Day: February 23, 2020

Should I Go to Law School? Four Questions to Help You Decide

There are a few important questions you should ask yourself in deciding if law school is the choice for you. Some of them are philosophical, and some are practical. All of them are important, but this fir  st one is essential…

Do I want to be a lawyer?

Before you decide to attend law school, ask yourself: do I actually want to practice law? That is the core of the profession – representing clients. If the idea of working with clients doesn’t excite you, then this might not be the right career for you.

Why do I want to go to law school?

Be honest. There are many reasons people attend law school.  Some have always known this was their path. Some have friends and family telling them they will be a great lawyer. Maybe someone, somewhere, told them, if all else fails, you can always try law school. Whatever your motivation, you should be able to identify it. That’s the only way to decide if law is the right choice for you. Before applying to law school, seriously consider your interest in becoming a practicing attorney and how that balances with the cost, the employment prospects, and the minimum three-year intensive academic commitment required to graduate.
REASONS to attend law school include knowing what lawyers do (and wanting to do it) and having a sense of how prepared you are for law school and the practice of law.
REASONS to keep considering your options include not knowing what else to do after graduation, making your parents happy, thinking it sounds like fun, or planning to figure it out later (when you get to law school, or after graduation).

Am I in it for the paycheck?

If you answered the first or second questions with Maybe, I’m not sure, or No, but the salary…, keep reading. Even if you score the job that brings that check you dreamed of, if you don’t love (or even like) the work, you may find you aren’t long for the field, but you might still be paying the loans from that JD.
Many students are drawn to the legal profession by the promise of future income. But like any career path, your decision needs to include more than the salary prospects. A law degree doesn’t guarantee of a high salary. According to a Washington Post article from April 2015, “nine months after graduation, a little more than half of the class of 2013 had found full-time jobs as lawyers, down from 77% of 2007, according to the most recent data from the American Bar Association and the National Association for Law Placement. Those who did find jobs had starting salaries that were 8% below the 2009 peak, averaging $78,205 in 2013.” In recent years, bar passage rates have also declined creating a challenge for new graduates hoping to begin their legal practice.
Doing your research will go a long way in helping you manage your salary expectations. Look at the employment statistics and average salary for students from schools you are likely to attend (based on your GPA and LSAT – if you have taken it). Factor the specialty you wish to practice, and the region.

What do I know about the practice of law (In other words, have I talked to any lawyers)?

Answering this question requires you to research and talk to actual lawyers.
Current law students and pre-law advising can help with your law school application, but lawyers – those practicing law every day – are the ones who can help you decide if this is the path for you. They can tell you how much their legal education cost, what they actually do on a daily basis, how many hours a week they work, how much they make, and what they like (or don’t) about their careers. You should ask about personal attributes needed to be successful in a legal career and the impact of a legal career on personal lives. If law school still sounds like the right plan for you, you can ask for advice about where to go from here.
Learning about the practice of law from lawyers (as many as you can, from different practice areas) will spotlight the different career paths in the legal profession, and which might be right for you. You may notice that lawyers with very similar experiences may have very different thoughts on their careers. Ask them why. This is your chance to get a feel for what type of people like what types of legal jobs (e.g. litigation or public interest law), and what that might mean for you. Thinking proactively about your potential place in the legal profession will help you in choosing a law school, finding funding for school, and planning your job search.
You may not know any lawyers firsthand, or they may all be relatives or family friends. Talk to them, and lots of other lawyers, also. If you don’t know how to begin, making an appointment to see the pre-law advisor in the Career Center is a great start.

What’s next?

Now that we’ve talked about the philosophical questions, if law school still sounds like the thing for you, consider meeting with your Career Advisor to discuss the practical considerations of applying for and funding law school.
 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

Developing a Skillset for Research in UVM Public Health Master’s Program

The public health master’s program at UVM changed Lyndelle LeBruin’s life.
LeBruin, a project coordinator at the Laboratory for Clinical Biochemistry Research (LCBR) at UVM, completed the online UVM Master of Public Health Program in 2016.
She found that the program was robust yet flexible enough to allow her to continue to work full-time while earning her degree. She also found the program included many resourceful and personable instructors who offered exceptional guidance.
“I felt that the program was accessible, flexible and accommodating. After completing the program’s capstone project, I knew that I had gained the skillset to probe and answer important research questions,” says LeBruin, who lives in Burlington. “The program gave me a lens into epidemiology and population health. It provided a broader understanding of the value of my input in the lab day-to-day and the important work that we’re doing to help solve public health problems.”
After growing up in the West Indies on the island of Dominica, LeBruin graduated from SUNY Plattsburgh with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and earned her master’s degree in chemistry at UVM. While working on her master’s thesis on the self-assembly of collagen mimetic peptides, she felt compelled to connect her basic science background to clinical and translational research.
This desire was further ignited when she joined the LCBR in 2013, and ultimately led to her decision to pursue a public health master’s degree at UVM.
LeBruin’s role at the LCBR entails clinical trial core laboratory research support and data management. The LCBR focuses on understanding risk factors for heart disease, stroke, venous thrombosis, obesity, diabetes, aging, and frailty using a wide variety of assays in population and family-based research settings.
UVM’s 42-credit, online public health master’s degree, developed in collaboration with the Larner College of Medicine, prepares students for a variety of public health careers, such as the kind of work LeBruin oversees at LCBR.
“The public health program helped build the foundation for this next step in my career,” she says. “It was an amazing program, and it changed my life.”
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

Maternity Leave and the Small Business Owner

By law, all businesses are required to provide a certain amount of maternity leave to employees. The time allowed for maternity leave depends on a number of factors, including state and federal regulations, eligibility, type of maternity leave, etc. For the small business owner, maternity leave has a much greater impact than it does on a larger corporation. If a small business only has a few employees, losing one for a few months is going to have a huge impact, not to mention the fact that setting up a maternity leave policy is a confusing proposition at best. Here are some of the things you need to know about before creating a maternity leave policy for your small business.

Federal and State Laws

The first thing you need to look into are the federal and state laws, which can get pretty confusing, especially for the small business owner. For instance, if you have 50 or more employees, you are required by federal law to provide at least 12 weeks of unpaid leave, both for childbirth and for the adoption of a child. If you have fewer than 50 employees, the Federal government doesn’t require you to provide this maternity leave. But, you may still be required to provide this benefit, under certain circumstances.
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act requires employers to treat all pregnant employees as they would treat employees who have temporary disabilities if a woman is unable to perform all of her duties due to her pregnancy. There are also state laws, which are completely separate from federal regulations. For instance, under the California Family Rights Act, employers must provide 12 weeks of unpaid leave, and in some cases they are required to also provide six weeks of paid leave.
You can learn more about your state requirements by visiting the US Department of Labor website. States that do have maternity policy requirements are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, and Washington.

Eligibility

“The next consideration is eligibility, as it is not only pregnant women who are eligible for maternity or parental leave. Your maternity/paternity leave policy will need to be explicit about who is eligible for this leave,” says an expert from Forest Hills Medical Services. FMLA regulations require that employees must work a minimum of 12 months or 1,250 hours in the previous 12 months to qualify for 12 weeks of unpaid leave. But, if you have 50 employees or less, the amount of unpaid leave is at your own discretion (or applicable state laws) for your company policy.

Types of Maternity Leave

Once you have figured out the amount of time that employees are going to be able to have for maternity leave, you need to consider the various types of maternity leave in order to create your company policy. There are three types of maternity leave:
  • Intermittent Leave – This is short-term leave, to cover medical appointments, emergencies, etc.
  • Reduced Schedule Leave – This is when the employee still works, but reduces their hours to fit in with their physical needs.
  • Block of Time Leave – This is when the employee needs an extended period of time away from work, usually granted after childbirth or if there are complications during the pregnancy.

Paid Leave

Finally, you need to decide whether or not you are going to offer paid leave. While this is not a federal or state requirement, many companies do offer this to their employees. If you have valued employees who you want to see return to your company, paid maternity leave is definitely a good incentive to offer.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

Integrity and ethics are the strongest qualities great institutions need to instill in students, says MIT prof at a principal’s conclave in Bengaluru

Bengaluru, 23 December 2019:

Principals from across India and Education leadership participated in The Principal Conclave
Principals from across India and Education leadership participated in The Principal Conclave

The next generation must prepare itself in a completely new manner if it wants to survive, thrive and find meaning in the emerging future. Mainstream higher education systems are falling short in preparing next generation for the 21st century. These changing times demand for changes in higher education. In order to bridge the gap between secondary and higher education, a Principal’s Conclave was hosted by Atria University at the Radisson Blu Atria, today. The event was attended by over 35 Principals from across India and Education leadership from across the world.

Dr. Babi Mitra, Executive Director NEET program at MIT delivering keynote at The Principal Conclave 2019
Dr. Babi Mitra, Executive Director NEET program at MIT delivering keynote at The Principal Conclave 2019

Dr. Babi Mitra, Executive Director, New Engineering Education Transformation program at MIT, during his key note address, said, “One of the strongest qualities of great institutions is trust and Atria University is working towards building the trust in student and teaching community. We need to create visionaries and empower them to evolve as confident, curious and creative-solution drivers equipped to tackle challenges and convert them into opportunities, whatever and wherever their context.”

 

He said that it is important to consider six elements to it make more effective to make learning more engaging. Bold vision, stakeholder engagement, strong complementary team, pragmatism, piloting and thinking, and acting like a start up can help create a committed pedagogy for the benefit of students, he said.

Mr Sunder Raju - Chairman of Atria University
Mr Sunder Raju – Chairman of Atria University

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Sunder Raju, Founder and Trustee, Atria University, said, “There is a need to contemplate and engage with insightful discussions on designing student-centred learning experience. Through Principal Conclave, I wish we create a process that facilitates a learning design that leaves behind its footprint for how a new age child will be trained, developed, and evolved.”

 

“At Atria University, we want to help nurture the future citizen who can stand on their own feet in the real world. We are earnestly working to understand students better and recreate their personal learning journey. We are also creating individual customizable learning paths to encourage and foster their creative and critical thinking.” Said Mr. Kaushik Raju, Trustee, Atria University.

Left to right - Dr Alana Sobelman - Dr Arjendu Pattanayak - Dr Nagaraj K Arakere - Dr Sriram Kalyanaram - Kaushik Raju Director of Technicl Education Atria University
Left to right – Dr Alana Sobelman – Dr Arjendu Pattanayak – Dr Nagaraj K Arakere – Dr Sriram Kalyanaram – Kaushik Raju Director of Technicl Education Atria University

Anuradha Anekal, Principal, Deccan International School, who participated in the conclave said, “Students and parents these days are exposed to diverse subject matters. With information at their fingertips, they are able to make a learned choice about the stream they can choose. The conclave has shown way to different methodologies and helps educators to engage actively with learning experience.”

 

Shaheem Rahiman, CEO, Atria University said “It is gratifying to hear large number of Principals and Academicians across the world endorse our idea of Higher Education. I am grateful to Principals for the significant contributions towards defining an exceptional learning experience for our students. The workshops topics were intensely discussed with animated participation, all aimed at creating a launch pad for our future, that are our students.”

 

Creating new pedagogy

Experts and educators such as Dr. Alana Sobelman, Lecturer of Comparative Literature and Psychoanalysis at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Be’er Sheva, Israel, Dr. Arjendu Pattanayak Former Associate Dean of Carleton College, USA, Dr. Nagaraj K. Arakere Professor, Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Florida, and Dr. Sriram ‘Sri’ Kalyanaraman, Director, Media Effects and Tech Lab, University of Florida, participated in the conclave. More than 50 principals from across the country and academicians from across the globe attended the Conclave.

 

Atria University, through this day-long conclave, aims to create a new learning design that eases a student’s transition from secondary school learning to the higher education framework. The proposed suggestions on a new learning design would be produced as a working publication. This would be a compilation of the day’s recommendations from delegates with respect to transitional elements of higher education and a design outline for an innovative curriculum that reflects our ever-evolving global world.

 

Atria University is currently awaiting their State Private University status.