Ask HN: 200k student debt, degrees not very useful. What to do?

Re:Ask HN: 200k student debt, degrees not very useful. What ... by throwawaylaw on Tuesday January 17, 2012 @01:24AM (#3473988)

I have lots of friends going into patent law.

But most of them have PhDs in the hard sciences and if you look at job listings they tend to want that.

Oh and don't worry about more debt, I don't think that's possible at this point :)

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Re:Ask HN: 200k student debt, degrees not very useful. What ... by teyc on Tuesday January 17, 2012 @01:40AM (#3474020)

While PhD may sound like a qualifying area, I don't think you should necessarily give up.

The reason is a PhD in, say, Chemical Engineering, doesn't really help with electronic patents do they?

Read up on Groklaw the issues at hand and see if you can mount any interesting arguments / twists. If you have enough knack, then at the very least you'll sound like a qualified candidate.

Otherwise, try for a side entry via some kind of pro-bono work for the EFF.

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