Personal Statement. Be brutal, please. Forum

[eyescream]

The soreness of a 12-hour shift gave way to elation as I filed the day’s story with my editor. Earlier that Monday, he, like me, had shambled into the newsroom and pored through e-mails from the day before. One stood out: Two friends enjoying a malty, early-morning sojourn on the beach, right before a Miami Beach Police ATV crashed through them. The day was a flurry of finding out who they were and getting in touch with their friends and family, combing sources, and piecing together what happened before any of the other news agencies in Miami could. When we threw the story online and put the final edits on the next day’s print edition, there was a sense of relief and ecstasy at having scooped everyone else. For an intern, it was an incredible story.

But through these emotions a thought stayed nestled in my head: I would be arriving home to the cackle and pop of fireworks celebrating the Fourth; the two friends would be stuck in intensive care. As importantly, what would happen to them, as well as to the police officer who earlier drank in uniform at a bachelorette party before saddling aboard his ATV? I was reminded of a quip the Roman satirist Juvenal made: “Who watches the watchmen?”

In this case the District Attorney’s office did, as I learned later while working on follow-up stories and speaking with the public prosecutors investigating the case. In general, though, it was the law.

That Fourth of July was not the first time I felt for another’s hurts, nor was it the first time I had given a thought toward the law. But it was the first time I had seriously considered pursuing it, especially after speaking with the prosecutors at the District Attorney’s office.
In school I had dabbled some in jurisprudence. Through classes in Social Philosophy and Law and Literature, I learned about justice through thinkers like John Rawls and Michael Sandel, while Franz Kafka and Upton Sinclair helped me to see the law more clearly through fiction. These classes went back to back with several semesters’ worth of logic and critical thinking courses, which eventually culminated in a year-long independent study on Modal Logic and Metatheory. Had I not also been studying journalism and writing for several publications, I may have become the quintessentially bookish philosopher. I went from writing on the unfairness of athletic scholarships at my university for my student newspaper to, after much work, reporting on an orphanage owner in Haiti allegedly sexually abusing his charges and poring over hundreds of pages of court documents. While there in Miami, justice and law moved from theory and fiction to reality.



I plan on adding a few grafs on my focus (constitutional law or litigation) and how I would fit into the law schools to which I'm applying, as well as a snippet on future plans. This is mostly the bulk of it, though. Thanks for taking a look.

[CorkBoard]

The soreness of a 12-hour shift gave way to elation as I filed the day’s story with my editor. Earlier that Monday, he, like me, had shambled into the newsroom and pored through e-mails from the day before. One stood out: Two friends enjoying a malty, early-morning sojourn on the beach, right before a Miami Beach Police ATV crashed through them. The day was a flurry of finding out who they were and getting in touch with their friends and family, combing sources, and piecing together what happened before any of the other news agencies in Miami could. When we threw the story online and put the final edits on the next day’s print edition, there was a sense of relief and ecstasy at having scooped everyone else. For an intern, it was an incredible story.

But through these emotions a thought stayed nestled in my head: I would be arriving home to the cackle and pop of fireworks celebrating the Fourth; the two friends would be stuck in intensive care. As importantly, what would happen to them, as well as to the police officer who earlier drank in uniform at a bachelorette party before saddling aboard his ATV? I was reminded of a quip the Roman satirist Juvenal made: “Who watches the watchmen?”

In this case the District Attorney’s office did, as I learned later while working on follow-up stories and speaking with the public prosecutors investigating the case. In general, though, it was the law. This needs to go.

That Fourth of July was not the first time I felt for another’s hurts what? maybe say pain, nor was it the first time I had given a thought toward the law okay, why is that important?. But it was the first time I had seriously considered pursuing it, especially after speaking with the prosecutors at the District Attorney’s office.

In school I had dabbled some in jurisprudence. Through classes in Social Philosophy and Law and Literature, I learned about justice through thinkers like John Rawls and Michael Sandel, while Franz Kafka and Upton Sinclair helped me to see the law more clearly through fiction. These classes went back to back with several semesters’ worth of logic and critical thinking courses, which eventually culminated in a year-long independent study on Modal Logic and Metatheory. Had I not also been studying journalism and writing for several publications, I may have become the quintessentially bookish philosopher. I went from writing on the unfairness of athletic scholarships at my university for my student newspaper to, after much work, reporting on an orphanage owner in Haiti allegedly sexually abusing his charges and poring over hundreds of pages of court documents. While there in Miami, justice and law moved from theory and fiction to reality. This is a huge reach paragraph where you're trying WAY too hard to bring law into the picture.



I plan on adding a few grafs on my focus (constitutional law or litigation) and how I would fit into the law schools to which I'm applying, as well as a snippet on future plans. This is mostly the bulk of it, though. Thanks for taking a look.

You need to add more substantial writing in this piece. It seems vastly incomplete.

[eyescream]

Thanks for feedback. Will revise.