It has been a while since I last posted because I honestly feel like I “took an L” at the conclusion of my first year of law school. I promised to be honest about my journey to law school and I couldn’t convince myself to create any blog posts after spring semester because of my performance.
Ok, so what happened? I performed below average my first semester. I returned for spring semester with goals, my steps to achieve them, and was moderately strict with myself. Whatever I did throughout spring semester only translated to below average grades, again. Additionally, I was interviewing for summer internship positions ALLLLL semester and still hadn’t found a job when summer arrived. I felt that I was an amazing interviewer and sold myself to the best of my ability, but clearly that was not the case. By the time summer rolled around I was discouraged about my future and doubted myself constantly.
The best traits of an overachiever are our drive, ambition, and accountability. The worst trait of an overachiever is our disappointment with ourselves when we believe we performed our best, but did not achieve the goals we wanted. That is exactly how I felt.
Ok, so what changed? I’m not happy with my performance my first year, but I realized that even the tiniest improvement is an improvement. Period. I utilized my network to obtain a job (I will write a post about this). Best of all, I studied abroad with friends from law school in Spain and it lifted my spirits. I learned to take the small victories as victories no matter what.
Many attorneys have told me to be open-minded in law school and I didn’t realize that meant to be open-minded about perceived failures too. Just the other day, an attorney told me to be opened minded about where the career takes you long after you leave law school. My expectations were not fulfilled, but I also did everything I could do to achieve my goals and that is all you can ask of yourself.
Currently, I have a legal internship and am ready to tackle on the next school year. I may not be an expert yet, but I’m just getting started. I will not let one rough year define me when I have many more ahead and the potential to be more than I expect.
I just wanted to share my experience because recently was when I felt the weight of so called “failure” weigh on me the most since I started law school. I want people to know that you bounce back, it’s not the end of the world, and there’s so much more to life outside of law school.
This is the worst part of law school, but I will continue to be honest with my readers in the hopes that I can have an accurate blog of my journey.
Image Credit: https://www.investorsgroup.com/en/articles/2017/03/its-okay-to-have-a-messy-desk
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