I received in the mail last week my class schedule for my first semester of law school and it looks crazy! It includes six classes that represent fairly standard 1L fare: Civil Procedure, Contracts, Property, Torts, Legal Writing and Research, and Issues in Lawyering and Leadership. This adds up to 15 credit hours, quite a heavy load for graduate-level work! (Fifteen hours was my normal load in undergrad and most graduate students would tell you that 9 hours is normal and 12 hours is pushing it.) On the bright side, only four of my classes have final exams and they're spread out over a two-week period. The craziest thing about the schedule is how the classes are "arranged". Some meet on Tuesday and Thursday; one meets Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday; one meets only on Monday; one meets on Wednesday and Friday; another meets at different times on Wednesday and Friday. This bit of paper will be well-worn by the time I get the hang of that schedule.
With my list of courses in hand, I went shopping for books today, comparing prices and trying to balance cost with the condition of used textbooks. I ended up buying from amazon.com and independent sellers on half.com and amazon.com and spent a total of $479, including shipping. I fell confident that I saved a bit over buying used texts from the campus shop and probably would've spent about $1,000 had I purchased all new texts.
Along with my class schedule came other information explaining that our first couple of days would be half-days filled with normal registration and orientation activities: ID cards, parking registration, gym passes, locker assignments, laptop computer wireless configuration, etc. Notably, I'll have to wear a suit on my first day for my a portrait that will appear in a jobs placement booklet. The following full days will include more orientation, a skills and personality assessment (DISC profile, Myers-Briggs inventory), a tour of the main campus, a reception a the University President's house, a service project, and three days of "boot camp" meant to "introduce students to the rigors of law school and the differences between legal education and undergraduate learning."
An interesting side-note to the above mention of personality assessments is that I took the Myers-Briggs inventory in undergrad and turned out as ENFP; when I took it a few years later, I turned out ISTJ. Upon reading the linked descriptions of these personality types, I see little relevant to my own personality in the ENFP type, but the ISTJ type reads like the report of a private investigator that has followed me for the past ten years!
Besides preparations for a new beginning in school, I'm also winding things down at work by finishing projects, documenting my procedures, answering colleagues' questions, and exchanging goodbyes with co-workers that I've know as long as 18 years! I've also had more than one party thrown in my honor, which featured amazing food (sushi, hummus, shrimp, scallops, smoked salmon, salsa, bean dip, brownies, cookies -- all of my favorites!), good drink (Yuengling), and brief speakers. My colleagues in ERIT chipped-in and gave me an iPod as a going-away gift, which was a wonderful surprise!
One of my colleagues asked me what I'd miss most about working in the Libraries and in ERIT. I glibly gave a few obvious answers: the free health insurance, the regular hours, seeing the same folks every day. Honestly, though, I don't know that I'm able to say what I'll miss. Having been where I am for so long and having work become such a part of me and me of it, I don't know that I can distinguish enough between the people, places, and activities of work and those of other parts of my life to think about missing them. It's as if someone were to ask you what you'd miss about breathing air or living with gravity. I'm going into something so different and exciting that I imagine that my new environment and experiences will handily fill many of the voids left behind my current routines. :J
1 comment:
You are going to be a busy boy! You'll need the weekends to catch you breath and get a little rest. I suppose it's good that you won't have to worry about yard maintenance. BTW, I'm a mix of your ENFP and ISTJ. I am INFJ, and it's description also fits me like a glove. Good luck, Justin!
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