BY AN ADMITTED STUDENT (AS TOLD TO JEREMY BLACHMAN)
I can’t believe it! I came here expecting nothing, and I’m leaving with a bright red messenger bag. This is awesome. Harvard is even better than U.S. News said!
The best part of the weekend was the mock class I got to sit in on. I think it was called “Legal Profession.” Someone tried to trick me into thinking it was a real class, and the other students were all 3Ls, but I couldn’t be fooled. They seemed to know even less than I did – and none of them even raised their hand. It was definitely a mock class. When I’m a law student, I’m gonna raise my hand every single day. That’s what law students do, according to everyone I talked to in the library on Saturday night.
What really excited me was the admitted students activities fair. I never realized there would be so many extracurriculars at law school! I’m going to join the Taxes Club. I hear they put on great parties – and help people set up Roth IRAs.
I can’t believe all the legal journals they have here. All of them sound so exciting. They promise substantive editing and writing work from the very first day I get on campus – as much as I want! And, they said they’ll get me familiar with all of the hard-copy books and statutes that will be crucial for the work I’ll have to do in all of my classes throughout law school. “You can’t go a week without searching through hard-bound volumes in the library when you’re a law student,” everyone kept saying, “and so the journals offer you valuable experience from day one.” Then they started laughing, but I think they were just laughing because everyone at law school is so happy to be here, and laughs all the time, at everything, for no reason at all.
This weekend really helped me conquer some of my biggest fears about law school. For example, I had heard it gets really cold here during the winter. But I think I can take it. As long as this past weekend was just an unusual cold spell, I think I’ll be fine. But I do wonder about the ice rink. I really hurt my head when I fell through. I hope it didn’t make me say anything stupid at the admitted students resume workshop. I mean, everyone looked at me funny when I asked about working as a personal injury attorney after law school, but I figured it was just because I had stolen their next question.
What was really helpful all weekend were the nametags that all of the other admitted students had. It was great that they included the name of everyone’s undergraduate college. This way, I knew who was worth talking to, and who had gotten into Harvard by mistake. Someone from some school in the middle of the country somewhere tried to corner me and ask if I knew where the cafeteria was. I did everyone a favor by pointing him in the wrong direction. Only certain people deserve to eat.
That reminds me. The Vie Society invited me to their pre-1L junior princess party. I got to do laundry for all of the pretty 2Ls and wash their shiny silver shoes while they drank champagne and stared blankly at each other, searching for things to talk about. It was a blast. But not nearly as fun as that law school social center, Lincoln’s Inn. They told me all about their outline bank, and educational trips to museums and other cultural events, and the prestige that the Lincoln’s Inn name carries on their resumes. Then someone threw up on me. But I think it was just because they thought I went to a state school, like I did to that guy earlier in the day.
One of the coolest parts of the weekend was when I went on a tour of the interactive museum exhibit about what law school was like in the 1950s. I think it was called Griswold Hall. I also enjoyed the brownies they kept serving me. I will never get tired of those brownies, even if they’re at every single law school sponsored event for my entire three years.
I signed up for a ton of mailing lists at the activities fair, and I can’t wait to start getting e-mail. I am especially excited about hearing news about the dorms – I definitely need to be reminded when to keep my windows closed and my heater on, so that the pipes don’t freeze. I hope they send one of those e-mails every other day.
In the end, I thought my decision was going to be difficult. But then I tried a piece of pizza at Pinocchio’s, in Harvard Square, and knew that I would have to pass up Stanford for here. Maybe the Boston Globe can write an article about that, on a slow news day, and Pinocchio’s can put it up on their wall for everyone to read. That would be amazing.Actually, my decision isn’t going to be difficult at all, since I didn’t get into Stanford. But Harvard has really gone out of its way to alleviate my concerns that this place is just one giant party in the warm and sunny Cambridge metropolis. The only disappointment is that the library here is only open a hundred hours a week. I’m concerned that with all of the extra outside reading I’m going to do, and the exciting journal opportunities, I’m going to need a place to study at four in the morning (after I get back from the Lincoln’s Inn birdwatching trip).
The final thing I did before I left to come home was eat a meal in the Hark cafeteria. Everyone I talked to recommended the handmade sushi, expertly rolled by Harvard’s own sushi masters, and then packaged to look like it just fell off a truck somewhere en route to a soup kitchen. It was delicious, and led me straight to one of the recently-renovated bathrooms. They’re very pretty, and bigger than the dorm rooms, which is a nice touch.
In the end, I simply can’t wait for September. I’ve already bought all of my books, read them twice, written my 3L paper, spent a summer working for a law firm, completed the law review write-on competition, applied for clerkships, passed the MPRE, and been groped on Cambridge Common. I’m all set!
Jeremy Blachman never went to admitted students weekend before starting school. He thought it would spoil the surprises. Read more at http://jeremyblachman.blogspot.com.