Role Models

Perhaps I'm seeing only what I want to see, but it seems that the advice from upperclassmen here at law school has been rather lackluster. Is it because of a competitive atmosphere here? I hope not, they tried to sell us on how uncompetitive it was (a somewhat ridiculous thing you here when law schools recruit you... of course it's competitive damnit. I don't care if companies don't see your GPA/class standing until right before they interview you, you won't get a callback if you're ranked last)

Anyways, I haven't talked to too many upperclassmen yet, but it seems like the ones I have talked to haven't really figured this thing out themselves. All of them have their own study quirks and their own goals, their own different hopes about where their law school journey will take them.

I expected to maybe get some advice from them, because I don't really know what I'm doing yet or even what I want to do. I feel like a blank slate. I could see myself doing something with a big firm, or working for the government, or really, anything. I came into law school with no pre-conceived notions on what I wanted to be doing other than the hope that whatever I did would pay down my student loans in a timely fashion.

But advice is not to be had from the orientation lectures or our upperclassmen who are supposed to be advising us. The upperclassmen I've talked to have seemed just as unsure or just as lost as we are sometimes. It seemed like they were second-guessing their own career and school choice. It was as though they were seeking our approval just as much as we sought theirs for our plans and goals in law school.

I found it a bit disheartening that 2L's so far down the road of doing public interest work or in the middle of OCI's (on campus interviews) could be so unsure of their life choices. It reinforced both the speed at which the 1L's have to make their own decisions (start hunting for those 1L summer jobs in just a few months) and recent lectures the law school has made us attend.

It's all a bit overwhelming. Thank goodness it's the weekend, it's too bad I have all this reading I have to do and that I have no idea/don't understand what we did this week.