My mom always taught me that wherever you go, you should try to leave that place a little better than when you found it.

For those of you who don’t know my segment on Impact, I’m the “Things I Wish I Knew” gal, bringing you little tidbits of hopefully helpful advice from the perspective of someone who felt like she had quite a learning curve for this whole law school thing. I figure that my mistakes and triumphs might make things easier for some of you, so I’m happy to share whatever wisdom I can.

But among all the studying and class and work and job searching, I’ve been working on a little something else, too.

Two years ago, I had this crazy idea to create one central document on becoming a BC Legal Eagle: everything you’d need to know from the day you got accepted until you made it through your 1L year.

Two years ago, two weeks after 1L year started, I went to the BC Law Admissions Office with this crazy idea, expecting them to tell me that it couldn’t be done, that it would be too time-intensive, that it wasn’t worth the effort, that I was naive for thinking a project of this magnitude could ever be completed.

Instead, after my explanation of exactly what I wanted to do, the staff of the Office of Admissions looked at me, wide-eyed, and asked me how they could help.

This week, as the final edits were being completed, one of them jokingly called this my “magnum opus,” but it really feels that way. After two years, countless interviews with students and faculty, what feels like a million grateful emails to everyone who agreed to help, and several stressful weeks of realizing I understand next to nothing about Adobe Acrobat Pro, suddenly here is 78 pages of me turning Things I Wish I Knew into a Guidebook that will help students make this super stressful time that much easier.

Without the incredibly valuable input, advice, and encouragement from the BC community, none of this would have been possible. From all of us to all of you, I hope that in the coming days, weeks and months, this Guidebook will be useful to you.

Without further ado, I present the first volume of the Admitted Students Guidebook.

Charlene is a 2L, but check out her posts about things she wishes she knew as a 1L, from day one to the last exam. Her inbox is always open so you can comment here, or shoot her an email at ochogo@bc.edu.