Study Law! Whatever for?

Medicine is out. Unlike my niece, my girl was never interested in playing doctor even as kid. She went no further than playing nurse to her older cousin because that was a role to be filled during play faraway in the Netherlands when we took our cancer stricken mom for her final holiday. Ten years later, her cousin is in NUS Medicine and she has to start thinking about what to read if she gets to university.

A neighbor daughter did well in her A levels last year and ended up in law. We didn't see her for months but when we met her, she had become reed thin. I thought she was an anorexic case and was unhappy learn it was just plain old stress. At work wifey had to work with lawyers often and for a while I had also. I don't envy their life.

For years I read about lawyers leaving their profession for something else. I had a classmate who took that path too. Although we rarely keep in touch now, I could read in the papers on and off that he is happy. He wouldn't be if he had stayed with the Law.

Law is not an option for my daughter. Wifey is not even supportive. I haven't even discuss the case of an old friend's nephew who graduated from NUS Law School recently. He didn't become a lawyer. Last I heard he wanted to return to school to train as an engineer.

This blog entry is a reminder for the past year or so how hard it is to choose what course to pursue if she gets to university. And why shouldn't she make it? 70% of her cohort would and she is nowhere near the bottom. The civil service is interested getting her interest but she isn't keen and from what I know neither her classmates who were invited to these scholarships teas and fairs. If they are any indication of how our youths are responding to government careers, civil service salaries are going up. This is stupid but that is the government way of spending their cheap money (our expensive taxes) when they do not want to change their management and culture.