Stacey Said:

Careers that have flexible working hours and still good pay?

We Answered:

The occupations you list have very long hours, not flexible hours! Physicians (once they complete med school, residency, etc) in private practice work on average 60 - 80 hours a week. Bank managers stay until the day's books are completely reconciled, whether it's done by 6 pm or 2 am. PR - loads of events, etc, and you may have to start by 6-7 am after wrapping up at 2 am. I suppose you can call that "flexible" but YOU have to be flexible, not the job. Somehow I suspect that's not what you want.

Until you have worked your way up with several years of experience, you are not going to have any flexibility. You work when your employer needs you and no excuses. The one thing where you have some range to choose your hours is nursing. Once you have completed your education and have some experience, you have your choice of shifts, full- or part-time, hospital or clinic, or private practice. For example, one woman I know, after taking all her accrued vacation & sick leave to have a baby, chose to work 3 night shifts per week so hubby took care of baby from 6 pm to 6 am; she was home with baby every day + 4 nights/week. Takes some schedule juggling, but they were very happy with this arrangement until baby started kindergarten.

Basically, until you complete a good education and get several years experience in your career field, your life IS your work. Put in that effort, and you can have more choices - and better! - down the road.

Joann Said:

Need an insight between careers in teaching or lawyer?

We Answered:

Between real estate lawyer, public interest lawyer or elementary school teacher the choices are very different.

In terms of cost, in most states becoming a teacher is not that difficult or expensive but getting a law degree will take 3 years and a fair amount of money, so that might be a factor you want to consider.

Both as a public interest lawyer and as a teacher I think you can make a real positive impact but as a teacher I think that you make more of a day to day impact whereas as a public interest lawyer (unless you are a P.D. or prosecutor) I think your payoffs are not as immediate (but often larger in terms of helping a whole class of people).

If you are a real estate attorney for a large firm or even for a medium size firm, I think the pay will be far better than public interest law or teaching, but if you are leaving banking because of the hours, then don't go this route as working at a law firm is just as much of a grind.

I think, unfortunately, teaching is not as highly regarded in this country as it ought to be and its a very hard demanding job so I think you should be sure that you have a backup plan or that you are very committed before you leave banking to do it.

Patrick Said:

Out of the following careers, what is the most promising as of '08? Which will see growth andgoodcompensation?

We Answered:

Public Accounting

Investment banks are laying off and firing people like there's no tomorrow, because of the state of the economy, and the hit they took as a result of the mortgage crisis.

Public accounting is the best because you get a lot of exposure to different companies and industries. Also, once you get your designation you can work in many positions outside of public accounting. Because you work for many different clients, you get plenty of chances to network and meet managers of companies. Its pretty common that employees of public firms get recruited by the clients. The only downside is the long errors, but if you know it isn't permanent then suck it up for the short run, and wait until the job markets are hot and find another job.