary of tens of thousands of yuan, and has already run into the income level of the mini-middle class in advance.
In my opinion, in the current uncertain economic situation, it is most important to maintain a sustainable job. Even if Oda returns from a prestigious school, if the economy continues to be unstable, he may not be able to find a better job than he is now, based on the current employment situation in law firms. To study and live in the United States for a year, you need at least two or three hundred thousand yuan, which is not cost-effective from an economic point of view.
Oda is two years younger than me, and in the face of my persuasion, he is firmly opposed and extremely determined, in his words, the experience of studying in a prestigious school in the United States is an important life experience, which is not about work or job hunting, but a part of his own life; After completing his studies, the name of the law school and the knowledge and values he learned will become a part of his person, a permanent label and cultural attribute, and accompany him to go further. These are not measurable by economic interests and jobs.
I looked at Oda's determined eyes and youthful face, and I wanted to say that he was too idealistic, but I couldn't say anything. It was as if if I criticized him like this, I would immediately become the kind of predecessor I hated the most, the kind of rotten person who was out of luck and out of touch with the tide of the times.
After saying goodbye to Oda, I thought about it alone for a long time, and I felt that Oda and I might not be wrong. I am a few years older than him, and I have more intuitively felt the uncertainty of the economic and employment situation in the past two years in all aspects, and I can feel more the difficulties of law firm partners in developing business, competing at low prices and reducing costs, and I am inevitably a little more pessimistic and cautious about the future. Coupled with the fact that I have been working for a long time, I may no longer be interested in some spiritual pursuits (such as law school courses) and prefer to focus on practical benefits. And Oda has indeed just graduated a few years ago, on the one hand, he has not experienced strong winds and waves, and on the other hand, he still has memories and expectations for life in the ivory tower.
Perhaps, Xiao Tian can represent a small group of elite lawyers with excellent educational backgrounds and smooth graduation, and even young elites in other industries. In the past, they relied on their talents and the dividends of the times to move from campus to the workplace, and they walked very smoothly and successfully. But the lessons of life may be made up to us by fate in different ways, early to suffer, late to suffer, may have to learn something from some follow-ups, only to know that the choices you can make are actually limited.
Not to mention, the vast majority of practitioners in the legal industry are still in a state of toiling in the dirt and not necessarily getting their money.
We wish you good luck and believe that time will teach us everything and verify whether the choice we have made is right or wrong.
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