Getting Oriented

Today was our first day of orientation, and just like UCLA orientation, it was a big flurry of information thrown at you that evoked a lot of different emotions. There were parts of the day that made me nervous, happy, relieved, bored, etc. It's hard to even describe the really because we were thrown a lot of information. Here are some of the interesting things I learned from the actual orientation as well as informal observations that I made:

-The Chancellor and Dean of our law schools seem really cool and I liked hearing that the school wants us to succeed, not embarass anyone in class or promote cutthroat competition. I know that a lot of people might say this but the 2Ls & 3Ls definitely supported this claim.

-I'm a baby. Even though the average starting age is 24, it seems like so many other people I meet have been out of school for years, are married, and or has kids. Wedding rings all around! It's so surreal hearing everyone talk about their husbands or wives.

-I think I saw like 5-8 Asian people out of my class of 350. I must not be good at finding them because the stats say that there are more but nonetheless it's a huge change from UCLA. Also unlike UCLA, there is a sizable Hispanic and Black population here.

-If you thought the neighbors by Westwood were horrible, just come to the ritzy suburbs of DC. They protested the law school being built here so much that the school finally made an agreement that it was against the honor code for students to park on the streets around here, even if they paid to park in the general zone. Neighbors will literally follow you to your car if they have a suspicion that you are a student and look for books or a school sticker to prove you're a student and will report you to the Dean's office. True stories from older students.

-Everyone can easily identify by the first day the person who will be asking all the questions in class. The person who just likes to talk and talk even if it's not really related to the material or it just makes them sound smarter. For my section, it's the kid who sits in the front and center.

-Law school students like to drink, a lot. Some people even left orientation for happy hour. Also every week there is "bar review" where the law school kids pick a bar and all go to it Thursday after classes. As someone I met pointed out, "We think, we drink."

-Carrying my books home was not fun. That bag weighed a ton and I didn't even have all of them yet. This obviously means a ton of reading, see you next year!

-Law school kids really like to dress up, even for orientation. At UCLA I always thought I looked dressed up and now I guess I'll fit in.

All in all it was a pretty good day. Tomorrow the orientation is a lot lighter so that's good. And this weekend I look forward to putting together my furniture and hitting the books already. Oh first day class assignments. I long for the days when I thought a lot of work for the first day of class was some AP reading. Welcome to law school.