如果你有去美国就读法学院的打算,那么这篇文章恰恰很适合你的,出国留学网小编为您悉心翻译了如何选择合适自己的法学专业,希望对您能够有帮助。
Conventional wisdom is that career-oriented college majors in fields like business or law enforcement are more marketable and useful than liberal arts majors. But that's not necessarily true if you're planning to attend law school.Law school applicants from certain difficult liberal arts disciplines like mathematics and linguistics tend to achieve stellar LSAT scores and are accepted to law school at a much higher rate than the bulk of their peers with preprofessional majors, where average LSAT scores are lower, according to Law School Admission Council statistics.For instance, law schools accepted more than 90 percent of linguistics majors who applied for fall 2016 admission, but by contrast, they accepted less than 56 percent of nursing majors who applied in the same admissions cycle.
传统观点认为,在商业或执法领域以职业为导向的大学专业比文科专业更有市场,也更有用。但如果你打算上法学院,那就不一定了。来自某些文科数学和语言学等学科的法学院申请者往往很难提交到合格的LSAT分数并接受法学院以更高的速度比大部分同行同职前的专业,这些学生的平均LSAT分数一般相对都较低。例如,法学院录取了超过90%的语言学专业的2016年秋季入学的学生的申请,但是相比之下在这个学期,他们只接受了不到56%的护理专业的学生申请。
Law school admissions consultant Anna Ivey, founder of Ivey Consulting, says admissions officers tend to be skeptical of the academic merits of preprofessional majors.They tend to be less excited about preprofessional degrees like communications, prelaw, criminology or marketing, which can be considered less rigorous, says Ivey, a former dean of admissions at the University of Chicago Law School. But she notes an exception to this is prestigious preprofessional programs, like the business undergraduate program at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.Because the two law school entrance exams, the LSAT and GRE, test critical thinking skills rather than subject matter expertise, preprofessional majors that emphasize technical skills don't necessarily prepare students well for these tests, experts warn.
Ivey Consulting的创始人、法学院招生顾问安娜艾维表示,招生官员往往对专业专业学生的学术价值持怀疑态度。芝加哥大学法学院前招生主任艾维表示:他们往往对沟通、预科、犯罪学或市场营销等专业学位不感兴趣,而这些学位可以被认为不那么严格。但她指出,这是一个很有声望的专业项目,比如宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院的商业本科课程。专家警告说,由于两项法学院入学考试,LSAT和GRE考试,这些考试需要的不仅仅是专业知识,还需要申请者掌握相应的批判性思维能力,所以仅仅强调技术技能,不一定能让学生为这些考试做好准备。
Experts urge college students who are determined to pursue preprofessional majors to take electives in traditional liberal arts disciplines, including the humanities, social sciences, physical sciences and mathematics. They also recommend focusing extra effort on test prep.Experts say liberal arts disciplines tend to teach aspiring lawyers the abstract thinking skills they will need to excel both on law school entrance exams and in law school courses. Disciplines like linguistics and the classics emphasize thoughtful interpretation of language, which aids prospective law school students with reading comprehension, experts say. And disciplines like math and science help them hone their reasoning abilities.
专家敦促决心追求包括人文学科、社会科学、物理科学和数学等传统人文学科的学生一些实用的建议。专家说,文科学科往往会教授有抱负的律师,他们需要在法学院入学考试和法学院的课程中都有出色的表现。专家说,语言学和古典文学等学科都强调对语言的深刻理解,这对未来的法学院学生具有阅读理解能力。像数学和科学这样的学科帮助他们磨练他们的推理能力。
Matt Shinners, a senior consultant for the jdMission admissions consulting firm, says philosophy, math and science majors frequently excel on LSAT logic games.It is very beneficial to have a section that you have down cold, says Shinners, also a senior manager of product strategy at the Manhattan Prep company, which coaches LSAT test-takers.Experts say law school hopefuls should focus on rigorous undergraduate majors they find fascinating and where they have a strong academic aptitude. It is a mistake, experts warn, to choose a major simply because it seems easy, since law school admissions officers consider the difficulty of your courses when evaluating your grades.An even bigger mistake, Ivey says, is to choose your major based purely on parental advice.I’ve seen a lot of college transcripts that were train wrecks because the students were pushed into certain majors by their parents, and those transcripts are cautionary tales," she says.
负责法学博士招生的高级顾问Matt Shinners说,哲学、数学和科学专业的学生经常在LSAT逻辑游戏中出类拔萃。有一个你感冒的部分是非常有益的,Shinners说,他也是曼哈顿准备公司的产品策略的高级经理,该公司的教练是LSAT的测试者。专家们说,法学院的学生们应该把重点放在那些他们觉得有趣的、有很强学术能力的本科专业上。专家警告说,选择单一的专业是很错误的行为,因为这看起来很简单,因为法学院的招生人员在评估你的成绩时考虑到了你的课程的难度。艾维说,一个更大的错误是,只根据父母的建议选择你的专业。她说:我看到很多大学的成绩单都是火车残骸,因为学生们被父母挤进了某些专业,这些成绩单都是警世故事。
Some experts also urge undergrads to avoid law-related majors.Philip Benesch, an associate professor of politics and director of the Law and Society program at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania, says he usually advises college students to either stay away from a prelaw or criminal justice major or "be sure to double major in a mainstream liberal arts discipline."David Weinberg, assistant dean of admissions at Tulane University Law School, says undergraduates who plan to become lawyers should take elective courses that complement their college majors. Taking a wide range of college courses, including classes in disparate fields like math and literature, is one way to show law schools that you have a variety of academic talents, he says.Law school hopefuls should use their academic interests to guide their choice of major, says Kari VanSickle, the admissions director at Brigham Young University's J. Reuben Clark Law School.
一些专家还敦促本科生避免与法律相关的专业。宾夕法尼亚的黎巴嫩谷学院法律与社会项目主任、政治学副教授菲利普·本施说,他通常建议大学生要么远离法律,要么远离刑事司法专业,否则在主流的文科学科中,一定要双学位。杜兰大学法学院负责招生的副院长戴维·温伯格说,打算成为律师的本科生应该选修一些与他们的大学专业相辅相成的选修课程。他说,广泛的大学课程,包括不同领域的课程,如数学和文学,是向法学院展示你有各种学术才能的一种方式。杨百翰大学法学院的招生主管卡丽·凡西克尔说,法学院的学生们应该利用他们的学术兴趣来指导他们选择专业。她说,那些知道自己想上法学院的学生不应该根据他们认为的法律录取官的喜好选择他们的本科专业。潜在的法学学生应该追随他们的热情
许多法学院的学生说,选择他们喜欢的专业帮助他们在大学里表现优异,从而使他们成为一名有吸引力的法学院申请人。杨百翰大学一年级法律系学生米兰达·切尔卡斯通过电子邮件说:学生们应该根据自己的兴趣选择一个专业,不要管那是什么。我和其他三年级的法律系学生住在一起。我是一名政治学专业的学生,我的室友主修音乐戏剧,亚洲历史,分子和细胞生物学。我们都是优秀的法学院的申请者,因为我们在我们选择的领域追求卓越,而不是因为我们选择了那些仅仅是为了进入法学院的领域。
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