Bronte wrote:Weird threads are good.
I agree - thanks!
berkeleykel06 wrote:
Weird/funny threads are good. This thread is weird/wordy.
Yeah, sorry.. I've touched on being wordy as a person and as it relates to law school in earlier posts. Not a whole lot I can do to help that.. and with this specific post I feel like the more detailed my description is, the more people will understand what I'm saying/asking and it will be much clearer. As for my responses - I've asked for serious thoughts/advice on a very important personal issue so I feel like a serious response is simply due respect for their time and effort. That's just out of principle because of how I am, though.
berkeleykel06 wrote:
This whole thread is really weird.
No need to apologize to me. I'm being rude. I just think you think too much.
I agree that I think too much,
for sure. I was bad about before law school, but after my first term it's increased leaps & bounds (obviously lol)
RUQRU wrote:
As a non-trad who has done an MBA and has worked in the "real world" for many, many, many years, law school seems largely a bull$hit experience -- a form of ritualized hazing. The professors are pretentious windbags and the younger folks, right out of undergrad, are balls of nerves. I can see how, as a 24 year-old, it might "change" you because you do not have a fully secure sense of self. You might think law school really "means" something. It does not.
You might think it trains in some kind of "special" way of thinking. Really? Any successful businessperson knows how to use analytical tools to understand problems and make decisions. The high priests of legal education want to make the public think they have awesome special powers. Really?
Law school is merely a filtering device to lower the number of people who want to take the bar. Ask any lawyer, they will tell you that passing the bar and working as a lawyer has nothing to do with what they did in law school. In fact, passing the bar has nothing to do with working as a lawyer. The whole process is aimed at protecting the profit margins of those in any given market.
So Seth, take it for what it is. Do not over think your "experience." It is a trade school of sorts that does not even do a really go job of training people as tradesmen. That is why there are so many LWR courses now days. Firms complained the law school grads could not even write a basic office memo. So now they try to teach you that.
Most of all, enjoy yourself and don't worry about what other people think about you. The best advice I ever received is "be yourself, no one else wants the job."
Good luck...
That's actually an awesome, helpful, amazing post - and I appreciate it a lot. Though I'm certainly not a non-trad (though I did go to grad school in between undergrad/LS) I agree with about all of what you're saying. Law school does seem like a systematic & mechanistic form of legal hazing (no pun intended). It's like 1L, at the least, is a rite of passage and you "wont understand" if you don't go through it. I understand why on one hand, but I'm just not convinced there isn't a better possible way of achieving the same goal(s).
I also concede you're right about analytical thinking. There's no reason anyone else could not acquire the same thought process/method of learning that one obtains while in law school. I just never thought about that way because of the obvious yet narrow-minded reason---that's not the way I experienced it. I didn't mean anything personal to you or anyone by my posts coming across that way. Law "pushers" are definitely holier-than-thou and support law school, in general, like a drug dealer supports their product, or so it seems. As someone young and essentially fresh out of college, it's easy to drink the Kool-Aid, I think, because that's certainly what I did.
I also agree law school is a filter. I sort of knew that going in though - just about any profession/school that requires one to "pass" a "test" that "certifies" your "abilities" is pretty arbitrary, if you think about it. There's good reasons why this is so as much as why not, I guess.
Again, thanks for your insight - it's nice to hear from a non-trad because I don't know very many nor did I ever in the past. "Be you" is the single best mantra I have learned thanks to law school. I always pushed this mindset both internally and to others, but because "what works for you" is so important for success in law school I think I have grown to appreciate it much more.
Dr. Van Nostrand wrote:Dumbest thread I've seen in a quite awhile, I think this whole "I'm so different than the world and just can't relate" idea dies pretty fast come 2L year when it is no longer tremendously exciting to be going to law school. Get over it, don't lose touch with the non-law world or you are beginning on a long road of despair.
If you find it to be so meaningless, I'm not so sure why you posted. If it was out of kindness, then forgive me for not seeing it. Though I think you're onto something about 2L. I don't have the feeling of not being able to relate. Specific people, maybe, but I don't think (with those people) that's a product of a term of law school. However, I do agree that this whole thing will probably "die down" as time goes on. Most feelings do, in general.. but not being that far along has caused me to be much more curious than usual.
