Care to give my PS a once-over?
Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2017 3:29 pm
Hey everybody, so I've been having some trouble really nailing down a direction and theme of my personal statement...the last one I threw up here to review got me some seriously great input and helped me craft this one. I don't have any exceptional stories of adversity or hardship, but I do have a strong motivation to go to law school, and I think diving in and dissecting that motivation is what will help me write my best personal statement. I've always been focused on what is and isn't fair, and how to make sure things are fair and just...so that's the theme. For as long as I can remember I've been particularly focused on justice and now not only want to learn how to discern what is and isn't just, but how to ensure what is just. Thanks in advance for any critique. It comes out to 2 pages double spaced.
For a majority of my early life I had been explicitly taught the importance of sharing with others. I grew up in day care alongside a sister who is two years my junior. Our parents both worked full time, however we were lucky to have a close family friend who ran a home daycare and agreed to watch us for a reasonable price. Her name was Diane, and she was more or less a third grandmother in our lives. Diane would watch anywhere from 3 to 7 kids at a time, and with a house full of children, a single television, and only so many toys, so many dollars, and so many Dianes, we were made aware early and often on the necessities of sharing and our duty to maintain equity among each other. This environment that I grew up in made any sort of inequality glaringly obvious. Some of these inequalities were allowed to stand, most were not, the important thing was that I noticed them and that I considered them, rolling them around in my mind as a way to shape my conception of justice.
Early on, the ruling adults in my life like Diane and my parents were the ones who mandated justice through equity, but over time I have come to understand the benefits that justice and equity offer society as a whole, and due to this understand I began to mandate it of myself and of those I came to surround myself with. As I matured and the necessity of justice became more and more clear to me, I began to try to understand fully just what the foundation of justice is, and how we ensure that justice is always done.
As you might expect, my favorite classes during undergrad were those concerning ethics. These classes showed me something I never knew I loved so much. I had always considered, perhaps too much at times, whether or not I was doing the right thing, I always did what I thought to be the right thing, however after I began studying ethics I felt I finally had the means to ultimately know what was the right thing. When I was taught these new ways of thinking, I realized finally that, in theory, I could know for certain how to behave in any given situation. While my understanding of justice is far from complete, it is surely more complete than it has ever been before. In law school I hope to not only further that understanding or what is just, but further my understanding of how to ensure that which is just.
Some people pursue a career in law because it is essentially their family business; they come from a long line of attorneys and feel that they have been bred for it. Others pursue it because they want to work in a relatively secure profession that can make them very wealthy. Others still pursue it because they feel drawn to it. Their personal values and world view forces them to conclude that in order to live their best life, they need to practice law; as it will help them do the most good for the most people. I belong to that latter group. The group who feels as if practicing law is a calling. The group who looks at a legal education not as a meal ticket or as a foregone conclusion due to their pedigree, but as a tool to create a better future. For my entire life, I have had a passion to ensure justice, and it is due to this passion for justice that I have such a strong desire to pursue a career in law.
I want to help ensure justice, no matter where I go. I understand that not every law student graduates and finds the legal career they expected or hoped for, but I do understand that justice is achievable in many different aspects of life. In certain aspects that justice is explicit and easy to achieve, while in others it is ambiguous and it’s discernment requires a greater amount of reasoning and argument. No matter what it is I do after my graduation from law school, I will do it with the desire and motivation to ensure justice for all, and I hope that your school can help me achieve that.
For a majority of my early life I had been explicitly taught the importance of sharing with others. I grew up in day care alongside a sister who is two years my junior. Our parents both worked full time, however we were lucky to have a close family friend who ran a home daycare and agreed to watch us for a reasonable price. Her name was Diane, and she was more or less a third grandmother in our lives. Diane would watch anywhere from 3 to 7 kids at a time, and with a house full of children, a single television, and only so many toys, so many dollars, and so many Dianes, we were made aware early and often on the necessities of sharing and our duty to maintain equity among each other. This environment that I grew up in made any sort of inequality glaringly obvious. Some of these inequalities were allowed to stand, most were not, the important thing was that I noticed them and that I considered them, rolling them around in my mind as a way to shape my conception of justice.
Early on, the ruling adults in my life like Diane and my parents were the ones who mandated justice through equity, but over time I have come to understand the benefits that justice and equity offer society as a whole, and due to this understand I began to mandate it of myself and of those I came to surround myself with. As I matured and the necessity of justice became more and more clear to me, I began to try to understand fully just what the foundation of justice is, and how we ensure that justice is always done.
As you might expect, my favorite classes during undergrad were those concerning ethics. These classes showed me something I never knew I loved so much. I had always considered, perhaps too much at times, whether or not I was doing the right thing, I always did what I thought to be the right thing, however after I began studying ethics I felt I finally had the means to ultimately know what was the right thing. When I was taught these new ways of thinking, I realized finally that, in theory, I could know for certain how to behave in any given situation. While my understanding of justice is far from complete, it is surely more complete than it has ever been before. In law school I hope to not only further that understanding or what is just, but further my understanding of how to ensure that which is just.
Some people pursue a career in law because it is essentially their family business; they come from a long line of attorneys and feel that they have been bred for it. Others pursue it because they want to work in a relatively secure profession that can make them very wealthy. Others still pursue it because they feel drawn to it. Their personal values and world view forces them to conclude that in order to live their best life, they need to practice law; as it will help them do the most good for the most people. I belong to that latter group. The group who feels as if practicing law is a calling. The group who looks at a legal education not as a meal ticket or as a foregone conclusion due to their pedigree, but as a tool to create a better future. For my entire life, I have had a passion to ensure justice, and it is due to this passion for justice that I have such a strong desire to pursue a career in law.
I want to help ensure justice, no matter where I go. I understand that not every law student graduates and finds the legal career they expected or hoped for, but I do understand that justice is achievable in many different aspects of life. In certain aspects that justice is explicit and easy to achieve, while in others it is ambiguous and it’s discernment requires a greater amount of reasoning and argument. No matter what it is I do after my graduation from law school, I will do it with the desire and motivation to ensure justice for all, and I hope that your school can help me achieve that.
