perspectives

Things I Wish I Knew, Vol. 8: The best way to prepare for law school this summer

/ Charlene Ochogo / Leave a comment

…is to not prepare at all.

Dear Class of 2018, you have struggled through the undergraduate battleground, you finished a post-bachelor degree, or maybe you’ve summoned the courage to work AND apply to law school, and you’re positively ravenous for any advice on how to best prepare yourself for what lies ahead of you.

I have only three words for you: Treat. Yo. Self.

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For those of you unfamiliar with NBC’s Parks and Recreation, no worries – you have the entire summer with which to make yourself familiar. But for old fans of Donna Meagle and Tom Haverford, Treat Yo’ Self 2015 (aka, now until right around August 20th) should be spent on you.

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My Thank You Letter to BC Law: Looking Back On The Past Three Years

/ Luciabc / Leave a comment

It was about three years ago now that I was making my decision as to where to attend law school. It was a tough decision for me, as I am sure it is for most people. Even though I knew which school was the best fit for me, I was stressed out about turning down bigger scholarships elsewhere. Every time I went to send in my deposit, I started to second guess my decision.

It is a very personal decision to choose where you’ll spend the next few years of your life. Looking back now, I feel so grateful that I chose Boston College, and I feel lucky to have a mother like mine, who encouraged me to go with my gut in choosing BC. Last week I finished up my academic career here, and I am already starting to feel nostalgic for the community of friends and mentors I have found at Boston College Law School. Here, more than anywhere else, I have found a school where professors keep in touch with their former students, where administrators go out of their way to share opportunities with students, and where the group of classmates you find end up feeling like family after three years of going through life’s ups and downs together.

The first, and most important group, that deserves thanks is the BC Law student body. I made my first, and closest friends in Section 3, but as the years progressed I have gotten to know an amazingly diverse, passionate, friendly group of my classmates. These people have studied with me during exams, passed along their carefully formatted outlines, and accompanied me on all sorts of misadventures over the past three years. Especially when I compare my experience to those of my friends at other schools, I feel so fortunate to have found such a stellar group of people to spend the past three years with. On a broader scale, our student government, the Public Interest Law Foundation, and the myriad affinity groups here at BC have truly excelled at making Boston College a welcoming, fun, and engaging place to be a student.

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Things I Wish I Knew, Vol. 7: End senior year on a high note

/ Charlene Ochogo / Leave a comment

Dear College Seniors,

Congratulations! The finish line is in sight, you’ve picked up your cap and gown, you’ve probably scheduled or already taken your graduation photos, and all that’s left between you and summer is a bunch of finals. Now, If you’re anything like me, the second you got into BC, the greatest law school on Earth, you were pretty much done with undergrad. At least mentally.

I mean, think about it. As you stand right now, many of you have been going to school non-stop for the past 17 years (and probably even a couple summers here or there, too). You’re tired, and rightly so. You’ve done what you need to do, and likely, your GPA for graduation has already been calculated. What is it going to hurt if you just skate through finals and do the bare minimum?

Well, as it turns out, potentially a lot.

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Black Lives Don’t Matter

/ rwmakawa / Leave a comment

They don’t. That’s the message that plays on a loop against a seemingly never-ending backdrop of killings of unarmed minorities at the hands of those who are sworn to serve and protect society. That’s the message that’s forced a movement around the idea that #BlackLivesMatter. That’s the message that made me wake up in a sweat early this morning.

Silhouettes

The only light came from the eerie glow of the crescent moon as I stood in the middle of a wheat field. It was slightly windy, and there was a dilapidated farmhouse about 100 yards in front of me. Around the field and the house were dark, uninviting woods. For no reason, I noticed I was wearing a white t-shirt and black pants. As I walked towards the house, I suddenly realized there were figures approaching me on either side from out of the wooded areas. They were just black silhouettes lit against this breezy field, but I could tell they were wondering what I was doing there, and I, of course, would have no explanation. Continue reading →

America, for a minute

/ DQuattrochi / Leave a comment

Think it sounds a bit ridiculous? That’s because you’re not an Eagle (yet). Being a member of the BC Law community has been an amazing adventure with tremendous opportunities for growth, kinship, and self-discovery. As difficult as it was to leave that community and come to London, I imagined it would be even more difficult to not return for two of my favorite, spring BC Law events: Admitted Students Day; and, of course, LAW PROM!

For anyone other than a 1L (they’re a bit bitter about how much energy you pre-Ls have, and that you smile when talking about studying law) Admitted Students Day is absolutely awesome. For me, personally, Admitted Students Day is about bringing everything full circle, and giving back to a community that has time and again given so much to its students.

While I was back on campus this past weekend I was able to welcome many of you, sit in on a live Civil Procedure class with Prof. Spiegel, field some of your questions during a delicious lunch, give a tour of the law school, AND serve on a career services panel.

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Jobs That Come From the Least Likely Place

/ mptierney / Leave a comment

Last week, I landed my first law job. (There’s been a lot of private dance parties, in my room, by myself.) Naturally, I’m incredibly relieved. But my job didn’t come from an internship or even an on-campus interview. My job came from the professor whose Article 2 exam I bombed. True statement. For those still on the fence about BC, and, maybe even at this point, law school generally, read my story.

I did decently in first semester, 1L. Nothing to write home about at all. But just enough to keep me from cashing in on the insurance policy that Admissions offers for a full refund of your first year tuition, should you come to the conclusion that going to law school was actually a horrible idea. So, I hedged my bets and got fancy by taking a class called “Advanced Contracts.”

And for three years after the fact, I had regretted taking that class. Not because it wasn’t incredible: it was. And insanely difficult. That course single-handedly dialed me into what I needed to get better at to right the ship. But with so much riding on your grades, I believed I had really shot myself in the foot with the whole ‘Go Big or Go Home’ attitude. But you fight on, keep a positive attitude, and hope for the best.

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What privilege and Mario Kart have in common

/ Charlene Ochogo / 2 Comments

I’m going to take a tiny detour from my Things I Wish I Knew series to address something that came up this week for me and that most of us are guilty of forgetting in one form or another: privilege.

Now this is where I expose my inner geek. One of my absolute favorite things to do in college was to have people over and play the game that has been ruining friendships since the 90s: Mario Kart. Remember when you were all set to win the race, and you’d drive through an item box and it would roulette through all the different items before it landed on the one you got – usually something useless like a banana peel, because unless one of your fellow racers beat you out in the last second, chances are you’d be crossing the finish line first.

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Seachanges and Drag Queens

/ mptierney / Leave a comment

With the current state of the world, Environmental Law is only going to get bigger. At BC Law, there’s no question that we’re at the tip of the spear on a number of pressing environmental legal initiatives. Our environmental law review, Environmental Affairs, is the second oldest and most subscribed such journal in the country. Our professors of environmental law are luminaries in their field. And our student run Environmental Law Society boasts a proud, longstanding tradition of meaningful social and academic engagement. This January, the Environmental Law Society made a trip down to Provincetown as part of its annual Winter Weekend excursion.

Winter Weekend is tough to capture. It’s part lecture series, part bonding adventure, and recently, part drag karaoke jam fest. Let me explain. For the last three years, the Environmental Law Society has journeyed down to P-Town, famous for that old Cape magic, not to mention the town’s established LGBT community.  Law students come to learn from great speakers, enjoy the best seafood, and croon a Journey song or two with the locally famous Dana Danzel II.

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It’s All About Perspective

/ rwmakawa / Leave a comment

So…I’m not a Patriots fan.  Sorry!  That being said, I really really enjoyed Rob’s recent post about persistence and motivation.  I think it’s great advice and generally reminds us all that we need things in our lives to help us maintain perspective and keep us grounded.  It’s easy to lose yourself in studying and legal textbooks, but being well-rounded is about more than trying to get an A at the end of the semester.  I’d like to highlight some advice from the BC Law Impact group about perspective:

[The Spring Break Service Trip] was my first opportunity to do legal work since entering law school, and it was so rewarding to be able to help people! – Lucia

I realized that the ‘racial justice’ that was an ‘area of interest’ for me was a matter of life or death, of resisting daily disrespect, for other people. Real people, standing in front of me.  – Amelia

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