mental health

Escaping the 2L Doldrums (A Tortured Sailing Metaphor)

/ Ian Hurley / Leave a comment

“Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion:
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.”
‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, (1834)

Growing up in southeastern Pennsylvania, I remember learning about the so-called ‘age of exploration’, probably an aged moniker today, but hey, this was *gasp* the late-90s. One thing that stuck with me from all those lessons about Christopher Columbus’s supposed ‘discovery’ of the new world, Ferdinand Magellan’s unceremonious demise in Southeast Asia, and Henry Hudson’s ill-fated attempt(s) to uncover a waterway that linked the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and so on, is a rather minor aspect of wind-based sea travel: getting stuck in the doldrums. 

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The Hardest Part of 1L (It’s Not the Readings)

/ Dave Sainte-Luce / Leave a comment

Arriving at BC Law this past August brought a rush of excitement. I’d known I wanted to be a lawyer all of my life, and had been building toward this step for just as long. After growing up on crime- and law-themed TV shows like Law & Order, I completed two legal internships in college, wrote my senior honors thesis on a legal topic, and worked at a personal injury law firm for two years after graduation. So when I was admitted to the so-called “Disneyland of Law Schools,” it was an answered prayer—like a dream come true.

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Cold Calling Is Good, Actually

/ Ian Hurley / Leave a comment

“I know fear is an obstacle for some people, but it is an illusion to me. Failure always made me try harder next time.” – Michael Jordan

One of the (many) things that causes law students the most angst is the dreaded cold call. The fear is so pronounced that before I even attended a single 1L class, BC Law had shown me the famous cold calling scene from Legally Blonde multiple times. I understand why cold calling induces anxiety, especially in your early days of law school when you have likely never experienced it in other classroom settings. To be clear, this post should not be taken to suggest that cold calling does not make me nervous or that I never get a cold call embarrassingly wrong (I definitely do). But getting things wrong is kind of the point of learning and law school; otherwise, we’d be practicing attorneys already. 

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The Case for Doing Less

/ Ian Hurley / Leave a comment

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” ― Ferris Bueller

In the throes of 1L year, while dealing with difficult material, a new learning environment, networking events, and perhaps feeling completely overwhelmed and lost, a law student is likely to hear a common refrain. It often goes something like, “I know this is rough, 1L is so tough, but it gets so much better in 2L.” And like most aphorisms, it contains a nugget of truth. In many ways, the law school experience changes fundamentally between your first year and your second. The classroom experience becomes less intimidating and more familiar. You can choose your own class schedule and have agency over the areas of law you wish to study. Even more importantly, for some, you have the chance to partake in experiential learning opportunities, such as clinics and externships, which are not available to 1Ls.

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Need a Reset? Find Peace on the BC Ski Trip

/ Catherine Beveridge / Leave a comment

I lived in Washington D.C. for two years before moving to Boston. After growing up in New York and spending plenty of time in Maine, the one thing I missed most in DC was winter. When I took my first BC Law tour, my tour guide mentioned the Killington ski trip. My mom, who joined me on the tour, saw my face light up and knew I was sold, as silly as it might seem.

This past weekend was the long-awaited trip, and I was nervous about it. I finally recovered from a bad flu that made the start of the semester wobbly at best. I got back to the gym and danced once I healed up, but was worried my body and mind were out of sorts. I was also rooming alone and wondered if I was missing out on the bonding experiences 2Ls and 3Ls talked about on prior trips. 

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How Do You Find Your Peace? Running Away from The Fishbowl

/ Ian Hurley / Leave a comment

I’m the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I’m the type of person who doesn’t find it painful to be alone. 

– Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About when I Talk About Running

Most days, especially as fall rolls into winter, I get up before the sun. In the pre-dawn hours, I fumble around in the darkness of my quiet, slumbering apartment, attempting to make coffee and not wake up my partner. As this process gets underway, my dog follows me around dutifully, eyes shining like copper pennies, ears at full mast, ready to head out for another morning jaunt. His herding eye remains trained on its quarry as I put on my running shoes, and he readies himself for our adventure, stretching and strutting around on my creaky wood floors. 

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The Most Important Thing I’ve Learned About Law School So Far: The “I Love Me More” Approach

/ Alexandra Staller / Leave a comment

Now more than halfway through my first law school semester, the initial warnings and disclaimers that I had been told before coming are starting to make sense. This line I am walking between letting law school take over my time and giving myself time to breathe is one I find becomes blurry depending on what my days or weeks look like. For example, last week my section had our first memo draft due on Friday. On top of all the other classwork I had, all I could think about was the memo. Wake up: memo. Drive to school: memo. Read my Contracts cases: memo. Fold my laundry: memo. Call Mom: memo.

One night as I was laying in bed, I felt an overwhelming wave of law school rise over me. My post-9pm thoughts were racing, and I wondered if this was the thing that was bound to happen that would stick with me until my graduation in May 2027: that all I am is law school. 

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From Teaching to Transformative Change: Meet Elias Massion

/ Sangeeta Kishore / 8 Comments

There are numerous roads to law school, and no one-size fits all path to a successful legal career. Follow along with our new series highlighting BC Law students and how they got here! 

Our first entry was a Q&A with Sara Womble, a 2L from Winston Salem, NC. Our second entry is with Elias Massion, who comes from Nashville, TN and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

What did you do before coming to law school?

I completed the Teach For America program in New Orleans! I was a 5th and 6th Grade Social Studies Teacher at Mildred Osborne Charter School. I taught Native American history and European colonization in the Americas as well as ancient civilizations (my personal favorite). I’ve always had an interest in teaching so this was a great opportunity to gain that experience on my path to law school.

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Do This One Thing to Protect Your Sanity During Law School

/ Seung Hye Yang / Leave a comment

One of the best pieces of advice I got in law school is to march to the beat of your own drum; in other words, pay little heed to what others are doing and focus on yourself. This has been invaluable in retaining my sanity and mental health.

Law school is designed to urge people to compare themselves to others. The unhealthy truth is that law school can be a breeding ground for comparative anxiety. Being graded on a curve means students are pitted against each other, because your own individual grade is adjusted based on how well (or not) your classmates have done. The uncertainty of job prospects also often incites fear in students; there is no guarantee that one’s actions will ultimately culminate into a result proportional to the effort put in. In this sort of environment, protecting your mental health requires a mindful effort, and the best way to do this is to tune out the noise and balance life to your needs.

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