Everyone in law school knows that the application process can be brutal. After surviving the LSAT, writing the personal statement, and finally being accepted at BC, I thought I could breathe easy until classes started. But one more challenge remained: I had to figure out where I was going to live. 

Much like freshman year in undergrad, I didn’t know anyone else who was coming to BC Law. While BC does provide resources for finding housing (like this website) and ways to get in touch with other incoming 1Ls, including a pretty active Facebook group, you mostly have to take matters into your own hands. I wasn’t keen on living with people I didn’t know, and I had a fear that living with other law students would feel overwhelming – like there was no escape from school. Living alone was an option, but picturing myself sequestered away with only judges and casebook authors to keep me company motivated me to seek out a third choice. 

Covid had forced many of my childhood friends to move back to our hometown, but with the pandemic beginning to wane, I knew some of them wanted to leave the nest. I pitched the idea of moving to Boston, hoping to convince at least one of them to join me. I wound up getting three – more than enough to distract me from the pressures of law school, but would it be too distracting?

My friends all work remotely, which is why they were willing to pick up and move without much notice. I began to dread the moment when they would all be signing off at five o’clock and stepping out of their rooms, ready to enjoy the night, while I still had cases to brief. But now, over a month in, the experience hasn’t been entirely what I expected.

In the mornings, I’m always the first one up, which makes sense given that I’m the only one who leaves the apartment. While I walk to the bus stop and take the shuttle over to campus, my roommates commute all of two steps from the bed to the desk. Rarely is there any sign of them in the morning except the faint sound of alarms being snoozed as I’m halfway out the door. Aside from my seething jealousy at them getting to sleep in, this hasn’t been a problem.

By the time I get home, everyone else is usually still working, and I have plenty to do myself. But my fear of my friends signing off at five and immediately cracking open a beer turned out to be misplaced. They usually work for at least another hour, and will sometimes sign back on at night to get more done. I realized that by making remote work the new norm, the pandemic has all but eradicated the standard nine-to-five. You don’t ever leave the office because the office is in your home, meaning the workday pretty easily bleeds into the night. Against all odds, I’m often the one who is done “early.”

Unfortunately, this does not apply to the weekend. My friends’ days off are just that – days where they don’t have to work. As a student, there’s no way to get around having to work over the weekend, whether it’s synthesizing notes from the last week or preparing for Monday’s classes. The temptation to procrastinate is strong (I may have given in a few times) but ultimately, doing the work is part of the experience I signed up for. So far, I don’t have any regrets.

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Eddie Godino is a first-year law student and new Impact blogger. Contact him at godinoe@bc.edu.