The Path To Choose...

[hermoine]

The reason why I'm posting this is that I require some feedback from you guys. Now I know that none of you know me in real life and that can make a bit of a difference seeing how I'm more at ease when talking to anyone in particular over the Internet.

However, as you may perhaps know, for these past few years I had it lodged in my brain that I wanted to become a lawyer, specialising either in EU Law or Family Law. Yesterday however a friend of mine was telling me how she thinks I should really consider becoming a journalist, because I love writing and I may not be the person mostly apt to get up and defend someone in court (which is true in a way; I have this tendency, mostly influenced by my somewhat shy nature, to keep my mouth shut when I know the damn answer).

I had considered journalism at one point however I wasn't particularly fascinated by it because I do not wish to end up running after news reports and spoofs. If I have to be a journalist I just want to write what comes to my mind, editorials, satire, and not relating to simply the latest news from whatever part of the country. Now personally I've always dreamt of doing one thing: taking up a particular career but then hopefully being able to support myself as a full-time writer.

The reason why my friend mostly suggested I go for journalism is because it would really help me improve my style. I'd be tackling writing 100%. Thing is becoming an Editor is tough, especially considering the limited amount of newspapers (of which only 3 are in English) over here. (actually it's tough no matter what profession you choose. There are a bazillion lawyers around, so in whatever you do in life you have to be the best of the crop. That's the way to succeed).

What scares me in this is that I might get annoyed, seeing how then writing becomes my means of living...

[nancy]

Go for law and tackle that tendency of yours. Stop keeping your mouth shut when you know what is right and what's not. Do law.
You could always do journalism on the side.
If it helps with anything, I'm going into science (biotechnology, actually,) but I adore to write, both fiction and short nonfiction pieces. And I will continue to pursue that as well: I'm joining a literary workshop in university next year, for example, and short-essay writing is a sort of hobby of mine.
So, and this is, of course, only my humble opinion, I'd say go into law, but never stop writing. You could, for example, be a renowned lawyer but write guest editorials for papers every now and then. You'd never have to be chasing the latest news then, eh?

[KoNeko]

The good thing about doing legal practice is that you can always write journal articles and whatnot at the same time. That's what law academics do, and if you wanted to switch into journalism full time later, if you already had a legal background it would give you more of a grounding to specialize in a particular area such as law reports or political correspondence or something.