I arrived at my law school campus the first day of September of 2004. I don’t like to talk about it, because I have strong mixed emotions. The first month was probably one of the most miserable months of my life. But, I get emails from younger friends and friends of family members asking me for advice about law school or graduate school. I always approach such situations with a bit of trepidation. Now, I really enjoyed my experience in graduate school, and there are many, many things I enjoyed about my time in the Boston/Cambridge area. But there are definitely some things I did not enjoy, and many things I would do differently. So here, in a list, are some “recommendations” if you will, for others pursuing graduate school in general, and law school in particular.

1. Be prepared for debt.
I was not prepared. I graduated and discovered that I was very, very in debt. Owning a house in the Midwest in debt. It hurt. I felt trapped. However, I did have a job with a high salary. I just realized that I wouldn’t be living quite as well as I had anticipated. Graduate school is expensive. Not only for the costs but what you forgo. In many programs, you will not make any income while you are in school. But you continue to have living expenses. And then there is the cost of education. While schools offer financial aid, know the real cost of education, not just the cost of living in the cheapest graduate student housing and the cost of courses. Books are very expensive in graduate school. You have to eat, and family still expect to see you every now and then around holidays. So if you do decide to go, be prepared for debt.

2. Be prepared for a path of least resistance.
This is especially true in professional school. At my law school, everyone is going to (1) clerk for a federal judge and (2) work at a law firm. I got to graduate school expecting more of college. I loved college, for the most part, by the way, and I felt I was kind of a big deal there. Law school was totally different; people go there to get a job immediately. In December of my first year I began interviewing for jobs. It was like a nightmare; I have severe social anxiety and I would feel as if I were going to die everytime I would walk into an interview room. And was this really what I wanted to do? I had no idea! I had no plan beyond arriving on campus. So I got swept up in the stream.

Fortunately, by the time clerkship interviews came along I had found my footing. I found, miraculously, that the law firm culture wasn’t that bad for me. But it was hard; there is a torrential path in law school leading you to a place where you might not want to be. I can imagine that it is the same in other graduate programs. So before you go, figure out why it is you are going. Graduate school is not an extension of college.

3. Be prepared to change.
While it is terrible to enter law school without a clear cut goal, it is almost equally as bad to enter with a misinformed goal. I met a lot of people while I was in law school who came there wanting to practice a specific type of law, like appellate advocacy work, or supreme court appeals. At a first year law student, I thought how smart they seemed. Now, when someone in law school tells me that they want to practice criminal appellate work in the United States Appeals Court straight out of law school it is all I can do to keep a straight face. Appellate work is a difficult field to crack; you will definitely be doing something else. Interestingly enough, when someone told me that they wanted to do IP work, I didn’t give it a second thought. But, it turns out, while not sounding nearly as glamorous, my friend with a nuclear engineering major had the only realistic goal of all of us. And, from what I can see, it isn’t bad work!

When I finally did decide what I wanted to do, I was convinced that I wanted to help the downtrodden have fair access to the judicial system. I even took a clinical with that goal in mind. In fact, I did four semesters of clinicals, much more than I was actually allowed to do. What I came away with was a profound understanding of how criminal behavior and poverty are linked, that the solution to a person’s problems cannot be found in the justice system, and an understanding of how my empathy was a downfall in my practice. After nearly coming to blows with a juvenile client’s mother, I knew I had to find a new goal. But fortunately, I was prepared to change. I am not sure if my friend with an eye on appellate work ever found a more earthly calling.

4. Don’t let graduate school be the sum of your life.
My first month in law school I rarely left the small area where the school was located, and I was an emotional wreck. Then I got on the phone with my aunt and figured out how to take the train to where she lived. I saw interesting and rather frightening things on my train ride (two men slugging it out in the train station over a baseball game), but I did expand my life. And I started dating people from other schools. And going to events on other campuses. Eventually, I was comfortable with the urban jungle where I found myself, and would regularly visit a restaurant here or a shopping center there. I appreciated the city. And, oddly enough, the more relaxed perspective greatly improved my performance in law school.

5. Everything else I can think of.
I don’t suggest going straight through for graduate school unless you know you have the stamina. I saw a lot of burnout, for myself and others. It was really tough for me, and I nearly quit more than once. I also don’t suggest going to graduate school just anywhere; go to the best program you can afford. I also suggest, finally, that you acquaint yourself with how you function. You need to know how you study and how you learn. You need to know what your limits are in social settings, and what your limits are for relationships. Become comfortable in your own skin. Graduate school is full of people who are trying to find their footing, and it will cause you to challenge yourself and question yourself in really hard ways. You might not think you are smart enough, or accomplished enough, or anything enough. You might start, like I did, to think the people around you must be crazy. And the school itself is hard work. It is demanding work. But if you learn to accept yourself, flaws and all, and learn to be yourself around others despite the situation, you can capitalize on your good points, and you will be positioned to grow both academically and socially in a way you never thought possible.

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