second language or math??

Question

If you are going to law school, is it better to know a second language (hence, a BA) or take higher math (a BS)? For my law school 64% of the students speak a second language.

Answer 1

It depends on which area of law you are going into. Normally a second language would be best, but if you are going into actuary or economic or tax law, math.

Answer 2

To define your question further: What area of law do you want to study? If you are interested in international law, or other aspects that have lots of international facets, like maritime law, then being multilingual is a huge asset.

To my way of thinking, this is not necessarily a BA-BS question. I know a young man at the college where I work who has double majors in computer science and mathematics but is also just two courses shy of having a third major in Spanish.

That said, you'll never get past the LSAT without a good grasp of logic, so a foundation in mathematics and a logic course from the philosophy department will serve you well.

If I was in college now and knew that I wanted to go to law school (which I considered seriously rather recently), I would try really hard to not make this an either - or decision. I would look to other areas of my course load to carve out elective hours in order to acommodate both.

Answer 3

Most law schools do not really care what your undergraduate degree is in. They only care that you have successfully completed a degree. Some get liberal arts degrees (BA) and other get science degrees (BS). It doesn't matter. I have had several former students get into law school. Their majors have run the gammet from Communications, to Business, to Pre-Med. The second language will help you communicate with potential clients. The higher level math (hopefully statistics) will help you to understand the finer details of the evidence. I suggest both.

Answer 4

For attending a law school, I have to think knowing a second language would help you more. We're becoming more and more multicultural, you know, and more people need to know *our* language, so you will need to be versed in theirs.

If you have the time (and the money), why not do both? Either that, or you could focus on languages/math to fulfill any "general studies" or minor credits.

Answer 5

I would take BOTH.

You will need a minimum of four semesters to be able to communicate at a basic level in Spanish, more in French, Chinese, Russian or German. To be fluent, you will need to live in a country for three or four months minimum.

Higher math for a lawyer would involve accounting, algebra, tax law and finance. Calculus and theoretical stuff probably would not be too useful.

Answer 6

hmm its a toss up, i would say 2nd language, but a BS would be better....
A law school really doesn't care much about being well rounded in your courses, mostly they care that your courses are not completely scattered and that you have good writing skills(because you will be doing a lot)..... and of course a high GPA

Answer 7

I would say math, as you will learn important things such as logic, how to form a solid argument, fallacies, statistics, how statistics can so easily be skewed in court, and so on. All things which directly apply to the courtroom.

Answer 8

Greek, Latin, French, German, Swedish all of the nicely popular mathematicians i understand are between the above. there is needless to say Egyptian, Arabic, Babylonian contributions. no longer likely useful. Any united states of america that knows what numbers are talk English.

Answer 9

well i would go with the second language.

Answer 10

second language