Sincere Inquiry from a Starter

[fortook]

Just stop posting there. I got banned for no apparent reason (or mentioned, I even emailed and asked- no response)  by some fool mod with a pic of a Texan bringing down the gavel in hatred- seriously man, for real, an angry Texan- meh, someone feel small and weak?  Never went back after that.  I don't really have the desire to deal with d bags like that, I can remember high school and well, just don't want to relive that silliness.

Like I said, people with inferiority complexes are lame and it gets old- I will deal with them, often manipulatively, if I have to but never will I deal with them if I don't have to.

[Jhuen_the_bird]

I checked out TLS out of curiosity, and it does seem somewhat of a douchey place ... whenever people would be even slightly bantering or disagreeing in a thread, a mod seems to have swooped in and "closed the thread down" or whatever.  How lame and unrealistic of real life.  They also seem to be in complete and utter denial of the state of the legal economy right now.  I hate to be a doom and gloom person, and I try to be positive, but it's rough out there and they all seem like "Oh ho ho ... that won't affect me b/c I'll be graduating from a T14 in the top of my class and the economy will be sunshine and rainbows in 3 years!" ... well, good luck with that.

I do miss posting / hanging out here back when it was booming!  There were a lot of people here who really helped me out in applying in '06 from just general advice / encouragement to actually picking apart my personal statement with me.  I'm glad I came before the fall, I guess!

[Henri_Allen]

I am entering college in 2012 fall and long to become a law school student for graduate school. I am planning to major in International Relations or Political Science in a women's college (admission results are coming out in March), such as Mount Holyoke, Smith or Bryn Mawr College.

I know it is definitely too early for me to do legitimate LSAT prep, but I want to know what type of course I should choose to benefit my college education in preparation for law school and the LSAT test? Or, anyone has good advice for starters?? Thanks!!

Getting back to the original post, a lot of people have suggested Econ for an undergrad, but the bottom line is, if you aren't interested in Economics and aren't very good at math, you may really struggle to keep your GPA up. This will inevitably make your college experience terrible. You want to be able to enjoy this time. If you've got a legitimate interest in another field and feel that you will do well and enjoy the classes, go that route. In the long run, the job market will get better. So don't stress about that either. Enjoy yourself in the present while you keep one eye on your future!

[Jeffort]

I am entering college in 2012 fall and long to become a law school student for graduate school. I am planning to major in International Relations or Political Science in a women's college (admission results are coming out in March), such as Mount Holyoke, Smith or Bryn Mawr College.

I know it is definitely too early for me to do legitimate LSAT prep, but I want to know what type of course I should choose to benefit my college education in preparation for law school and the LSAT test? Or, anyone has good advice for starters?? Thanks!!

Getting back to the original post, a lot of people have suggested Econ for an undergrad, but the bottom line is, if you aren't interested in Economics and aren't very good at math, you may really struggle to keep your GPA up. This will inevitably make your college experience terrible. You want to be able to enjoy this time. If you've got a legitimate interest in another field and feel that you will do well and enjoy the classes, go that route. In the long run, the job market will get better. So don't stress about that either. Enjoy yourself in the present while you keep one eye on your future!

It's important to choose an UG major that focuses on subjects you are interested in, otherwise you could end up miserable trying to get yourself to study subjects and topics you loath/don't care about, which will negatively impact your GPA. 

Also, when you select a major it is not a sealed in stone lifetime commitment you cannot back out of.  Many people change majors while in UG as they explore subjects and figure out what fits.  Plus, most schools also let you minor in something so you can get a broader education with exposure not limited to one particular field. 

Whichever major one goes with, to help be better be prepared for the LSAT and law school, it's a good idea to take a statistics class(es), basic logic/philosophy class(es) as well as English/humanities/language or other related classes that involve a lot of reading and writing. 

Law school and beyond involves reading a lot of dense text that is complex/sometimes cryptic as well as a lot of writing.  Best to get used to doing that while also enjoying several years in the non-real world cocoon of earning an UG degree and staying focused on keeping your GPA up.  Also, build up your vocabulary as you go.  Whenever you encounter a word you are unfamiliar with while reading something, look it up in the dictionary, perhaps even build a set of index cards with words you look up.  Write the word on one side, the definition on the other side, and go through them to quiz yourself from time to time.  It doesn't take much time to do that with flash cards as you go, a minute or two at most per word you come across and are uncertain about.  Get in the habit and the stack will build over time.  You can get little plastic index card holder boxes really cheap at office supply stores to keep them in. 

RE:  The TLS banning issue.  I got banned again over there again on Saturday night.  I do not understand their moderation philosophies, it doesn't seem to make sense or have a consistent rational basis. They apparently banned me for posting some publicly available facts (URL links to official registration databases available to the public by law and government entities) about a spammer in response to the guys spam thread advertising LSAT tutoring services that included the dudes real name.  The guy is a convicted registered sex offender that got busted for possession of child pornography.  I figured that information would be important to know for people considering handing over a bunch of $$ to spend private one-on-one LSAT tutoring time with the guy.  Apparently TLS moderators didn't agree and decided to protect a pervert and kick me, a long time poster giving free LSAT prep and law school advice on the boards out instead.  Go figure. 

[fortook]

Arg, please don't make me agree with TLS mods.  Banning should be used so rarely as to be closer to never rather than always, unless you're an angry kid moderating TLS of course.

However, what does his crim rec have to do with anything related to the LSAT?  Why would you care?  I want to make it my mission to remove those silly registries.  Value judging is too dangerous a human problem.  We know better than to facilitate it. 

P.S. I know I have to preemptively say: child porn is bad.  Deviant sex stuff is bad.  Not trying to justify the behavior, just saying its not a global indicator of everything (or very much at all for that matter).  We don't need to be the fool that sets someone up to fail then acts shocked when they fail. 

Signed,

Prostitute for life

[Julie Fern]

I am entering college in 2012 fall and long to become a law school student for graduate school. I am planning to major in International Relations or Political Science in a women's college (admission results are coming out in March), such as Mount Holyoke, Smith or Bryn Mawr College.

I know it is definitely too early for me to do legitimate LSAT prep, but I want to know what type of course I should choose to benefit my college education in preparation for law school and the LSAT test? Or, anyone has good advice for starters?? Thanks!!

Getting back to the original post, a lot of people have suggested Econ for an undergrad, but the bottom line is, if you aren't interested in Economics and aren't very good at math, you may really struggle to keep your GPA up. This will inevitably make your college experience terrible. You want to be able to enjoy this time. If you've got a legitimate interest in another field and feel that you will do well and enjoy the classes, go that route. In the long run, the job market will get better. So don't stress about that either. Enjoy yourself in the present while you keep one eye on your future!

shame on you returning original topic.

that what wrong with america.

[Jeffort]

Arg, please don't make me agree with TLS mods.  Banning should be used so rarely as to be closer to never rather than always, unless you're an angry kid moderating TLS of course.

However, what does his crim rec have to do with anything related to the LSAT?  Why would you care?  I want to make it my mission to remove those silly registries.  Value judging is too dangerous a human problem.  We know better than to facilitate it. 

P.S. I know I have to preemptively say: child porn is bad.  Deviant sex stuff is bad.  Not trying to justify the behavior, just saying its not a global indicator of everything (or very much at all for that matter).  We don't need to be the fool that sets someone up to fail then acts shocked when they fail. 

Signed,

Prostitute for life

In case you misunderstood.  I did not out the guys real name.  He posted with it as well as a link with his full name and pictures of himself.  That is what I responded to on TLS. It was a spam thread the guy started to market his new LSAT prep business.

I didn't even have to do any research on the guy other than following the link he posted and then one google search with his name I did to see what his LSAT prep biz is about since I'm an LSAT tutor and the guy seemed new to the LSAT prep biz.

Others may disagree, but I believe that a caught and convicted sex offender, especially for child porn, has no business teaching anybody anything, at least not people that are unaware of the teachers prior 'bad acts'.  Child porn doesn't just randomly end up in a persons possession unintentionally (by cruising legal internet porn sites for instance), the person getting caught with it by the police, then prosecuted and convicted after judicial and prosecution scrutiny.  I think it's fair to assume it wasn't an instance of innocently cruising the internet, viewing some web pages/following a few links and some images from illegal sites getting stored in the cache on the hard drive. 

The information IS relevant to potential customers seeking to pay for one-on-one LSAT prep services and deciding who to hire in order to prepare to get into the legal field, which, in order to function properly and fairly, relies a lot on the character, ethics, integrity and morality of the participants. 

That's my view and it will not change.
 

[fortook]

Meh, Those kind of wild generalizations is what's really wrong with America.  Sadly, the majority of people will relate to you void of the obvious logical holes.  Come on man, you're an LSAT tutor, you have to understand where I'm coming from.

Please explain again how his child porn case is in any way connected with the LSAT. Put another way, say you were using his sexual preferences or desires to make a global "character" based decision that connects unrelated things- like say condemning someone for gay sex used to determine if the person is good at math.

P.S. I am not condoning child porn.  Keep heart, I cannot win this argument either.  I'd have just a difficult time trying to explain how the mid east invasions are crusades (just replace "Christianity" with "democracy" and everything else fits, but now you see democracy is sacrosanct- which frickin strengthens the argument- arg).  Regardless of truth, you can't tell people thing the don't want to hear.  People want to think you can take a small piece of info and use the powers of induction to understand everything about a person, its stupid but its human.

[Jeffort]

Meh, Those kind of wild generalizations is what's really wrong with America.  Sadly, the majority of people will relate to you void of the obvious logical holes.  Come on man, you're an LSAT tutor, you have to understand where I'm coming from.

Please explain again how his child porn case is in any way connected with the LSAT. Put another way, say you were using his sexual preferences or desires to make a global "character" based decision that connects unrelated things- like say condemning someone for gay sex used to determine if the person is good at math.

P.S. I am not condoning child porn.  Keep heart, I cannot win this argument either.  I'd have just a difficult time trying to explain how the mid east invasions are crusades (just replace "Christianity" with "democracy" and everything else fits, but now you see democracy is sacrosanct- which frickin strengthens the argument- arg).  Regardless of truth, you can't tell people thing the don't want to hear.  People want to think you can take a small piece of info and use the powers of induction to understand everything about a person, its stupid but its human.

I disagree that I made any wild generalizations.  Please point out the logical holes you see. 

We are not discussing a closed universe LSAT LR argument where you can only reason in and infer things from the few sentences presented and are not allowed to bring in outside knowledge except for common sense and basic pedestrian/warranted assumptions about the topic of the argument.

It's a matter of character, previous behavior and possible future behavior that can be seriously harmful to young people that get victimized.   

Haven't you watched any of the many Dateline "To Catch a Predator" episodes?  They produced tons of them.  Those alone, and I'm not basing my judgment simply on that show, contain mountains of evidence which demonstrate that people who desire and seek to obtain sexual gratification from underage children (in whatever form, in person, with pictures, videos, online chats, etc.) have super high recidivism rate and frequently cannot resist their urges to do it again, even when they know it is wrong and that they may be caught again and locked up.

Beyond the Dateline series, there are mountains of peer reviewed studies about sex offenders that contain many verified statistics and well done research from law enforcement agencies and respected academics that have focused on studying the problem.

One of the well held conclusions that has even been agreed to be true by many repeat convicted offenders is that there is no cure, and that people with pedophilia sexual desires keep having the strong urges to seek gratification and do it again even though they know they are risking serious prison time and that it is wrong.  Basically, they cannot help themselves with the urges and desires to get off that way.

So, to connect the dots of relevance, the question is simple. 

Should a documented caught and convicted guy with proven deviant sexual desires that according to science and research he will continue to have and may again act on be teaching/tutoring young impressionable people one-on-one in private without them knowing about his predisposition before agreeing to hire the guy as their teacher? 

It doesn't matter how well he knows the LSAT and the logic it tests.  I'm sure many serial killers, child molesters, mobsters and other types of criminals that have hurt people in serious ways are experts at all sorts of things they could teach others about.  Does that make it ok for them to be allowed to teach students without their informed consent and knowledge of the character and serious criminal behavior patterns/history of the teacher and possible risks getting involved with and interacting with that teacher and type of person carry along?  I say NOOOOO!

If the dude discloses it up front and some people are willing to hire him and trust him, then that is fine with me.  Take your own risk.  My main focus is on disclosure, especially in this context with young impressionable people seeking a good teacher/tutor to spend time and work with in person. It sucks, but in reality there are bad people out there in the world that do bad things to other people they try to hide while frequently putting forward a 'nice guy next door' public persona.  There are many very strong legitimate reasons behind the lifetime sex offender registry laws and freely accessible/searchable public databases/registries. 

Think about this question: 
As a mother or father, if your child wants to go to law school and asks you to pay for a private tutor, while sorting through the many options available, would you opt to hand over a lot of $$ to a guy you knew had already committed a very serious sexual offense crime and let your child spend time with and be taught by that person in private one-on-one sessions? 

[fortook]

Logical hole- child porn conviction = bad person = bad at LSAT prep = you better person = you good at LAST prep = go pay for your services.

You can't use logic then say, "think about it as a parent"- emotional generalization. Arg.

To Catch A Predator was wrong on so many levels. Are you really using that to infer (note not deduce) how the world is?

I'm not saying child porn is good, just that its unrelated to your criticism without unacceptable generalization.

If you say to me: Hitler was a cannibal. And I say, Nope he was a vegetarian.  Am I defending Hitler by pointing out you are wrong on the facts.   Holocaust murderer does not = cannibal.

"Character" is so wild and varying a concept as to not exist.  There are people that think Hitler had "good character".