It's getting down to the end of my first semester. And even though I've suffered through migraines, stomach aches, and panic attacks...it is all worth it. I finally feel like I'm on my way to doing something really important.
Before I came to law school, I thought law was "interesting." I still cannot say what came over me when I made the decision to go to law school. It might be a bit silly to quote Legally Blonde, but sometimes I feel like one of the professors could very well be talking about me when he said "Do you think she woke up one morning and said: I think I'll go to law school today." Yes. I did. Really, it dawned on me that I had a fair amount of intelligence that wasn't really being used at my current job, and I wasn't going to get many better opportunities without more school, and somehow that led me to say, "I think I'll go to law school." I could have chosen med school. I could have chosen to get a Ph.D. in Sociology. But...apparently, for whatever reason, my choice was law school.
But now. I'm almost done with my first semester. And even though I still don't know why I made this decision, now that I am here, I have discovered a passion for the law unlike anything I have ever felt. Even though I don't generally believe in fate or divine intervention, I'm reluctant to say that I knew all along that this was the right thing to do. I didn't know all along. But something led me to it. I watched for signs. I wasn't going to take the LSAT again if I had gotten a bad score. I was going to take it as a sign that law school wasn't for me. I was only going to apply to law schools once. If I didn't get in to any of them, that was going to be a sign that it wasn't for me. But, I scored well on the LSAT. I got into four pretty good law schools.
All subsequent steps to my final destination went just as well. I had no problems working out the funding either for moving across the country or for living expenses during school. An affordable apartment basically fell in my lap. The drive across the country went about as smoothly as one could expect a drive across the country in a moving van would be. And here I am.
Sometimes I wonder if I would have made it at a different school. Part of what has made this experience so wonderful is the endless options for support wherever I turn. No competition here for the "top spot," we don't have rankings. So when you miss class, at least 3 people ask if you need notes. Or, if they don't ask, the instant you ask them they share their notes without question. When you just don't get it, not only are the TAs and professors available to help, but people in your year are available to help too. We all want to succeed individually, but we don't want to do it at the expense of a fellow classmate, and the lack of rankings at Northeastern allows us to both succeed individually and help others succeed as well. In fact, I feel like I'm more successful when I understand something well enough to explain it to someone else.
Regardless of what led me here, and whether or not I would have been successful somewhere else...this is where I ended up, and this is where I found my passion. And in the moments of panic that I know are coming in the next two weeks, I think I will need to look back at this post and remember how I felt at this moment. Because right now I feel satisfied with my decision. I know I made the right one. I know this has invoked a passion in me that I will not find in any other career path. And I know I can't turn back, nor do I want to. I'm going to be a lawyer.
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