BY
If you can keep your head when all about you,
Are losing theirs in every interview,
If you can trust yourself when recruiters doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting, too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
And though keen to please, refrain from lies;
Or being rated, don’t worship rating,
You’ll sound your best, yet be truly wise.
If you can dream of jobs, and not make jobs your master;
If you can think like a lawyer, and not make that your aim;
If you can meet the firm of Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two partners just the same;
If you can bear the words you’ve spoken
Twisted by interviewers to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the resume you crafted broken
To fit someone else’s rules;
If you can make a heap of all your offers,
And once you’ve slept on it, risk one with the toss
Of a coin, and start again at the beginning,
and if it’s a mistake, write off your loss;
If you can call a headhunter, when your heart and sinew
Have served their turn and are nearly gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Until the time comes to say at last – “So long!”
If you can work for clients and keep your virtue,
Or lunch with partners – nor lose the common touch,
If inflated egos cannot hurt you,
If all assignments count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With 60 seconds worth of billing, yet have some fun,
And have a life and love all who share in it,
You’ll have fought the odds and won!
(Apologies to Rudyard Kipling!)
The Office of Student Life Counseling provides counseling services for all law students. The office is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. Call 495-2967 for an appointment.