Comment by jballanc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jballanc | Hacker News Reader

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I knew a woman once who went to law school, but burned out on the law before she passed the bar...so she went to medical school, but burned out on that before she completed her residency. What she eventually realized, though, is that there are very few people who have actually made it through both law school and medical school, so she set up a career for herself matching doctors with lawyers who needed medical expert witnesses. You see, both law and medicine have their own unique jargon, and she could effectively serve as a translator between those two worlds. She made quite a pretty penny charging her finder's fee too!

If you have 15 years experience doing software engineering, you're half-way to the same sort of a position. Find some other field you're interested in and learn up on their jargon, or take your most recent gig and dive deep into whatever industry it is you're developing software for. Whether you call yourself "biz-dev" or "project manager" or just "consultant", there is a market for people who can effectively bridge the world of software engineering with the world of...everything else.

This is more or less what happened to me. I had worked in the sofware industry for 15 years, when I decided to get out. Not a developer, but a trajectory of pre-sales support/training, systems analyst, project manager, consultant, and doing a few startups that made me enough money to live, but nothing spectacular.

I took my hobby, sustainable large scale horticulture and tried to switch by starting with a degree in environmental science. Actually taking a degree as an experienced adult was a blast and I can really recommend it. Motivation, even if lectures where boring or subjects hard, was never an issue.

I ended up meeting people at conferences, in my field of study (geology/hydrology) who really needed help with data/information technology. We started a new organisation and I am the co-director of a foundation that run data services for sustainable international development. We have 25+ governments in Africa, Asia and Soth America, UN organisations and hundreds of NGOs use our open source services. Very satisfying work and a decent living.

> Actually taking a degree as an experienced adult was a blast and I can really recommend it.

I couldn't agree more.

When I was 20-something I dropped out of Uni and started a career in public and media relations.

For several years, though, I had been making websites on the side, mostly for friends and acquaintances, as a sort of hobby. However I was becoming good at that and I was starting to get paid good money. So, after thinking about making a career change for several years, I finally decided to became a web developer full-time.

At some point, though, I realised that, while I was knowledgeable enough to build websites for small clients and earn a living, I didn't have a solid theoretical background. Software development, to me, was a passion, not just a way to pay my bills, and I wanted to know more.

So, at age 34, I started a bachelor degree in IT, majoring in software development (despite the name, it was quite similar to what would be identified as a CS degree in the US).

It was one of the most interesting periods of my life. I realised for the first time how valuable education really is. I had to work part-time jobs and study at the same time and that was somehow hard but I have a feeling that having to deal with (moderate) difficulties made me stronger (I'm lucky, my life, generally speaking, has been relatively easy as a whole).

For some reasons, some of the other students decided that I was a sort of authoritative figure (possibly because of my relatively advanced age) and started to ask for help whenever they couldn't really grasp something.

That helped me to discover that sharing ideas with others makes you a much better developer. So I started going to Meetups and talk to clever people and exchange ideas. Having those connections helped me to find a much better job as soon as I finished my degree.

Needless to say, when I decided to leave my job to become a developer (I was already over 30 by then) everyone told me that it was a bad idea. Same story when I told my friends that I would go back to Uni. However it worked out well for me and I'm happy now.

Out of curiosity, your later-in-life college experience: what kind of school was it at? (Meaning: large state university, liberal arts college, Yale, for-profit, etc.) As a college dropout who was a terrible student, I've been wanting to go back more and more as time passes.

Stockholm University, Sweden, which is a decent university. Not sure how that compares to your experience. A government owned university with ~30,000 students. No fees for EU students. I was also a college dropout from Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

Yes!

I'm pretty un-hireable right now. I have 4 years experience as a dev, 1.5 in sales, 1.5 in marketing, and <1 as a founder. So ... I started a company making marketing analytics software. It's pretty great!

One of the most fun things about my path in the last couple of years has been embracing the actual problem the business is trying to solve, instead of just the neat tech that powers it. For me, it's a lot more fun to work on problems that have that tightened feedback loop (e.g., somebody gives you money because you solved their problem). It meant breaking a lot of the ties in my head between easy/hard and worthless/valuable -- sometimes the most valuable thing about your software is the weekly update email.

To OP, without a BUNCH more information about what you like and what you can do, I can't suggest a new path. But you probably know something about the products and markets at the companies you worked at. See if any of the other departments have openings for somebody with deep product knowledge. It's easier to switch careers within the same company than it is to jump companies to a different role.

Fascinating. I've been interesting in going towards law school, but am not sure I'd actually like to practice law at the end. This uncertainty plus the cost of attending, has been discouraging.

I wonder how she was able to go through both since each comes with a steep cost

Law School: $34,300 (avg per year) * 4 = $137,200

Medical School: $32,889 (avg per year) * 4 = $131,556

137,200 + 131,556 = $268,756

One would need to make quite the pretty penny to recoup those investment costs

Especially if you are not going to practice at the end, consider going abroad to study (might be possible even with family, definitely possible without).

The costs in western europe are about 15%-20%. The costs in eastern europe are half that, and in some places in Asia it is cheaper still. If you want to practice in the US, you will have to take some local-law courses (law) and pass the bar/board exams - but it will still be infinitely cheaper than in the US.

And it will be an adventure.

Good advice for probably every field except law. Law is so different in most European countries that it won't be of much use in the US. Also a lot in civil law hinges on subtleties in the respective language.

Possibly; I've met two Israeli lawyers and two British lawyers who moved to the US and were able to pass the bar exam within a year or so - I have no idea how hard they worked at it (and what preparations they did before moving to the US), but it was certainly cheaper then going to school in the US.

If you are a lawyer in one country and want to practice in another then take the exams in the country you want to practice for sure. Going to law school in another country to save money is a completely different thing.

Also: UK and US both have Common Law traditions whereas most of Europe does not. Israel is a more involved case.

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Map_of_t...

I'm confident that most people on HN can pass the bar exam without law school. Law school really wasn't much of an advantage for the bar exam, just do the prep course and study hard full time for six weeks and you would be fine. Unfortunately I don't think any states still allow sitting the bar exam and being admitted without a law degree.

Some states have a sort of apprentice style path to the bar.

For example:

http://admissions.calbar.ca.gov/Education/LegalEducation/Law...

It's multiyear and supervised by a lawyer, so not quite at the level you are talking about.

Depends where she was studying as well. I'm in the UK and my elec engineering masters was £4k. They've since hiked the fees for higher education and my medical degree is ~£36k. Still, that's 9 years of education for 1 years of dev salary, plus I work for a startup whilst studying. It's definitely doable!

This is a fantastic example and great advice for someone who has accumulated skills but doesn't feel like being an 'expert' in their field.

This is so true. I think about this all the time. I actually believe that this type of scenario will be what makes software better in 10-15 years for industries that currently still run on old tech. Those of us on HN right now may end up in different sectors leading "software related" projects and have really good insights on how to scope out the domains.

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