Putting It All Together

At today's orientation, either the Dean or one of the professors said that they were so strict with the deadlines because this is the end, this is the finishing line of our education. And wow, what a crazy thought. My whole life I have been going through school to get good grades to go do more schooling. Yet, what I learn here will actually apply to my job and impact other people's lives.

I guess the real world application of everything I learn in law school is one of the pluses that will help me get through the pages and pages of reading. I mean, as much as I loved political science and see it very relevant as I follow politics and occassionally dabble in it, most of what I learned was to develop my thinking skills rather than be relevant to my future profession. Yet today when doing a sample briefing of a case, all the synapses in my mind were firing at full speed because the things we were trying to figure out were so relevant to our day to day lives. The best part was that I really enjoyed doing it. I remember when we ran into Alex's friend and he said how he loved law school, even contracts because he just sees it everyday. I thought he was crazy until I had to do a brief for a contract today.

I know that they probably gave us an easy example to brief but I realized that the way they were telling us how to think and look at a situation is the methodology that I really enjoy. Being very detail orientated, I loved trying to pick out all the little facts of the case to see what was relevant to the issue of the case. Trying to figure out larger themes in life, as evidenced by a lot of my blogs, was important when trying to determine what kind of broader legal question was being addressed in the case. As demonstrated by my inability to make decisions, we were told to look at both sides of an issue. And finally, I get to pull out my persuasion skills when I have to cite evidence of how a judge came up with a certain ruling. It was as though everything that I like to do I got to do by analyzing this case.

I wouldn't really say going to law school was a leap of faith, but there's a certain element of risk because it's sometimes hard to determine if the law is right for you. Obviously, I haven't even started classes yet so I can't say affirmatively that I'm going to love this. However, if today was any indication of the type of thinking and working that I'll have to do, then I know it will be well worth all the hours and hours of work. And if worst comes to worst, I can make a career out of building IKEA furniture because I've gotten really good at that too.