Dear 1Ls October 16, 2009
Posted by nontokenminority in 2L, Law School.Tags: 2L
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If you’re one of the other 100 1Ls frantically trying to print out your closed office memo in the computer lab on the day that its due and you jam a printer, the correct solution to the problem is to remove the jammed piece of paper. You do not keep hitting print 50 times. Because that would meant that there is only one printer available to service 2Ls, 3Ls AND the stampede of 1Ls doing last minute printing while the casebook sized backed up material on the other printer is clearing.
I don’t remember such crowds in the computer lab when we had memos due. I really don’t. Then again, there are many more 1Ls this year. But congrats to you guys, it took me this long to find something annoying about 1Ls that I could complain about.
The sweet smell of rejection October 12, 2009
Posted by nontokenminority in 2L, Law School.Tags: 2L, FSOT, J-O-B-S
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Two rejections on Friday, one from the call-back firm. I suspect I got axed because I have no connection to the city or state. But then again, I’m pretty sure I told the OCI interviewer this fact. I really hate the legal market’s hiring scheme for many reasons, none of which I want to devote a blog post to.
So, given the implosion of the legal market, the fact that the articles I’ve read are forecasting major job growth at 2012-13, I’ve started considering alternative careers. Because why would firms in 2012-13 take the c/o 2011 grad who’s been working retail or some other non-law related job for two years over a freshly degree-d grad? My class might end up as a “lost generation,” as they call it.
One path I’m seriously considering (in fact, i will be registering after I’m done with this post) is trying to become a foreign service officer. I’d thought about doing this before coming to law school, and now I’m back where I started. It’s a pretty good job, at least for the years you’re not forced to go to places like Iraq.
Sometimes I think I’m crazy for having THIS as a backup plan–you thought getting into law school was “hard?” Have you even looked at the passage rates, or should I say failure rates, of the foreign service exam? First a written test, on which you need a certain score to even have your resume looked at, then once you pass that you have to send in a personal narrative, then you take a killer oral exam. Even if you pass all of these things, you are not guaranteed a job–you are put on a list in order of the score you received on these combined tests, and called off the list as jobs open.
The entire process from test to hire takes anywhere from a year to a year and a half, which is why I’m taking the test in February. That is, IF you pass the first time–it’s possible that, no matter how much I prepare, I may still fail because the questions are pretty random and drawn from about six different areas of knowledge. From the sample tests I’ve looked at, a lot of the questions you can make an reasoned guess on and get it right–but some you just have to straight out know. And if you fail, you have to wait an entire year before you can retake the exam. Yikes.
Since I’m not testing until late February, I could wait until after finals to prep, but given the fact that I must memorize the world map, cover 200+ years of US history, who knows how many years of world history, and get a 101 level knowledge of media relations and economics by then, it wouldn’t hurt to start early.
Don’t get me wrong–I’m still applying to places, although now I’ve moved away from firms to other legal summer jobs that are likely unable to hire me upon graduation, or to pay me. But now, instead of being one of the bitter law grads you read about in the papers, I’m starting to consider other avenues. I wonder how many other law students are doing the same.
Sorry, but I found a life September 20, 2009
Posted by nontokenminority in Uncategorized.6 comments
So, I met this Guy. He’s not a law student–thankfully, because I don’t know if I could handle that–but he is a PhD student studying media/communications and gets to write articles on fun things like video games. (I didn’t even know you could do that. Then why the hell am I in law school?) Things are going well, hence this blog being on the back seat, but meeting someone in another discipline makes me wonder why law school is the way it is sometimes.
Like this law review thing. I’m not convinced that we all need to be crammed into one space for four hours one day of the week to get this done now that we have a better idea of what we’re doing. Because I’m not pleased with the discussion about OCI, call backs, rejections and what one would do with a $160k salary that is usually shouted to someone’s buddy who is sitting across the room. In general, law review has been a very isolating experience for me. The Guy does similar work for his professor at home; we could probably arrange it so that our cite checks could be done on our own time as well. On the upside, my first-choice law review topic was approved. But now that means that I actually have to get started on the article. Oh well.
I also managed to score a callback interview! For several reasons I was surprised to get the call, but I gladly took it and I think it went well. (I say that now, and watch me get a rejection notice in the mail.) All in all, the callback experience was nowhere near as bad as I expected it to be. The dinner was pretty painless, except for the fact that it was a pretty swanky place with a pretty swanky menu and foods that I’d never heard of before. The 9-12, back to back interviews were also pain-free–it went by very quickly, I didn’t embarrass myself and I think I made a good impression. From what I saw, it seemed like a great firm and I’d be pleased to get an offer, but who knows what will happen.
So that’s my life since the last post.
First week August 30, 2009
Posted by nontokenminority in 2L, Law School.add a comment
Sorry for the lack of posts, but I’ve had little time to update this week due to a very nice personal development in my life. But here it is anyway, my first week as a 2L.
First off, I would like to express my frustration at the fact that THERE ARE STILL GUNNERS AFTER 1L. Isn’t that supposed to be something that you get out of your system after the first year? I really wanted to slam my head on the desk once the gunner started his 5 minute speech about his fancy learnings while eventually, somewhere in all of that, getting to some kind of point. As if that particular class was not bad enough! What’s worse is that I have the guy in another course.
There were some unexpected developments in terms of classes this semester. One class that I was particularly interested in taking required a law-review note sized paper at the end of the semester, so that was dropped immediately after the first class. Given the number of credit hours that I’m taking, I had very little courses left to choose from, so I ended up in one of the few classes that I could take. In my haste to find a class, any class, to take, I misread the number of students that were registered for it–I thought there were 70, but there are only 6. At first I was concerned, but I think that this will actually be a good development.
It’s strange, but the courses that I was the most excited to take are turning out to be the worst, and the last minute, no other choice registrations are turning out to be the best. Funny how that works out.
As for law review, it feels like 1L all over again. For the past two weeks, we’ve been required to spend 9-5 doing cite check in the library, on top of the late night Tuesday cite checks. I feel like I’m seeing these people way more than I would like, and way more than is necessary. Thankfully, I think we’re all done with the Saturday cite checks. It’ll be good to have that little bit of my life back.
The longest two weeks ever August 17, 2009
Posted by nontokenminority in 2L.Tags: 1L Summer, 2L, Life
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Long time, no update, but last week was an utter nightmare and this week looks like it will be busy as well.
Here’s the run down: Five hours driving out of town and back, two of the hottest days of the week spent moving all of my things, several hours passed driving between the Staples, the Target and the Wal-Mart trying to find the cheapest furniture for my apartment, a 3 hour failed attempt at assembling a futon that would act as a bed, giving up and spending the night passed out in an armchair, returning said futon and spending countless hours scouring the internet for an affordable bed frame and mattress, then ultimately two hours and forty-five minutes taking the wrong way through two lane country roads out to the Ikea where I bought a cheap bed frame and mattress that fortunately was fairly simple to assemble after a two hour and forty-five minute drive back home through more country roads (Honestly, I could not figure out why my GPS kept taking me through these creepy country roads to get to the Ikea no matter what settings I changed. Currently we are no longer bffs because of this.)
After all of that running around, after using two armchairs purchased from the Habitat for Humanity Restore as a bed for three days, I must say, the first night in my cheap Ikea bed with my cheap, thin Ikea foam mattress was probably the best sleep of my life.
This week I have interviews, some of which require a several hour drive up to the city, peer advising for the 1L Orientation and the law review orientation. On the plus side, this week’s brand of busy doesn’t involve manual labor or sweating.
Round 2 August 10, 2009
Posted by nontokenminority in 2L.Tags: 2L, Life
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I’m moving again.
I submitted a maintenance request about the unwelcome visitors in my apartment on Tuesday. I was home most of the time during the week, and didn’t notice anyone come by to spray or look at the problem. I went out of town for one day over the weekend, and when I came back I was greeted by two roaches looking at me as if to say “What are you doing here???”
Uh, I live here and pay rent. You live here too but don’t. And one of us has to go.
Since no one I asked could tell me whether or not maintenance had been by when I was gone (which means they probably had NOT been), I decided that the one to go would be me. It was surprisingly easy to get the housing office to agree.
I looked at six different apartments before I found one that wasn’t probably going to be as gross as the place I’d just left. Really, I think I hit the jackpot–for a university owned campus apartment, it’s pretty darn nice. I almost died when I went in and found brand new faux hardwood and brand new not-cheap-looking carpeting. I’ve gained a kitchen, two bedrooms and an actual living space for a little bit more than the current roach playground, once you add up the parking I have to pay and the cost of the storage unit. What the hell was I doing in that other place?
Of course, unless you are living in a really bad place, you probably won’t know if you have roaches until night comes. But I looked in all of the usual places for roach droppings and found none. Still, for my own peace of mind, I will be setting off a bomb before I move in. But I’m cautiously optimistic about the new place.
I’m not looking forward to hauling this stuff around again, but I’ll do anything so that I don’t have to sleep with the lights on anymore.
