Day Two - Columbia, New York, NY
My Columbia experience is almost over, and it has been almost 100% positive. Then again, I don't yet have a basis for comparison. We'll see what I think after I've been through Harvard's admitted students weekend.
What I can say now, though, is that law as a profession is getting creepier and creepier. The majority of people from Columbia go to work at big firms - they have a day during the fall of your second year where 700 lawyers from 68 firms come to conduct interviews and most students are hired before their third year. (Kind of decreases the incentive to work hard that last year of school, huh?) Anyway, these firms have cocktail parties every week and do things like defend corporations against class-action lawsuits. Like the opposite side from Erin Brokovich. Not so sure those are the people I want to associate with.
I mean, let me rephrase. They are really, really nice people. Brilliant. Ambitious. But they seem as if they have been sucked into something, or perhaps, rather, as if something has been sucked out of them. Law school is an ingenious system. Get people $140,000 dollars into debt and they are pretty desperate to make a good salary when they get out. I'm sure, as a professor, you can just watch the idealism fade from people's eyes.
I'm already having a hard time justifying working an internship for free when these people, after only one year of law school, or maybe two, are making $3000 a month for a summer job. I see them shopping in class (no joke, everyone brings their laptop to "take notes" and then at least 25%, maybe even a third - I counted - write Instant Messages, read the news, and even shop for new jeans, shoes and accessories online in class. In this class taught by a federal district court judge at a school that costs $40,000 per year. What!!!???). Anyway, I see them shopping in those circumstances and I'm sort of sickened. They're already spending the money they have yet to make. Either that, or they don't really need to work in a super high-paying profession anyway, because they already have it. Moreover, so many people after their first year just seemed unenthused, uninterested. They are just going through the motions. It's a means to an end, an the end is just lots of money. Gross.
I am suddenly seized by fear that I, too, will become corrupted. But maybe the fact that I am joining the military will keep me straight. At times I might hate myself for doing it, like when I see my friends get hired on at $200,000 per year in their second year of law school, but in the end I think it is really smart. Commit now, while I'm still sane, not to sell my soul.
Anyway, Columbia. Right. I like their teachers, a lot. Of course, I'm sure the Harvard faculty will wow me too. But I have heard that Columbia's faculty is more committed to teaching than to things like publishing, doing research, handling cases, etc. The professors here are actually passionate about their students. (Isn't that novel? Maybe even moreso than Whitman, which has proved a great disappointment in that regard for me.) I know because I was able to personally talk with several of them, and because of the great classes I attended. So that's a plus. The city is fun, and huge, yet the campus is small, cohesive, and beautiful so location is another big plus. There's a park nearby, cut into the hill. (According to the Torts professor, "Best sledding school, by far." Ha ha.) The buildings are new, modern yet classic. For some reason, I like it here a lot.
Columbia seems... accepting, open, universally appealing and interested. Not closed off like Whitman is in many aspects. Apparently the liberal organization and the conservative one on campus support each other. Attend each other's events, co-sponsor things, etc. Political debates are avoided. Which might bug the heck out of me and make me call Eric a lot, but which also might make being a conservative easier. My host, a lesbian, was really enthusiastic about my JAG plans. She was like, "I would do it too... if I could." Which inspired an impassioned discussion of how the United States is the only country with a similar sexual orientation restriction in the military other than Iraq, Iran, Syria and Lybia. Or something like that. Pretty appalling, if you ask me. Apparently she dated a Marine once, although "not at all like you," as she told me, "she was really butch." Ha ha. But anyway, she isn't willing to do the incognito thing and I don't blame her. I am sort of hoping against hope I can do something to affect that policy, although I don't know how. I don't think in-Corps activism is really encouraged by the Marines. At all. But she said, "I am glad to hear there will be JAG officers like you."
She's my host, I guess she has to say that. She's a cool person, no doubt; she knows just about everyone (although it's a small school so maybe that's not such a surprise). It's fun to see how much they gossip. Everything is everyone else's business! They say "it's like going back to high school, but in a good way." There is even a prom (the Barristers' Ball). I think I'd love the closeness and interconnectedness. But I wonder how much what I am hearing has to do with the fact that it is obvious I'm an admitted student. (They give us folders and badges and other markers of our status so people know to be on their best behavior, tee hee.) So of course everyone is really enthusiastic when they talk to us, y'know? I am not sure my bullshit meter is sensitive enough to really know what the true story is.
A couple people have said, "Go to Harvard if Columbia doesn't offer you a fantastic financial aid package." They really think the name value is worth that much. I agree that the look in people's eyes changes when you just say the name. But I am not at all convinced that that is a good basis for choosing a law school. And a lot of other people have said, "Harvard Law students are the unhappiest, most miserable students I've ever seen." That doesn't sound good. But then, some people might say that about me at Whitman. I'm usually freaking out and stressing about something or other. Yet that is what satisfies me, in some way. Maybe it's a sickness, I wouldn't know. But if it paid off in the end, perhaps it would be worth it...? No, I would definitely not go to Harvard if I got the perception it was actually that awful. But I don't think it IS like that for everyone. Maybe that's just what people who didn't get in tell themselves to make themselves feel better. My ultimate judgment, naturally, depends upon how it feels there this weekend.
I am starting to get the sense that wherever I go it doesn't really matter in terms of getting a job. The dean of the career center here made me feel good about going JAG. I was worried it would affect my job prospects in that all it would do is put me 4 years behind everyone else on the career path. But apparently she thinks it is an advantage (as I, also, originally had hoped). She says if I want to be a litigator it is a good first step. So I guess I am on the right track after all. She kind of looked at me funny when I said Marines and said, "You'd have to go to boot camp..." And I just smiled and said, "I know, I already went." And she was like, "Oh." I guess they expect to see some manly female but, hey, it's fun to surprise people. It was definitely reassuring to have someone who is intimately familiar with the legal profession telling me to go for it, though.
Hmm, what else? I guess I am getting almost overwhelmed. I feel exhausted and ready to go home, yet it's on to another school tomorrow. And more traveling. I hate traveling already. (It didn't take much.) I have decided to spend tomorrow at Yale and head to Harvard on Saturday, which is when their admitted student festivities begin. So I'll write again once I have more to tell.
What I can say now, though, is that law as a profession is getting creepier and creepier. The majority of people from Columbia go to work at big firms - they have a day during the fall of your second year where 700 lawyers from 68 firms come to conduct interviews and most students are hired before their third year. (Kind of decreases the incentive to work hard that last year of school, huh?) Anyway, these firms have cocktail parties every week and do things like defend corporations against class-action lawsuits. Like the opposite side from Erin Brokovich. Not so sure those are the people I want to associate with.
I mean, let me rephrase. They are really, really nice people. Brilliant. Ambitious. But they seem as if they have been sucked into something, or perhaps, rather, as if something has been sucked out of them. Law school is an ingenious system. Get people $140,000 dollars into debt and they are pretty desperate to make a good salary when they get out. I'm sure, as a professor, you can just watch the idealism fade from people's eyes.
I'm already having a hard time justifying working an internship for free when these people, after only one year of law school, or maybe two, are making $3000 a month for a summer job. I see them shopping in class (no joke, everyone brings their laptop to "take notes" and then at least 25%, maybe even a third - I counted - write Instant Messages, read the news, and even shop for new jeans, shoes and accessories online in class. In this class taught by a federal district court judge at a school that costs $40,000 per year. What!!!???). Anyway, I see them shopping in those circumstances and I'm sort of sickened. They're already spending the money they have yet to make. Either that, or they don't really need to work in a super high-paying profession anyway, because they already have it. Moreover, so many people after their first year just seemed unenthused, uninterested. They are just going through the motions. It's a means to an end, an the end is just lots of money. Gross.
I am suddenly seized by fear that I, too, will become corrupted. But maybe the fact that I am joining the military will keep me straight. At times I might hate myself for doing it, like when I see my friends get hired on at $200,000 per year in their second year of law school, but in the end I think it is really smart. Commit now, while I'm still sane, not to sell my soul.
Anyway, Columbia. Right. I like their teachers, a lot. Of course, I'm sure the Harvard faculty will wow me too. But I have heard that Columbia's faculty is more committed to teaching than to things like publishing, doing research, handling cases, etc. The professors here are actually passionate about their students. (Isn't that novel? Maybe even moreso than Whitman, which has proved a great disappointment in that regard for me.) I know because I was able to personally talk with several of them, and because of the great classes I attended. So that's a plus. The city is fun, and huge, yet the campus is small, cohesive, and beautiful so location is another big plus. There's a park nearby, cut into the hill. (According to the Torts professor, "Best sledding school, by far." Ha ha.) The buildings are new, modern yet classic. For some reason, I like it here a lot.
Columbia seems... accepting, open, universally appealing and interested. Not closed off like Whitman is in many aspects. Apparently the liberal organization and the conservative one on campus support each other. Attend each other's events, co-sponsor things, etc. Political debates are avoided. Which might bug the heck out of me and make me call Eric a lot, but which also might make being a conservative easier. My host, a lesbian, was really enthusiastic about my JAG plans. She was like, "I would do it too... if I could." Which inspired an impassioned discussion of how the United States is the only country with a similar sexual orientation restriction in the military other than Iraq, Iran, Syria and Lybia. Or something like that. Pretty appalling, if you ask me. Apparently she dated a Marine once, although "not at all like you," as she told me, "she was really butch." Ha ha. But anyway, she isn't willing to do the incognito thing and I don't blame her. I am sort of hoping against hope I can do something to affect that policy, although I don't know how. I don't think in-Corps activism is really encouraged by the Marines. At all. But she said, "I am glad to hear there will be JAG officers like you."
She's my host, I guess she has to say that. She's a cool person, no doubt; she knows just about everyone (although it's a small school so maybe that's not such a surprise). It's fun to see how much they gossip. Everything is everyone else's business! They say "it's like going back to high school, but in a good way." There is even a prom (the Barristers' Ball). I think I'd love the closeness and interconnectedness. But I wonder how much what I am hearing has to do with the fact that it is obvious I'm an admitted student. (They give us folders and badges and other markers of our status so people know to be on their best behavior, tee hee.) So of course everyone is really enthusiastic when they talk to us, y'know? I am not sure my bullshit meter is sensitive enough to really know what the true story is.
A couple people have said, "Go to Harvard if Columbia doesn't offer you a fantastic financial aid package." They really think the name value is worth that much. I agree that the look in people's eyes changes when you just say the name. But I am not at all convinced that that is a good basis for choosing a law school. And a lot of other people have said, "Harvard Law students are the unhappiest, most miserable students I've ever seen." That doesn't sound good. But then, some people might say that about me at Whitman. I'm usually freaking out and stressing about something or other. Yet that is what satisfies me, in some way. Maybe it's a sickness, I wouldn't know. But if it paid off in the end, perhaps it would be worth it...? No, I would definitely not go to Harvard if I got the perception it was actually that awful. But I don't think it IS like that for everyone. Maybe that's just what people who didn't get in tell themselves to make themselves feel better. My ultimate judgment, naturally, depends upon how it feels there this weekend.
I am starting to get the sense that wherever I go it doesn't really matter in terms of getting a job. The dean of the career center here made me feel good about going JAG. I was worried it would affect my job prospects in that all it would do is put me 4 years behind everyone else on the career path. But apparently she thinks it is an advantage (as I, also, originally had hoped). She says if I want to be a litigator it is a good first step. So I guess I am on the right track after all. She kind of looked at me funny when I said Marines and said, "You'd have to go to boot camp..." And I just smiled and said, "I know, I already went." And she was like, "Oh." I guess they expect to see some manly female but, hey, it's fun to surprise people. It was definitely reassuring to have someone who is intimately familiar with the legal profession telling me to go for it, though.
Hmm, what else? I guess I am getting almost overwhelmed. I feel exhausted and ready to go home, yet it's on to another school tomorrow. And more traveling. I hate traveling already. (It didn't take much.) I have decided to spend tomorrow at Yale and head to Harvard on Saturday, which is when their admitted student festivities begin. So I'll write again once I have more to tell.
posted by Snarkily Single at 4:10 PM
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