life

4 Things I Learned Reading My Law School Admission Essay

Ivan Education, Law, Reflection , , , , , , , ,

Before I graduated law school, I asked the admissions coordinator for a copy of my law school admission essay. My request came as a surprise.

“Not many people ask to see those,” she said. “Are you okay?”

I told her not to worry. I was just wondering why I originally applied to law school. The thought came to me after reading an article that compared University of Toronto law school admission essays to what those eventual lawyers really did. The article contrasts high ideals with “the reality” in large corporate law firms.

“Did my motivations change?” I wondered.

When I looked through the cloud for my old application essay, I couldn’t find it. Somewhere in the five years, two laptops, and multiple cloud services I used since applying it had gotten lost. Our administrator was kind enough to give me a copy. Reading my law school application essay was one of the most important things I did before graduating.

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For anyone unfamiliar with law school, the admissions essay or “personal statement” is every applicant’s one chance to tell their story. It’s completely unstructured, often with no page limits or guidelines. The blank page stares back and says, “Tell me about yourself. Why do you want to go to law school?”

After half a decade, I didn’t expect my application essay to still ring true. A lot happened in the five years since I had applied. Wikileaks was just unfolding. Snowden. The Boston bombings. China also surpassed Japan as the world’s second-largest economy. It’s hard to say how much those events influenced me. In that time I had also completed two graduate-level degrees, made mistakes, and learned a lot about myself.

When I read my law school application essay I learned four things:

  1. Passion is about action. When I wrote that original essay, there were a lot of things I could have talked about. I could have talked about big issues, world events, or the importance of a legal education. My passion really shone through when I talked about action. What I did spoke far louder than anything I could have said. Taking on early roles as a community leader, mediator, researcher, and writer showed I already had a passion for doing what lawyers do–even if I didn’t really know what it was like to be a lawyer.
  2. Vulnerability is as important as strength. Law school admission essays can be awful to read. It can be very difficult to read someone else promote themselves. When all that’s presented is strength, we want to turn away because it’s not real.  After reading my essay, I thought the best part was my struggle (and eventual failure) to learn Japanese. Addressing failure helps us stay human. It helps us show our resiliency. And it makes us trustworthy. Nobody is perfect, and I’m glad I didn’t try to be.
  3. The only way to know “what you want to do next” is past experience. Ever heard someone complain that they’re not sure what they want to do for an education, a career, or a next move? That was me before I came to law school. I wasn’t sure if law was really for me, and my uncertainty comes through in my writing. The only information I was proceeding on was from past experiences. Not everyone has known what they want to do since they were born. I certainly didn’t. For most of us, “what to do next” comes from past experience. We need to constantly try new things to learn about ourselves to calibrate our compass for the way forward.
  4. Our most difficult moments define us and refine us. Strangely enough, I was encouraged to become a lawyer by my first tough experience in university. I had to find an apartment off-campus when all my friends were moving into residence; I had forgotten to hand in my housing forms on time. Two things happened after I moved into an apartment off-campus: (a) I became much more social and outgoing on campus. (b) I found out how to break my lease legally by researching the Residential Tenancies Act. That early experience could have made me give up. I could have stayed isolated off campus and stayed put. Instead, the experience forced me to grow.

After reading the essay, I was relieved to learn my motivations for going to law school hadn’t changed. I still want to use law to be a leader in my community.

If you’re in law school, I highly recommend you read your admission essay before you leave. It never hurts to re-calibrate your reasons for pursuing a long-term commitment. If you’re not in law school, but you’re thinking about committing to something or someone or somewhere for years, you should try writing a personal statement.

Leave a comment if you do read your admission essay. What does it say?

4 Life Lessons I Learned Stacking Wood

Ivan Reflection , , , , , ,

Sometimes metaphors reveal themselves in ways you’d never expect.  Recently I spent an afternoon outside carrying a truckload of chopped wood across the yard, and stacked it in a neat pile.  At the end of it I had two things: a nice pile of wood and the realization that stacking wood is a lot like life.  Here’s why.

1. Starting with a plan is a good idea.

A stack of wood without a plan is just another pile of wood.  Mine needed to be tall and straight, and located in a key spot next to the fire pit, because that’s what I wanted.  We begin a lot of tasks by determining what we want and tracing the steps we need to take to get there.  So why don’t we approach life that way?

Determining what we want out of life can be challenging, but it’s not impossible.  Visualize what you want your life to look like.  Then map out the steps you need to take to get there.

2. Optimism and confidence can only take you so far.

I’m a big believer in optimism.  Keeping an open mind allows you to take chances other people might not.  You can’t drown in what-ifs when you’re optimistic – you start things – you learn and grow from everything new you try.

However, when you’re building up a stack of wood, optimism doesn’t keep the stack from falling down.  You still need to place each piece in a stable position if you expect it to stand up for long.  Life is like that.  Optimism helps you get started and get over those unavoidable mistakes.   It doesn’t keep your life from falling apart, it helps you pick up the pieces when it does.  Laying down a strong foundation is what supports your stack, so take the time to do it right.

3. One bad log can’t take down the whole pile.

In my final stack of logs there was more than one that was a little unsteady.  But if my pile collapsed it wasn’t because of any one log, it was usually because it wasn’t supported from below.

Work, relationships, health, finances and spirituality– these are all things that play a role in our lives in one way or another.  Keeping a balance helps us deal with the odd log that starts to roll out from under us.

4. Things don’t always fit together the way you think they will.

Sometimes it’s tough to tell where to put a piece of wood.  You can tell by the shape if it’s going to fit on top of the others, but you never really know until you slap it on to see if it wobbles.

Relationships, jobs and many other parts of your life are like that.  You think you have an idea of what’s perfect for you, but you really have no idea until you try it out.