Why Law School?

This is a question I have been getting a lot lately. As someone who was a journalism major and expected to go into writing or public relations, going to law school seems like a 180 degree turn. I was the writer of my friend group (which was kind of a given since pretty much of my friends were engineers), and most of my involvement on campus involved marketing, PR, or writing.

During the summer following my graduation, most people in my life were shocked to hear that I was going to take some time off from my normal life looking for jobs to prepare to apply for law school. While I was in my second year of undergrad, I went through a time where I decided I didn't want to be a reporter anymore and I was sent into a mental tailspin trying to figure out what I was going to do.

Although what I ended up thinking I would do for a career was sports public relations and marketing, with a focus on hockey, I went through a moment of "what if I went to law school?" My interest in law was first piqued while taking a required journalism course called Foundations of the First Amendment, which focused on Supreme Court cases about the freedom of speech. I was nervous at first; when my professor assigned my class our first dissenting opinion, he told us that we should get in the habit of reading from our textbook while sitting in an uncomfortable chair so we wouldn't fall asleep. Walking out of the lecture hall, a friend and I lamented over how much we were going to hate this class.

Come that night, I sat at my desk having a staring contest with my textbook, trying to convince myself to open it and just get the reading assignment over with. Once I dove into the opinion, I was surprised--I was actually enjoying what I was reading. Scratch that, I wasn't just enjoying it, I was fascinated by it. Whenever I spoke with my mom on the phone I would bore her to death with details of cases we were analyzing in a given week, and that didn't change when she came out to spend a weekend with me either (thanks for pretending you were interested, Mom!)

From then on, I found myself drawn to the law aspects of my classes, from the general overview of torts and liability in Foundations of Event Planning to more complex elements of business law in Sport Business Practices.

At this point you may be wondering "okay, if you were so interested in law, why did you go the public relations and marketing route?"

That is a good question, and the answer honestly boils down to one thing: a lack of self-confidence. Even though I've always done pretty well in school and I find it easy to stay motivated while in school, I talked myself out of pursuing law because I didn't think I was smart enough and figured it would be a waste of my time if I wouldn't even complete it anyway.

Via @scotstreetstyle on Instagram

However, I clearly changed my tone later on. After spending a lot of time on self love and building my confidence (which, if I'm being totally honest, is still something I'm working on), I had the epiphany that I should just say f*** it and do what I wanted to do. Unfortunately, I didn't decide on this until after I graduated college, but, hey, it's better than never coming to this realization.

Right now, I'm living at home to save money, working as a server and a hostess at the same restaurant as my little sister (where she is my boss--and, while I'm proud of her, it's sometimes weird), getting my applications together, and studying my booty off for the November LSAT. While it may be easy to be pessimistic right now as I watch all my friends work their adult jobs, travel all over, and attend grad school, I'm doing my best to stay positive. I'm very grateful to be in a position where I can afford to not have a full time job and stay at my parents' house without rent or utilities, and I get more time to study and focus only on things for law school, which I wouldn't have been able to do while still in college.

I'm very excited to see where this time off will take me, and I'm ecstatic that you're here to go on this journey with me!

xoxo,

Rachel