PS Draft - Advice? Forum

[barkgarry]

Hey everyone, I worked more on a PS draft that I have and was hoping for some input/criticism. The conclusion needs to be drawn out more/improved so if you have any advice on that specifically I'd love to hear it. Thanks!

In May 2015, with my tenure as President of the [student group] coming to a close, I was sitting in my office at the [student union] typing out an exit report for the person elected to replace me. I had been an executive of this group since my freshman year, and it formed the bulk of my extracurricular activity at [university]. Writing this document intended to sum up four years of experiences caused a lot of personal reflection. It brought into focus how the [student group] shaped my time at [university] as well as what I wanted in my future. My work with the [student group] fueled my interest in law school.

When I joined the six-person executive team of the [student group], it was a club that had existed for less than a year, had a tiny budget, and even fewer members. This lack in numbers was compensated with ambition. There was no other student organization on campus dedicated to fostering the musical community at [university]. We had three main objectives at the beginning – to get more funding, to secure a jam room, and to spread the word. As VP Communications, that third goal was primarily my job. I wrote newsletters, I promoted events; I would even strike up a conversation with anyone I saw on campus carrying an instrument.

By the end of 2012, our membership had grown to around 400, which was extremely rare for a student organization just over a year old. We were also made a student service – meaning that we provided a non-exclusive service to students at [university] and received better funding than clubs – by the [student union] and were granted a dingy but spacious room in the sub-basement of the student building to be our jam space. Figuring out how to operate the jam room was one of the most interesting tasks during my time with the [student group].

If there were going to be lots of students using the space and the instruments in it, there needed to be some policies in place to prevent our equipment from being damaged. I helped to devise terms of use that required those who booked the jam room to assume liability for damage done to instruments, and to promise to request assistance from an executive for any piece of equipment that they weren’t sure how to use. However, there was a huge grey area – instruments suffer wear and tear. Based on the sheer number of students using our drum set, for example, the kit would naturally and inevitably be damaged. What we actually wanted was to prevent abuse of our equipment, not to punish someone for picking the wrong day to practice drums.

This led to a long discussion about what actually constituted “abuse” of our instruments, as well as how to prove and prevent it. I found it hard to pin down a working definition. The concern wasn’t just about someone smashing a guitar like Pete Townshend, it was also about the risk of people simply not giving an instrument the appropriate level of care. The latter case was hard to thoroughly cover with some description of the term “abuse.” The most practical definition I could come up with was essentially “I know it when I see it.”
As a result, there was a meeting about the prospects of installing a security camera in the jam room, since it was neither feasible nor desirable to have an Executive sitting in on every jam session to make sure equipment was being used properly. I was opposed to a camera. There were so few problems that I felt that constant surveillance flew in the face of the trust that the vast majority of students who used the room had earned. I managed to convince some of the other Executives that buying a security camera was an over-the-top response and unjustified.

I loved my time with the [student group] both for helping the music scene at [university] to flourish and because of the unexpected questions and issues, such as those surrounding the jam room, which arose. I learned how to analyze matters critically in a way that I believe would be applicable to law school and law itself.