First Days of School

So I just have to say, reworking the myth doesn’t work. I actually think its worse.

“Look to your left, look to your right. One of you will not be here when you graduate.”

has turned into

“Look to your left, look to your right. These will be your colleagues for the next 15 years and probably the rest of your lives.”

It follows that we should make friends now, be nice, and perhaps above all, be aware that our reputation started on the first day of orientation and will carry through with us for the rest of our lives. One young professional told about how when someone from law school applied for a job at her office and she was asked how the were, she told about how he had showed up for class hungover twice. What?

I don’t know about the rest of the ‘Reputation Generation’ but I would rather they stoke us up like roosters and set us inside the pen with razors on our heels. Then at least it would be an honest game of rugby and we could all go to the bar afterwards. And I am a peace activist! What does this field amount to that they had to tell us, on more than one occasion, to be nice?

And then of course are the inevitable networking lectures. Perhaps this is a New York bias, but networking was kind of a taboo word there. You don’t want to tell people that your networking. Hell, you don’t even want to admit it to yourself. New York is just one 24 hour networking event where your interactions are more often based on what you can offer each other than on –well, whatever friendship used to be based on. And so we all mill about, cocktail glass in hand, doing everything in our mental power to deny the fact that were networking while doing everything in our physical power to do so.

But how awkward is it to get out of a panel on how we are all each other’s future job opportunities and try to strike up a conversation based on genuine interest. “Whoo, I’m exhausted, want to go down the street and grab some drinks?” reeks strongly of “Hey, you look like you might be the popular kid in class. You said something smart that may mean you’ll be in the top ten. You want to be my friend?”

This might be my biggest fear so far about law school. (See subsequent post.) I felt sufficiently isolated and freaked out, and kind of frantic in my friendship-grabbings during orientation. But then, on the first day, during a certain class I was inclined to take as a joke, the professor, after running in late (setting my little procrastinator’s heart at ease) had us introduce ourselves. We were a small class so it gave a little leeway for creativity. We heard about the ski bums, the Peace Corps volunteers, the military personnel, the moms, the moms-to-be, the newlyweds, the 20 year old, the 53 year old, the domestically well traveled, the internationally well traveled, the idealists and the corporate hacks, the career career people. The people who grew up in this great state, and the people who had just flown in the day before and were going back over the weekend to pack up their house. What’s nice about this particular school is everyone felt the need to pledge their allegiance to where we were.

I think there’s hope for friendship.

Lets hope next years orientation gets it right.