| |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="SecondPaper" |
|---|
Reflections |
| | But by November the warm weather had barely cooled and I was already being asked to consider where I wanted to work the following summer. By second semester the rhetoric went from internships to law firms, and I found myself planning two years in advance for a career path I wasn’t even sure I understood. As the emails from Career Services changed, so did my perspective. |
|
<
< | Successful law students fall into roughly one of two categories: 1) natural geniuses and 2) very bright people who work obsessively hard. But in a grade fixated academic environment and constricting job market, learning how to be a lawyer is filtered out by the distraction of a single final exam. If you don’t want to risk someone else getting the job that you may potentially want, you’d better figure out which group you belong to. |
>
> | Successful law students fall into roughly one of two categories: 1) natural geniuses, and 2) very bright people who work obsessively hard. But in a grade fixated academic environment and contracting job market, learning how to be a lawyer is filtered out by the distraction of a single final exam. If you don’t want someone else getting the job that you may potentially want, you’d better figure out which group you belong to. |
| | I did. |
|
<
< | Law school is not about learning with the goal of becoming a great lawyer; it is about learning with the goal of getting a job. I can acknowledge that a JD is a professional degree and that people go to law school with the expectation of getting a legal job. To an extent, one cannot fault Columbia for providing a service and filling that demand. But for all the reasons we discussed this semester, I think we can agree that our school chose an irresponsible and destructive way to go about it. Law school helps students get jobs by breaking us down without reinforcing the skills of good lawyers; what a shame. |
>
> | Law school is not about learning with the goal of becoming a great lawyer; it is about learning with the goal of getting a job. I acknowledge that a JD is a professional degree and that people go to law school with the expectation of getting a legal job. To an extent, one cannot fault Columbia for providing a service and filling that demand. But for all the reasons we discussed this semester, I think we can agree that our school chose an irresponsible and destructive way to go about it. Law school helps students get jobs by breaking us down without reinforcing the skills of great lawyers; what a shame. |
| | I like learning law but I don’t like (Columbia) law school. So why continue?
Motivations (Fear) |
|
<
< | In my first paper I wrote about my parents and their survival instincts. To escape the consequences of civil war my parents opened their own doors by becoming the first in their families to go to high school or college. Because of their influence, fear of insecurity and the aggressive pursuit of opportunity became the foundations of my family’s values here. |
>
> | In my first paper I wrote about my parents and their survival instincts. To escape the consequences of civil war my parents opened their own doors by becoming the first in their families to go to high school or college. Because of their influence, fear of insecurity and the aggressive pursuit of opportunity became the foundation of my family’s values. |
| | |
|
<
< | Growing up in the privileged suburbs of St. Louis and Boston by no means compares to life in southern Sudan. But even in America my family and I are still motivated by a lingering fear for our future. |
>
> | Growing up in the suburbs by no means compares to life in southern Sudan. But even in America my family and I are still motivated by a lingering fear for our future. |
| | |
|
<
< | My father is a professor and is easily the most educated person I know. He has a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the top universities in Uganda and Kenya. He has a PhD? in math from Northwestern and a PhD? in finance from Wash U. On paper it would seem he had secured a very high base quality of life. But in 2008 my father did not receive tenure and he found himself unemployed alongside many others with much lesser qualifications, including myself—a recent college graduate. |
>
> | My father is a professor and is easily the most educated person I know. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the top universities in Uganda and Kenya. He has a PhD? in math from Northwestern and a PhD? in finance from Wash U. On paper it would seem he had secured a very high base quality of life. But in 2008 my father did not receive tenure and he found himself unemployed alongside many others with much lesser qualifications, including myself—a recent college graduate. |
| | |
|
<
< | Like most immigrants my parents came to the U.S. with no savings and a host of financial obligations. My dad actually went back to school for his second PhD? because he could barely support our immediate and extended family on a math professor’s salary. These past few years have been draining on our entire family and served as a cautionary tale for those of us resting on our private school degrees. |
>
> | Like most immigrants my parents came to the U.S. with no savings and a host of financial obligations. My dad actually went back to school for his second PhD? because he could barely support our immediate and extended family on a math professor’s salary. These past few years were draining on our entire family and served as a cautionary tale for those of us resting on our private school education. |
| | |
|
<
< | Academia is notoriously cutthroat but so is today’s legal industry. We discussed “covering your nut” in class and rationalized our pending financial burdens. But considering my family’s experiences, and the thought of graduating with $300k in student loans and huge family commitments, I cannot help but be motivated by fear. |
>
> | Academia is notoriously cutthroat, but so is today’s legal industry. We discussed “covering your nut” in class and rationalized our pending financial burdens. But considering my family’s experiences, and the thought of graduating with $300k in student loans and huge family commitments, I cannot help but be motivated by the immediate fear of starting my career in an unstable, antagonistic job market. |
| | |
|
<
< | A law license is the right to live and practice the life you want. This is not to say that I would be justified in selling my license. But my life has made me very risk averse and I plan on pursuing my most profitable interests. |
>
> | A law license is the right to live and practice the life you want. This is not to say that I’m justified in selling my license. But my life has made me very risk averse and I plan on starting my career by pursing my most profitable interests at a law firm. |
| | I will become a lawyer. But what kind of lawyer will I be? |
| | Courage |
|
<
< | Whether right or wrong, John Brown had the courage to act upon his principles in the face of the law. He didn’t ignore the responsibilities of “knowing what should be known” and “doing what should be done.” I need to embody this level of self-awareness and courage before I proceed in my career. This begins with understanding the behavior, functions, and limitations of the law. |
>
> | Whether right or wrong, John Brown had the courage to act upon his principles in the face of the law. He didn’t ignore the responsibility of “knowing what should be known” and “doing what should be done.” I need to embody this level of self-awareness and courage before I proceed in my career. This begins with understanding the behavior, functions, and limitations of the law. |
| | |
|
<
< | This summer I will be interning for the general counsel of a quantitative hedge fund. After the financial crisis I took an interest in regulatory reforms and followed those interests to law school. I don’t know if this is what I want to do with my career, but I’ll be happy to see where it takes me. |
>
> | My work experience motivates many of my interests, so I hope to enter the investment management practice. Accordingly, my legal career will start at a law firm and end when I can no longer dictate the integrity of my license. |
| | |
|
<
< | I will probably not be a lawyer forever. |
>
> | I may not be a lawyer forever. |
| | |
|
<
< |
I think the essay proceeds by using to sets of alternatives, actually
distinct, but sometimes conflated here. There's the opposed pair:
"about learning" and "about getting a job." That these are strictly
alternates is nowhere demonstrated, and in fact it isn't true. I am
trying, in each of my courses in different ways, to help students
learn and to help students learn about and choose their careers, for
example, and I think that's a consistent position to take. Then
there's the idea that security consists in having a job, and that not
being someone's employee is insecure. Here too, I wonder why the
unexamined premise gets smuggled in. Experience, including
experience you relate, shows that having a job is not the same thing
as security. While the possession of a license to solicit and
represent clients that no one can take away except on a very
difficult showing of cause--which from a defeasibility point of view
is essentially the same as academic tenure, the most secure form of
employment in our savage employment system--is nothing to sneeze at
from the security point of view. If, that is, one puts not only
enough intellectual equity into the license to develop several areas
of profitable expertise, but also develops a network capable of
promoting your areas of expertise among potential clients. But
networks and knowledge, like the license, are basically indefeasible:
whatever you build is solid for a lifetime.
So, when the rather artificial nature of those oppositions is
reconsidered, why doesn't the analysis point in the end quite another
way?
(995)
I hope to continue working on this piece, and edit my opinions throughout my internship this summer. |
>
> | (999) |
| | \ No newline at end of file |