Grad School v. Law School

Zach and I are both engaged in fairly demanding programs right now- he's working on a masters degree in history and is immersed in the often narcissistic realm of academia, while my time in law school has me engaged in a self-important professional program. With both of us knee deep in upper level degrees, and with both of us having considered pursuing the track chosen by the other, I often find myself wondering who is in the most demanding program.

Most of the time I'm inclined to think that the law program is by far the harder of the two. I think the concepts are harder to grasp, the intricacies make less rational sense, and many of the cases feel like they were written by egotistical monkeys on typewriters. And I almost always take more credits than he does, and spend much more time in class. Plus if I don't learn my stuff I can potentially ruin the lives of my future clients. I'm not sure what harm a slightly off analysis of old events that will mostly be read and criticized by other academics can really cause. I'm not saying its not important, but the stakes are slightly different.

However, then there are weeks like this one. Weeks where Zach has barely slept as he pumps out paper after paper. And reads book after book after book. This is what his desk has looked like for the past month. And he's read pretty much all of those. Not to mention the books scattered in other places throughout the apartment. Outlining is its own kind of hell, and the encyclopedia sized law books are nothing to scoff at, but at least I have some desk space.

Of course, I still have a week left of finals and he's scott free until next semester. So, we'll see how long my sympathy for his program lasts (I'll give it 36 hours, tops).