On the Same Boat

Before coming to law school, my roommate showed me a blog written by two law school students who pinpointed the 10 law school archetypes. While I didn't remember all their "10 People You Meet At Law School," my roommate and I came up with our own observations of the unique characters at law school (which probably do overlap with the categories in their blog). We've pinpointed "that guy", the probably nice but annoying person who must always shoot his hand up for every single question. There's the trendy talkative girl with the feathered hair and skinny jeans. There's "frat row," the pack of fraternity looking boys who will always sit together and leave things early for happy hour. There's the "loud guy," who you can hear wherever you go because he has the most piercing voice and makes the stupidest comments. There's the "old guy," coming back to get his law degree after years working. And so on and so forth.

Yet what unites us all, all of these usual suspects and the rest of us who haven't formed an identity for everyone else to pinpoint, is that we are all just trying to get through law school. Doesn't matter if you talk all the time or just when you're called on; whether you're old or young. You'll always see people bond over how much reading we have to do, how complicated the cases are, and even how heavy the books are to lug around everywhere. Whether people worked for a few years or came straight out of undergrad like me, this is a completely new academic setting for everyone and I don't think anyone is fully prepared for such a lifestyle change. Imagine it being like undergraduate finals week every day.

This isn't meant to be a "woe is me, look at how much work I have" entry (I save that for my away messages), but rather to say that it's kind of a special bond that I feel with my fellow law school students, whether at American or at any other law school. Being a 1L is kind of like being an equalizer amongst so many different groups of people who were fortunate enough to have the oppurtunity to go to law school.

And I couldn't even imagine having a roommate right now that wasn't in law school. It's nice coming home and having someone else who doesn't think you're a nerd for going back to reading after a long day of class and will be up late and act delirious with you when you're sick of reading another 16th century court case.