What percentage of Canadian lawyers never see the inside of a court?
I don’t know a percentage, but I would say likely high. Solicitor work (corporate work, real estate, contracts, etc.) in private firms wouldn’t normally take you to court; in-house counsel for corporations / universities / public agencies are likely not barristers either.
And then, there’s a difference in types of court work. A lot of commercial work is done by affidavits and chambers appearances, not trials; same for a lot of contested family matters.
Anyone practising in criminal law (Crown or defence) of course is in court a lot.
There’s also counsel who specialise in appellate work, which is a different type of courtroom.
Civil trials are not common, in my experience, partly because the system is designed to encourage settlements. In my province, mediation is mandatory once pleadings close, for example.
Damn, there were drugs, booze, and anarchism? I guess I missed out.
As a youngster, I was very interested in the sciences. That interest continued all the way through high school and college, including graduate work. My stint in the Air Force involved techie stuff and development of items that put my background to good use. After the military, I taught in the sciences, and still am active in plant breeding and propagation of rare plants.
So my college major and minor have fitted nicely with my interests and occupation and retirement! In addition, I’ve benefited generally in being able to use analytical skills to personal matters such as finances and so forth…so great choice of major and the universities that I attended.
As a side note, I didn’t join any organizations or go to social events - too busy working and studying, but had great friends and great times. But social networking from college never helped me or impaired my life or progress.
Door A, or Door B.
That’s what counsellors are supposed to help you with. 
At first, yes. My parents pushed me into an engineering major, which I was completely not fit for. The abstract (to me) physics courses did me in quickly. As a result, I changed majors, but not fast enough because I lost my military deferment. I spent the next 23 years in the military, but in the interim was able to finish a BA by various methods. If I’d stuck with what I was good at, I’d be analyzing you all.
Absolutely. I majored in Music because in my senior year of high school, the only things I was really doing aside from going to school were playing tuba in the band and having a blast working on stage crew. In hindsight, I could have studied set design, lighting & sound in college and played in the band anyway, and gotten a degree that might have pointed me towards a career working in the theater, rather than Music, which… didn’t.
I became interested in electronics when I was 8 or 9 years old. I used to tear apart old TVs, unsolder the resistors & capacitors, and save them in drawer cabinets. I would then build things from schematics using the parts.
Majored in EE in college. I definitely don’t regret it.
I’ve already answered for myself, but I thought it might be interesting to describe my kids’ experiences.
Oldest did a double major in English and biology, then an MSc in biochem, during which she discovered she didn’t like lab work (just like me). She then had various jobs as scientific editor and now does it free-lance. She seems to enjoy and, given that she can get as much free-lancing as she wants, I gather she is good at it. So her college majors were the right preparation for her career.
Middle child was 14 when I brought home my first computer in 1982, an IBM PC. He taught himself to program (in basic) and studied comp. sci. in college. He then worked in software development for a small company, then Microsoft for a (non-continuous) total of nearly 25 years. Now he is doing free-lance consulting. In the meantime, he has written three books. The first, self-published, was about his first ten years at Microsoft. The second, published commercially, was essentially a debugging manual and third published by an academic press should have been called, “Why software sucks.” One of the big reasons is that most of the coders are, like him, self-taught and there is no discipline of coding.
The youngest did a degree in civil engineering specializing in traffic. He is currently director of traffic and parking for a medium-sized city.
I think it is fair to say that all three are perfectly happy with their college major. Neither my wife nor I had anything to do with their choices.
One thing about STEM, as well as the trades, is that you need to have the aptitude for them. I have no aptitude for either, so a liberal arts degree was really my only choice if I wanted to graduate. I wouldn’t have lasted past first semester as a STEM major.
Me neither. Calculus! {{shudder}}
I had a very good, sympathetic calculus prof, who spent time with me after classes, trying to help me with the concepts. I just couldn’t get it, and he was very frustrated with himself that he wasn’t able to explain to me what seemed so obvious to him.
He gave me what my Dad always called a “gentleman’s C”, my lowest mark ever.
PM me for anarchism! You’re on your own for the other two.
Or you could just read Modern Science or Mutual Aid by the above economic rebel.
My opinion on this from where I stand now is that, if you want to be a music teacher, or an English teacher, or a historian, or a museum curator, you should have some idea of that at age 18 and be ready to pursue it. Plans can always change if you find you don’t like a particular field, but if at 18 you can’t think of anything you want to do with your life, it was your high school years that were a flop. (They certainly were for me.) I still think reading the Great Books of Western Civilization is a wonderful thing, but those of us who weren’t trust fund babies will have to settle for doing it in our spare time. It’s not something that someone with no money and no career plans should spend four years taking on debt in order to do.
I’m old enough to have not amassed debt to attend college or grad school. My grad school debt was a grand total of 8K . It was paid off within 5 years.
I’m going to readdress my degrees, both A.A. in supermarket mgmt, and Journalism B.A. here.
I went to college because I love to learn. Career choice was only a small part of the puzzle. I learned a ton of useful knowledge, and I learned how to love a bunch of stuff that I hadn’t inquired into before taking my required classes. The retail knowledge has served me well as a customer and as someone who took on second jobs several times in retail. I got job offers constantly from them. The Journalism degree because it taught me where and how to find information. Before this class, I only knew about public libraries and school libraries. I did not know about business, industry, and law libraries, or the fact that I could just call someone up and ask them for a few minutes of their time. Truly a life-changing class.
Some days suck, of course, they call it work for a reason, but no, I’ve never looked back. I mostly like what I do, and I’m good at it, my coworkers are generally glad to see me and I make more money than I spend.
I am not sure I remember my undergraduate majors.
Funny you mention music teacher. My oldest KNEW she wanted to be a band director since middle school. That was - until she graduated and student taught…
My middle kid vacillated between wanting to be a rocket scientist or a novelist. I strongly argued that if he studied math and science - and decided he didn’t want to go that route - it would be a lot easier to fall back on writing than the other way around. I think that was decent general reasoning. For the same reason, I wish I had studied science, and picked up my liberal arts later.
So, what do your kids do now?