Confused

So there is a pretty good chance that I'm just full of it and have no idea what I'm doing. But I've been thinking a bit recently about going into law school after getting my one year master's out in Cali. There are several reasons for this line of thought: probably all irrational and stupid. Maybe this is just a phase and will pass, but we'll see. Alas, I shall elaborate.

I did well in undergraduate engineering. That's fine. I know I can do engineering. I can be at least a decent geotechnical engineer. The problem is that I never really liked the design aspect, which in geotechnical engineering, is pretty much the end all be all of it. At least according to alot of people and is how I feel. I want to do research, but mainly I think I want to teach. This of course requires a PhD.

The turmoil arises with my experiences with research. I do find it interesting and intellectually stimulating I guess you could say. However, I don't know if I even really want to do that. The more I get exposed to different aspects of the business, I find myself a little disillusioned with all things engineering research: governmental and educational.

a) I am interested in the mathematical and computer modeling side of engineering. But, depending on who you ask (and in reality, there really is alot of thumb-waving that goes on that works perfectly fine, at least I feel like it is), there is not much in the modeling side of this section of engineering. Mainly for reasons that I don't really want to get into, if you want to discuss or contend, then send me an email (even though no one reads this haha).

b) Engineering research involves a lot of tweaking and not really alot of groundbreaking stuff. I mean, it seems somewhat exciting, but in other aspects, not so much. It's hard to put it in text, but I have somewhat began to feel it this summer. It's like I (we) am not really doing anything important, just some academic exercise to prove something useless (which is NOT what engineering and good engineers, should be about. Engineering is about helping advance society's well-being). Which is beginning to be my disillusion with it, although maybe this will change when I get out to California, but that is yet to be seen of course.

c) I want to teach. I feel like I really enjoy helping other people understand concepts that I feel like I have a good grasp of. Whether I am any good at it is another story, but whatever. However, I really didn't like teachers who were teaching with no real experience to add to their teaching repetoire. Sure one can do just fine research without industry experience, but I don't think that I would feel confident and satisfied teaching design engineering courses without actually having done this myself for a good enough time period to get an "expert" grasp of the topic. However, as I previously stated, I haven't really particularly enjoyed the idea of design/consulting work, but maybe that is part of it..

All these reasons have led me to begin to (perhaps preemptively and jokingly) consider going to law school. To be honest, when I was a child, I originally wanted to be an attorney but mainly backed out of that when I discovered I was decent at math and problem solving and was not good at public speaking, etc.

Furthermore, about 4 months ago or so, a grad student at state kind of put the bug in my mind of going to law school. The idea would be to go into patent law as a way to use my engineering background to help me prove, legally, one patent over another. At least that is the initial, niave impression that I have. It's probably nothing like that, but I'll find out after I've spent $150k on the schooling right?! :) But really I am open to just the general idea of going to law school and becoming a lawyer. I think I have the mind, work ethic, and desire to do it (maybe not the desire but right now I think I do).

Of course if I do that, that will probably entail taking out loans, which could be trouble, but if I get to find that it is really what I want to do, then it will be worth it and I am confident I would be as successful in that field as I have been thus far in engineering and would be no trouble getting a job to pay those off. Of course I am also an optimist, so there's that..

I suppose my path forward is to talk to a few lawyers and some trusted people to hear their opinions and see what they think. If I continue to think about this in the next few weeks, I may go ahead and start studying for the LSAT and try to take it before school starts in the fall.. Moreover, if I can't do well (I have high expectations of at least 170 to even bother with this whole business) on it, then I'll probably just put this out of my mind for good. But, if I do well on it... then I will have to do some deep thinking and discussing to figure this whole "what you want to do for the rest of your life" crap. Of course I could always do it and then pay off loans, then fall back on engineering. Wouldn't be a problem: I'm kind of a big deal.