I've read many descriptions of law student life. Not all of them are comforting reading, but I don't think I've ever seen anything as discouraging as this:
The original letter, written to Salon's advice columnist, is sad enough, but the commentary and response letters (there are many) comprise an epistolary rendition of dystopia that makes Orwell look sunny. I want desperately to believe that these events would not have happened (at least not in this way) at CU Law School, and that the letters you might write in response would not paint such a harrowing picture of the culture of law studenthood. Am I a fool for thinking so?
mimi
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11 comments:
If the student who wrote that letter thinks they have it tough, they should try life at CU. People deliberately being made outcasts because they don't have the "right" letters across the butt of their shorts, being laughed at for not making dean's list, becoming the butt of jokes for not making journal... you name it.
Not to mention all the stab-you-in-the-back stuff that goes on to climb up the all-important GPA/class rank ladder: tearing pages out of library books needed for Legal Writing citation exercises, sabotaging ExamSoft uploads, and pulling thought-to-have-been submitted seminar papers out of prof's mailboxes.
It sucks here -- you always have to watch your back.
(wait for it)
April Fools!
Sure, CU has some cliques or whatever, like any other law school, professional school, job, etc... But when people ask me about the school, the thing I always tout first is the spirit or community amongst the students -- usually willing to go out of their way to provide missed notes, answer questions, or help others succeed. I'm sure there are scattered anecdotal stories that suggest otherwise, but overall, the writer's experience at her school is not my perception of CU... at all.
A couple of thoughts:
1. Never heard of anyone at CU Law breaking another classmate's nose.
2. Think it is an exceptional case that has been magnified by the Salon.com article.
3. Similar to Indiana Law School (where it happened), CU Law has lots of gossip. Read the comments to the girl's blog post about the story (www.dizzydoesit.blogspot.com): she gets slammed for being a gossip and a "liar." I could easily see the same thing leveled against people at CU Law.
4. I am sure that there are "loners" at CU Law who feel isolated, angry, frustrated, and like others let them down.
5. I would say a noticeable portion of the student body generally dislikes "law students." I don't think this is unique to CU. In fact, I'd say that we get along better than most. Many of my friends at other law schools generally hate their fellow classmates. We all have our group of friends from school, but a ton of people dislike the rest. Law students = anal, competitive people = unhappiness. The same holds true for lawyers. In my mind, it’s a significant reason why the legal profession has such a high rate of dissatisfaction and depression.
I think that overall students at CU are great! People look out for each other, and based on the smiles and laughter in the hallway I would say we are a pretty positive bunch. If there ever was a problem there are lots of great profs and admins we could get help from. That said, in the dead of winter or the week before finals (when we still haven't started outlining) there can be some tension and gossip. But that is bound to happen... Law school is competative and we all feel the stress now and then. I will definitely leave law school with a group of great collegues!
Bolder is right, the letter an situation seems blown out of proportion by being a salon.com article. If someone is really at the point to write down their experiences and send it to an advice column, they may be willing to exaggerate a little and downplay their own bad conduct.
My experience has been about the same as it was in high school and in college. I have a core group of good friends, a lot of people I would consider myself friends with and I really try to be friendly with as many of the rest as I can. It feels reciprocated by the rest of our class.
I'm happy here...I mean, as happy as anyone can be with finals looming.
I'm happy that we can drink beer at Fleming for the Talent Show...
I think law school draws a fair number of crazies, but most of my classmates at CU Law were really kind folks. I was never denied notes when I requested them, for example, which is something that I understand is common at many other schools. Sure, there were a few unkind folks but I think CU Law students are really nice to each other.
The nice-to-each-other theme fits my experience, too. Collegiate, humane, compassionate, and brilliant describes what I've experienced from classmates and faculty alike. I had worried, before starting at CU, that I would be too "different" (older, conservative, religious, whatever). I was delighted to discover I was wrong.
This is BBB. CU's not like that.
1. CU law students are dorks. (full disclosure: so am I)
2. They are very friendly dorks who make law school less painful, unlike the article below details.
3. As an IU undergrad (granted that was last decade), I never experienced this sort of jerk-assness, and enjoyed the camaraderie in Bloomington amongst students. However, they did have a very competitive Business School (Kelley School of Business) where this sort of behavior was not unheard of. Maybe this is the result of those business students flowing into law school?
Even the people that I distain the very most at CU Law are actually not terrible people.
But, I think that the Salon article was getting to something a little more -- which I think does persist at CU Law and kind of pervades society, albeit to different degrees. The issue was stated very well: it is not that the law students were necessarily mean, but they were simply apathetic. Apathy -- that's it.
While my experience at CU Law has been pretty good, I do know of a couple of people who have felt the sting of apathy. We do have some people among us that do not get smiles, or even the casual "hi" from passing classmates. Some of it certainly is that those people have a problem reaching out (maybe a tough trait for a future lawyer), but I think that some of it is that they are just "different" in some ((some times) small) way.
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