By Darren Johnson
Campus News
A little known fact is I do have an undergraduate degree in Pre-Law. The degree I usually tout is my English/Writing degree, as it has served me well, but, back when, younger me decided to have a “fallback plan” in case this writing thing didn’t work out — has it? — and double majored. My parents had dabbled in having jobs where they were assigned badges, so Pre-Law sounded within acceptable standards.
The thing is, someone doesn’t need a Pre-Law degree to go to graduate law school. Actually, English degree holders are more commonly accepted, as graduate law schools expect a high level of reading comprehension and writing proficiency.
But a lot of colleges still offer Pre-Law as a major. So what’s that about?
First off, I wouldn’t suggest majoring in Pre-Law only unless you know for sure you will be headed to graduate law school to become a lawyer.
The Pre-Law B.A. degree doesn’t really do much on its own. It kind of sounds silly in conversations if you say your degree is “Pre-Law.” The name lacks closure and makes it seem as if you can’t finish things or “changed your mind” about law school. “Pre-” anything sounds like the minor leagues.
If your goal is to someday get a master’s degree, they usually aren’t in “law.” The closest master’s would be in Political Science, so why not major in that as an undergrad?
That said, I feel like the Pre-Law major I had taken at a small college was pretty good. Required courses were in US History and Political Science. I really got to do a deep drive into Supreme Court case law especially.
I know the difference between Burger and Frankfurter, and I’m not talking fast food.
I did a concentration in Sociology and took a few of those and Psychology courses. Very interesting. Electives were in Technical Writing, Logic, Economics and Business. This course of study was very well-rounded, and I got to spend more time in various departments than I would by just taking Gen Ed courses.
The Pre-Law major was a GPA killer, though, as the faculty managing it were mostly in the unheralded Political Science realm at the school I was attending, and they rarely gave a grade above a C. I think they secretly hated lawyers, or students who wanted to be them. These faculty members were theorists and didn’t take pride in the at-times pragmatic major. We had no Pre-Law club nor field trips to local courts, for example.
Perhaps, for branding purposes, Pre-Law should get a new name, because the idea of taking a range of higher-level courses from various departments and turning it into a degree creates smarter graduates, who can converse intelligently on a range of subjects. The major can’t simply be called “Law,” as that would suggest the degree holder can practice law; that’s not true with a Pre-Law degree. It shouldn’t be called “Legal Studies” — that sounds too generic and not weighty enough.
Maybe a better major name would be “Legal Theory and Practice.”
Overall, I feel like Pre-Law could be a good major educationally – taking a wide array of serious courses seems so classical, so early 20th century.
It just needs a better name, and for the department chair and faculty to take ownership and pride in this major.
Darren Johnson owns Campus News and a historic community paper in Upstate New York, The Greenwich Journal & Salem Press. He’s been a newspaper staffer and college Journalism advisor and over 1000 of his articles have appeared in other newspapers.
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