I think this PS is genuine, but working to incorporate more law school
Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2016 9:18 pm
I have a few more lines of space and can obviously take some parts out, but I'm really trying to beef up my "why law" aspect of this PS. Also not super polished because I wanted to gauge response to the premise before I dove into too much proofreading and voice critique:
The second semester of my sophomore year at [School Redacted] began on a Plane to [Town Redacted] Spain with a life plan that I was convinced was concrete. Like many liberal young adults who grew up in the aftermath of the Financial Crisis, I believed that business was a necessary evil that could only function with the ever present oversight of a progressive Federal Government. This belief led to my conclusion at seventeen that I would attend [School Redacted] for a business degree, then on to law school, then I would commit my life to bringing these types of corporations to justice.
This motivation for idealistic justice and equality drove me through the first year and a half of my undergraduate career without issue. I excelled in my courses by compartmentalizing the hypothetical business practices being taught in my classes, and the true business practices I knew to exist in the real world. I may have been ready for the American teaching method, but I was woefully unprepared for the Spanish line of attack. Not only did business classes in Spain serve as a window to the perceived best practices of business in other cultures, but the Spanish professors also focused on providing a real world example of every lesson taught. We met with companies both large and small that focused on their workers, communities, and environments over short term profits. These ideals were of course also taught in my American classes, but it never resonated until that semester.
I returned to the United States reeling from this paradigm shift. The relative clarity of the realization begged the question; why had I spent so long oblivious to this way of thinking? I spent the next year searching myself for the answer while continuing to prepare for law school. I took the LSAT, researched the life of a law student and lawyer, and applied to schools with this fundamental question still burning inside of me. Near the end of my spring semester senior year I came to a conclusion. At seventeen years old I saw the mistakes corporate America made and became so afraid that if I went into corporate work I would always associate my work with those mistakes, and would never be able to take pride in what I did. It was for this reason that my goal in life was always diametrically opposed to corporate work. This realization cast significant doubt on my decision to attend law school. My research into the life of a lawyer and the legal thinking as taught in business law classes made me believe that I would enjoy and excel in the legal profession, but I needed to test that conclusion in fear that it was based on false premise. In April of 2016 I decided to test my beliefs and withdrew all pending applications to Law School to search for employment as an accountant after graduation in August.
The position at [Employment Redacted] was everything seventeen year-old me would have feared. Accounting for a large LLC in their corporate headquarters complete with cubicles, audits, and extensive Microsoft Excel. This was the perfect place to test my hypotheses. Thankfully, after one year in corporate America I have reached a conclusion on both issues. I have found ample opportunity to take pride in my work. I am proud to watch our young [Organization] interns grow in their time at [Company], to work for a company named the number [Top 5] green contractor in the country by Engineering News-Record, and perhaps most importantly, I am proud to know that strangers will rely on the financial statements my team created to make financial decisions about investments in [Company]. As proud as I am in my work, I am also now certain that my future lies in the law. In my continued research and interactions with the corporate legal team this past year I have confirmed my beliefs that I will be much more personally fulfilled working and studying law. In addition to all the aspects of legal study that interest me, I have also come to realize that many of the aspects of accounting I found interesting in study are also handled by legal teams in practice, specifically fact application as it pertains to revenue recognition and accounting regulation research.
The best choice I have ever made was the one to delay my entrance into law school. I am now prepared to begin my legal career with a better understanding of what that entails. Similarly, I now arrive with a more practical knowledge of business and corporate practices that can be utilized to offer more focused legal advice to any organization. Most importantly though, I will enter law school comfortable in my knowledge that no matter where my path travels these next few years, I will always be able to take pride in my legal work.
The second semester of my sophomore year at [School Redacted] began on a Plane to [Town Redacted] Spain with a life plan that I was convinced was concrete. Like many liberal young adults who grew up in the aftermath of the Financial Crisis, I believed that business was a necessary evil that could only function with the ever present oversight of a progressive Federal Government. This belief led to my conclusion at seventeen that I would attend [School Redacted] for a business degree, then on to law school, then I would commit my life to bringing these types of corporations to justice.
This motivation for idealistic justice and equality drove me through the first year and a half of my undergraduate career without issue. I excelled in my courses by compartmentalizing the hypothetical business practices being taught in my classes, and the true business practices I knew to exist in the real world. I may have been ready for the American teaching method, but I was woefully unprepared for the Spanish line of attack. Not only did business classes in Spain serve as a window to the perceived best practices of business in other cultures, but the Spanish professors also focused on providing a real world example of every lesson taught. We met with companies both large and small that focused on their workers, communities, and environments over short term profits. These ideals were of course also taught in my American classes, but it never resonated until that semester.
I returned to the United States reeling from this paradigm shift. The relative clarity of the realization begged the question; why had I spent so long oblivious to this way of thinking? I spent the next year searching myself for the answer while continuing to prepare for law school. I took the LSAT, researched the life of a law student and lawyer, and applied to schools with this fundamental question still burning inside of me. Near the end of my spring semester senior year I came to a conclusion. At seventeen years old I saw the mistakes corporate America made and became so afraid that if I went into corporate work I would always associate my work with those mistakes, and would never be able to take pride in what I did. It was for this reason that my goal in life was always diametrically opposed to corporate work. This realization cast significant doubt on my decision to attend law school. My research into the life of a lawyer and the legal thinking as taught in business law classes made me believe that I would enjoy and excel in the legal profession, but I needed to test that conclusion in fear that it was based on false premise. In April of 2016 I decided to test my beliefs and withdrew all pending applications to Law School to search for employment as an accountant after graduation in August.
The position at [Employment Redacted] was everything seventeen year-old me would have feared. Accounting for a large LLC in their corporate headquarters complete with cubicles, audits, and extensive Microsoft Excel. This was the perfect place to test my hypotheses. Thankfully, after one year in corporate America I have reached a conclusion on both issues. I have found ample opportunity to take pride in my work. I am proud to watch our young [Organization] interns grow in their time at [Company], to work for a company named the number [Top 5] green contractor in the country by Engineering News-Record, and perhaps most importantly, I am proud to know that strangers will rely on the financial statements my team created to make financial decisions about investments in [Company]. As proud as I am in my work, I am also now certain that my future lies in the law. In my continued research and interactions with the corporate legal team this past year I have confirmed my beliefs that I will be much more personally fulfilled working and studying law. In addition to all the aspects of legal study that interest me, I have also come to realize that many of the aspects of accounting I found interesting in study are also handled by legal teams in practice, specifically fact application as it pertains to revenue recognition and accounting regulation research.
The best choice I have ever made was the one to delay my entrance into law school. I am now prepared to begin my legal career with a better understanding of what that entails. Similarly, I now arrive with a more practical knowledge of business and corporate practices that can be utilized to offer more focused legal advice to any organization. Most importantly though, I will enter law school comfortable in my knowledge that no matter where my path travels these next few years, I will always be able to take pride in my legal work.
I understand the desire to save time, but it just winds up being more time-consuming for you and potentially helpful peeps. 