Simply Serendipitous

Between daily information sessions (ranging from one to hundreds of visitors), reading applications, participating in my first-ever college fair down in Prince Georges County, and a recruiting trip to New England, it’s safe to say that my life these past few months has revolved around undergraduate admissions.  Of course, my life has also revolved around law school admissions as well, as I was going through that process myself.  In short, my life has been admissions.

Our first SOHOP event - sporting my official polo and nametag (and feeling a bit like a camp counselor)

Despite having volunteered/worked in the Admissions Office since my freshman year, I had no idea what it actually means to be a full-time employee in the office.  Sure, I had seen Admissions_Daniel and the rest of the office get really stressed or tired or whatever else throughout the application cycle, but it was impossible to fully understand what it means to be an Admissions Counselor.  …Until I started working here full-time.

I want to dedicate this blog entry to shining a bit of light on the amazing job that college admissions counselors all over the country are doing each day.  It’s impossible to truly understand this field without spending a significant amount of time immersed in it, but I’ll do my best to show you the other side of the admissions process.

November: it begins. Early Decision applications pour in and begin flooding the counselors’ online queues as the files are completed by the operations team upstairs.

December: pause.  As Hopkins students are wrapping up the semester and finishing their final exams, the counselors are also feeling the crunch to finish up their final decisions.  Decisions are released on or around December 15 (finals this past year finished around December 17), at which point, the entire campus breathes a collective sigh of relief.  The Admissions Office then has a couple of weeks that could be best described as “the calm before the storm.”

January: the deluge. Our Regular Decision application deadline is January 1.  Happy New Year, Office of Undergraduate Admissions!  Immediately upon returning from a nice winter break (which usually involves some work with pre-deadline applications), those online queues I mentioned begin overflowing.  Okay, not literally overflowing – they are online queues.  At this point, part-time readers join the team (this is where I come in) and help prepare transcripts for review by counselors, in addition to reading some files on their own.

February: a false sense of security.  By February, the staff is buried up to their eyeballs in application work.  Whether it’s processing (by our Operations team) or reading (by our counselors and part-time readers), we’re busy.  However, the official deadline is usually the end of the month or the first week in March – so there’s somewhat of a false sense of security.  “Oh, we have a few more weeks, it’ll be fine,” or, “I can’t believe how many applications we have to get to, but at least we have a couple more weeks!”

March: crunch time. First reads are finished – the work of part-time readers is done – and counselors move into their committee review.  They have about two weeks to complete the class, a process that is constantly in flux.  While this may sound like it’s arbitrary, I can assure you that it is nothing of the sort.  Each day, there is a different task to help shape the class to be exactly what we’re looking for.  The biggest challenge at this point is making sure we’re at the number that we want – during our first reads, we’re not thinking so much about the volume of each decision, we’re going with our first thought.  March is the time to make sure we’re not going to end up with a class of 10,000.  It’s unbelievably difficult.  Our mailing process involves 4-5 checks per envelope to be beyond sure that we’re sending the right letters to the right applicants.  Then: a sigh of relief.  Throughout this process, however, we’re busy with visitors who have early spring breaks or are otherwise starting those weeks of college visits.

April: where did all of these people come from? Decisions are released.  More juniors start looking at colleges during their spring break.  Seniors start visiting the schools to which they’ve been admitted.  We run four different information sessions each day, two for prospective students and two for admitted students.  We also run a lot of other programming for our visitors.  The unique challenge during April is the combined effort to introduce juniors (and sophomores) to Hopkins and to convince our admitted seniors to choose Hopkins by their May 1 deposit deadline.  In short, it’s exhausting.  But it’s fun, too – I promise.  Just for a bit of perspective, on Good Friday, we had at least 1500 visitors to campus, and this wasn’t even our SOHOP event.

The view from my beloved rental car as I head to Boston Logan Airport to drop her off.

To complicate matters, April is time for spring travel, too.  This year, while Admissions_Daniel was busy with our second SOHOP event, I went up to New England to kick off his spring travel.   He joined me in Rhode Island on Friday after SOHOP to finish off the weekend’s events.  I arrived in New Hampshire, did two college fairs there and then headed to Providence, RI for another two events.  We moved on to Dedham, MA as a convenient location for our Explore Hopkins presentation, followed by one more (gigantic) college fair on Sunday.  What a week!

May: where did all of the people go? It’s early May and there’s a calm that’s come over the Office. Seniors have made their decisions.  Juniors/sophomores aren’t on spring break anymore.  Hopkins students are finishing up the semester, and some are looking ahead to commencement.  Where did the time go?  It’s not time to kick back and relax, though.  It is crunch time for evaluating transfer applications, a process that started back in the aforementioned hectic April.

June-August: not-so-sleepy summer.  The campus is busy with summer programs for students and our office is busy with visitors who are working on their “apply” list.  We do a lot with our incoming freshmen (primarily through a Facebook group) and work on bigger projects for prospective students through Hopkins Interactive.

September-October: on the road. As students are back to classes, the admissions counselors are back on the road.  It’s time to make sure we’re out and about telling the world everything there is to know about Johns Hopkins to help them decide if it’s a good fit and whether they should apply.  It’s also time to brace ourselves; as soon as November comes, so does another crazy cycle.

So you get the picture: it’s a rollercoaster of a job.  Keep in mind, too, that this isn’t the exhaustive list of tasks.  Every day, someone sends out tours.  Someone gives information sessions.  Someone responds to e-mails.  Someone answers the phones.  Someone coordinates interviews.  Someone processes the materials coming through mail and fax.  There are countless other tasks that are more behind-the-scenes, but are certainly no less important.  This is a crazy job, but also a thrilling one.

Whether it’s serving as a family’s first impression of Hopkins or evaluating a student’s application for admission, this is a very people-centric job.  It’s also very Hopkins-centric.  I draw from my experience of three-and-a-half years as a student, but most of my job training has been picked up on-the-go.  How many students are at Hopkins? 4,998. Can you tell me about your combined five-year bachelors/masters programs in Engineering?  Yes (I’ll spare you the details).  What carries the most weight in the application process?  Who is happiest at Hopkins?  What are the professors like?  How big are classes?  What is the percentage of students admitted to medical school?  Knowing the answers to these questions is part of my job, but it’s also second nature – the most wonderful thing about Admissions at Johns Hopkins is that we don’t have a handbook telling us what to say.  We don’t have a script for our information sessions.  We’re very honest and candid.  We take questions and we want to share our experiences.  At the end of each day, the most important thing that I do is to help students/applicants find their fit – that place where they’ll be happy for the next four years – whether it’s chatting with sophomores and juniors deciding where to apply or evaluating applications for admission.  Again: this is a crazy job, but also a thrilling one.  I can’t think of a better way to have spent my “senior spring” semester.

I was very fortunate to participate in a Senior/Young Alumni Leadership Symposium last weekend – the event, in its first year, was designed to create a connection between graduating seniors and young alumni who were there to help us navigate that next step, whatever it is.  We did several interesting exercises on the themes of “connect,” “reflect,” and “pursue.”  The activity for the first theme, connect, was particularly interesting and I think it’s helpful for anyone in the position most of my readers find themselves – deciding where they’ll spend the next four years.

The activity involved big sheets of paper and markers (you’d be surprised how excited college seniors get about markers).  The task was to draw a map of our four years at Hopkins, helping illustrate how we’ve gotten to where we are, and how we’ve been directed to where we’re going.  It sounds simple enough, but when you have an 11 x 17 inch blank paper in front of you, it’s hard to get started.

The purpose was to identify and highlight the biggest factors that have directed us to where we are now.  Being the list-maker that I am, I opted for bulleted lists organized by year, rather than the fully illustrated flow charts made by some of my peers.  I had a hard time starting four years back and instead went in reverse chronological order and traced my path backwards.  What I came up with was a bit disorganized, but after thinking about it, I redid my map on my own time.  Now for the fun part: do your own!

My newly-redrawn Hopkins life map

Why am I telling you all of this?  Well, there are a few reasons.  First, it’s interesting to see how crazy the path has been.  Yes, I’m a bit unusual in that I’ve had a few different majors, but looking around the room at the symposium, I noticed most of us seniors (and the alumni) ended up in very different places than expected at the start.  Second, I think it’s a useful exercise for those of you getting ready to choose your college.  Before you settle on that decision (maybe before those decisions even come out!) trace out your high school years.  What’s been most meaningful to you along the way?  What events or realizations have helped you get to where you are now?  What kind of person have you become, and what do you value?  This self-reflection sounds very silly and cheesy, but it’s a very helpful reflection as you get ready to take that next step and go off to college.

Another one of our exercises was to “pursue,” that is, imagine where we see ourselves at age 50.  This made most of us feel a little panicked, and the overwhelming majority had no clear idea.  It’s not that we don’t have goals or drive, but rather, at age 18 we all had very different expectations for our 22-year-old selves, how could we possibly imagine 30ish years ahead?  For those of you playing along at home, maybe don’t think to age 50 – think to age 22.  You’re getting ready to graduate from college – what’s next?  What do you see yourself doing, or, where do you see yourself going?  How do you see yourself getting there?

Again, I know this little exercise sounds silly, but I encourage you all to at least think about it.  If you do end up writing it down, come back to it at the end of each year of college and see how you’ve met (or, likely, exceeded) your own expectations.

There have been several recent articles/editorials addressing the question, “Does it matter where you go to college?”  Many answer that it really doesn’t, but what actually matters is what you DO there.  These exercises were helpful as we thought back to what we’ve done at Hopkins and how we’ve made the most of our time here.  After creating our college life maps, we discussed how different our lives would be if we’d gone to another school.  For me, I felt like I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to realize I didn’t want to be pre-med, at least not so early on (research spring of my freshman year was what did me in).  It’s hard to imagine how else my life would be different, but it made me extremely grateful to have graduated from Johns Hopkins.  The most important advice I can give to college-bound seniors was given to me as I struggled to pick a law school: wherever you go will be the right choice.  (THANKS Admissions_Daniel, for that pearl of wisdom).  You can’t possibly know exactly how your college experience will play out, but I can promise you that it’ll be full of twists and turns that will leave you in a great place when it comes time to graduate.

Okay, I know I’ve been very introspective lately, but it’s been tremendously helpful as I’ve navigated my way through the law school application process.  The self-reflection is certainly not for everyone, but it worked for me; I’m very excited to announce that I’m planning my move to St. Louis and will be spending the next three years at Washington University in St. Louis.   I can’t even begin to imagine what my life will be like in three years and what that law school life map will look like!

One of the most rewarding things about my time at Hopkins is that I’ve had the privilege to meet so many incredible people, from all over.  In fact, tracing these hometowns/locations is quite fascinating.  When students arrive for orientation, it’s exciting to meet new acquaintances from hometowns you’d never have imagined – whether they’re from just down the road or across an ocean or two, you meet such an interesting group of people.  You may or may not end up as BFFs with the people you’ve met from orientation, but more likely than not, your close group of friends will come from many different places.

Once you settle into life at Hopkins, your “home” identity fades away a bit – not that it ever goes away, but it’s not the single most interesting thing about you anymore.  You and your friends begin to identify with Hopkins.  The discussions about “friends from home” when you’re getting homesick become fewer as you’re building a life in Baltimore, which becomes your new (albeit temporary) home.

How could you not feel at home here? Photo credit: JHU_Clint (borrowed from our Hopkins Interactive Flickr account!)

Then something funny happens: time flies and you enter your senior year.   You start making plans – and big ones at that.  Then comes the first friend to get a job offer/get into grad school.  It starts sinking in and you realize that your time at Hopkins is drawing to a close.  Between the emotional rollercoaster rides (“I’m so excited for what’s next” versus “I don’t want to enter the real world!”), you’ll hear of more and more students figuring out what they want to do with their lives.  Finally, you’ll realize that, just as you came from so many different places, you and your friends will likely go to many different places.

I’ll give you just a hint of the places my closest friends are going.  Two of my dear engineer friends will be sticking around to continue their studies and work toward master’s degrees.  Several of my friends are continuing in the world of education, but on the other side of things, through Teach for America.  One of my friends is biking across the country to raise money for cancer (JHU_Jessica!).  Another is completely undecided as to what she’ll be doing.  One of my roommates from sophomore year will be working in Washington, D.C., alongside other friends who are working or enrolling in grad school there.  Of course, I know several future doctors as well who are heading off to med school all over the place.  Some of my closest friends will find themselves in Baltimore, DC, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Nashville, Houston, San Francisco, Boston, North Carolina, and others yet to be determined.  As for me, I’ll likely be making my way to the Central Time zone, but I’ll count myself in that “yet to be determined” category.

It’s sad to think of my closest friends being all over the country (or, perhaps, world) so soon.   But regardless of where we’re all going, it’s exciting.  We get to start all over again, except this time, instead of “friends from home,” we’ll be boring all of our new acquaintances about our “friends from undergrad.”  Knowing that I’ll have so many truly incredible experiences that I’m going to take with me to law school is what makes me so grateful to have come to Johns Hopkins.  Just as my friends freshman year would listen to my stories from home when I was feeling homesick, I’ll apologize in advance to my law school friends who will be hearing all about these amazing experiences when I find myself getting Hopkins-sick.

It all REALLY happened!  I really made it through that treacherous finals week.  I really got into law school.  I really graduated – I really got my diploma!  (Okay, well technically my parents got my diploma, seeing as it went to my permanent address).  I really started working 9-5 and I really didn’t have to go to class yesterday when all of my friends were starting their semester.

Wow.  It all happened so fast and it’s just now starting to sink in – sort of.

I’ve been working for a few weeks now, but I started during intersession when the campus was quiet and quite relaxed.  Now that my friends can’t go out to dinner because of class, etc., it’s really starting to feel different.  Even as I’m writing this blog and staring at the picture of my diploma (thanks Mom, for the lovely modeling, and thanks Dad, for the great iPhone photography), it still feels unreal.  But it’s not!  The past couple of months have felt like such a blur and, obviously, I’m still trying to wrap my brain around everything that has happened in such a short amount of time.

The truth comes out: jhu_mandy is actually jhu_amanda leigh!

So what is post-grad life like?  Well, so far, it’s tiring.  I love my job, but I’m still struggling to adjust to the 9-5 routine and haven’t quite mastered the art of being alert and focused for such a long span of time.  I’m working in the admissions office, as an intern (conducting information sessions for prospective students and their families) and part-time reader (yes! after graduating, I was hired to read applications part-time, meaning I help with first reads of applications as needed).  I have my very own “work computer” thanks to Admissions_Daniel’s recent technological upgrade (and my Mac’s inability to use the application system) that I lug back and forth everyday – for some reason I always think I’ll get some work done from home, and for some reason, I rarely do.  I’ve really enjoyed it all so far – the information sessions are a bit tough for me right now (confession: I’m not one of those naturally amazing public speakers), but it’s great to have the challenge and I know this is tremendously helpful for me in the long run.

What’s in store for the coming months?  Well, a lot of transcript coding (inputting GPAs, etc.), a bit of application reading, and talking with a ton of visitors, for starters.  I’m going to keep blogging – but it’ll be much different when I don’t have classes or exams to worry/write about.  It’s all very exciting!  I plan to embark on all kind of grown-up adventures (so far: parallel parking, being able to drive to the grocery store, and saying “I have to go in early to work tomorrow” – more to come).

at least the farmer's market a few blocks away makes it easy to eat well!

This summer, in addition to my wonderfully flexible work schedule and three-times-per-week class, I’ve taken it upon myself to start behaving a little bit more like a grown-up.  This has included having my own internet installed (I almost made it a full year sharing with a friend/picking up the signal from Charles Commons across the alley!), limiting the number of meals out (which means learning to cook), and picking up various hobbies typically popular within our grandparents’ demographic (I already know how to knit, so I taught myself to crochet, just for kicks).

Perhaps most notable of these grown-up activities is deciding what I’m going to do with myself once I no longer have the “but I’m a college student!” excuse.  I currently have five (yes, five) lists I’ve made of the law schools I’m going to apply to, and I’m working on my third personal statement (they’re all completely different – I can’t bring myself to edit them without rewriting it entirely from scratch).  All of this may lead you to a very astute observation:  I don’t seem to be very good at this grown-up thing.  I make these silly little attempts at it, but in the end, I just have another personal statement (or a whole bunch of crocheted coasters, or a very weird meal, as the case may be).

if only it was so simple!

The truth is, I’m kind of scared of this whole growing up thing.  When I was getting ready to apply to college, I had a pretty good idea of where I’d end up.  If not Hopkins, I knew I’d be at a state school, so I’d either be in Baltimore or North Carolina.  Sure, there was some uncertainty, but it wasn’t so overwhelming.  Now, however, I have about ten different places I could be, and about twenty different schools I could be attending.   That doesn’t even include all of the potential back-up plans that don’t involve law school.

I’ve come to realize that the reason I’m not finishing my personal statements is because I’m overwhelmed by the possibilities that it means.  Once I have my personal statement done (or at least something resembling a personal statement done), it’s like I’ve officially started my application process.  It was so much easier to be excited when it wasn’t coming up so fast!

Now that I’ve spilled my soul to the world, I’m hoping it will at least have been some cathartic experience that’ll help me finish one draft of a personal statement.  Or consolidate a couple of my lists of schools.  Or something.  Maybe I’ll be inspired.

At any rate, to those of you who are starting at Hopkins in a few weeks or others who are thinking about applying in a few months (or years), the scary uncertainties are both completely normal and not limited to the college transition.  As much as I love having things planned and knowing exactly what I’m doing with myself, the uncertainty is one of the most exciting things about moving from one phase to the next.  After all, plans aren’t really all they’re cracked up to be (…for those of you who have read a certain recent entry, you’ll know I’m an expert on these  matters).

I had a blog entry drafted about how my semester didn’t really turn out exactly as I’d hoped for it to, but in the spirit of new beginnings, I’ve scrapped it.  The short version: my grades were lower than I’d have liked, and after much reflection, I think it’s because of taking on a lot of new responsibilities and counting on a curve that didn’t happen.  Anyway, with the new year and new decade on the horizon, I thought it was entirely appropriate to look ahead with a new perspective.

2010 is going to bring a lot my way, assuming everything goes according to plan.  I’ll take the LSAT, have an internship in Washington, take classes at the School of Public Health, apply for real-life jobs and law school and then graduate from college.  Yeah.  In one year’s time, my life will be entirely different.

And if you’re reading this as a prospective (or just-admitted!) student, so will yours.  I’m sure you’re already thinking about that, and will be on New Year’s Eve.  It’s hard to even imagine how your life is going to change–everything I thought mine would be turned out completely different, and I couldn’t be happier.

In the interest of not scaring myself too much more, I’ll focus on the more immediate future: January.  Intersession is one of the greatest things about Hopkins, hands down.  You can take a class or two, work, hang out with friends, or do nothing at all.  It’s really just fantastic.  This time around, I’ll be taking a class called International Development and Policy, in which we’ll have speakers come in from different organizations and talk to us about what they do.  Then, after two weeks of that, we take a three-day trip to New York City to visit more organizations and spend time in the city.  I’m super-excited, especially because I’ve never been to New York.

January will also bring my 21st birthday, which falls on the first day of the spring semester.  More on that later on, as it’s likely to be a month-long planning process.

As for the spring semester, I have all kinds of big plans and lofty goals, but those will surely unfold more as we get closer to it.  However, I’m unwilling to miss out on anything, and I’ve got my priorities set…which likely means the sacrificed item will be a bit of sleep.  I’ve been meaning to become a morning person, anyway.

With that, I’m saying farewell to 2009, a difficult year and a particularly difficult semester.  More importantly, I’m excited about what’s to come, as I’m getting wiser in my old age (ha!) and have learned a thing or two about this whole college thing.  Stay tuned for what promises to be a better semester, a better year, and an exciting new decade for us all.

First things first — if you’ve ever visited this blog before, you may notice that it has a new look.  It’s still the same old stuff, but I chose a different design to start off the new school year.  Let me know what you think!

And speaking of new, I’m writing this new blog from my new apartment!  I moved in exactly a week ago and have gotten completely unpacked, organized and settled since then.  It’s taken a lot of cleaning and furniture assembly to turn it into a my own little home, but now that it’s all taken care of, I really love the place.  I’m still working out little things here and there, but it’s wonderfully comfortable and relaxing.  I feel like it suits me quite well.

I ended up living by myself this year which was a little bit intimidating at first.  But after the first day, I already started to love waking up and just going about my new routine in my own place.  And as an added perk, I have friends living in the building, so I don’t feel completely isolated.   And in the interest of full disclosure, I’m living in between two dorms.  So I’m not exactly branching way out or anything.  It’s really my perfect situation to be living on my own.

Most of all, I’m excited to be back in Baltimore.  This past week was pretty quiet but my friends are just starting to get back and the campus is getting busier, which makes me even more anxious for things to pick back up again.  I’m looking forward to my classes this semester and learning more about my public health major (after all, I’ve only taken one class in the department!), as well as dabbling in political science a bit more.  I think it’ll be a good balance of challenging and engaging yet all interesting in different ways.

As for the next couple of weeks (up until classes start), I’ve got big plans:  learning to cook, doing some suggested pre-reading for my Constitutional Law class, and starting work in the Admissions Office.  And before long we’ll be welcoming a huuuge freshman class and getting immersed in all of the orientation events–I can’t wait.  It’s good to be back.

With just a couple days left of my summer internship and a rapidly-approaching return-to-Baltimore date, I’m quickly realizing that my time at home is coming to a close.  This, of course, means an insane amount of packing and organizing and shopping is to be done, but I don’t even want to think about that yet…how about I’ll just recap that process once I’ve moved into my apartment in mid-August?

For now, I’ll stick to an update on the past few weeks, seeing as my last post was just at the start of my internship.  I feel incredibly lucky to have found such an opportunity; it’s been so much more than I ever could’ve imagined.  Some days are more tedious than others with the various office tasks, but a couple of the attorneys have had pretty big trials in the past several weeks that we’ve been following.  It’s fascinating to watch stories unfold and a new twist reveal itself, and I’ve quickly learned that nothing is as clear as it will initially seem.   There’s always two (or more) sides to a story and an infinite number of potentially-complicating factors to throw into the mix, making “the truth” (as we think of it) not so much an objective matter but more of a question of what fits together the best, even if there are some holes and unanswered questions.  At least that’s the job of the jury, in these trials I followed; which version of ‘facts’ makes the most sense?

And certainly it’s not always a difficult decision to tell what makes sense.  In working with some attorneys who have been practicing longer than I’ve been alive, I’ve heard quite a few good stories about outrageous defense strategies that come out when all evidence clearly implicates their clients’ guilt, yet their job is to give it a shot anyway.

As for actual experiences I’ve had, aside from administrative tasks, we’ve conducted a few client interviews, shadowed an attorney for the day, visited jail for interviewing clients, toured the state prison (including death row), and spent lots of hours in court for first appearances, motions, pleas, trials, etc.  I’m now an expert copier and alphabetizer, have pretty well mastered the court computer systems, am getting a little better at reading people (and jurors) and have a pretty good idea of the tendencies of different judges.  All in all, pretty productive summer, yes?

Aside from the internship, I’ve just been spending time with my family, seeing a little bit of the lake, and doing a bit of reading that I never got around to during the school year.  I had surgery on my hand a few weeks back and I think it’s finally back to almost-not blue, depending on the way you look at it.

As for the next couple of weeks, I’ll be trying to figure out how to furnish a studio apartment, where to get said furniture, packing up and before I know it, moving back to Baltimore.  Whew.  Until next time…here’s hoping your August will start out much less busy than mine.

Last semester, when I realized I’d be spending this summer at home, I’ll admit: I was kind of disappointed. I had applied for a PURA research grant that would’ve kept me at Hopkins for the summer, but my proposal wasn’t accepted, so I had no overly-compelling reason to stay.  Even though the grant didn’t come through and I didn’t have any huge plans for things I was going to do in Baltimore, I had been hoping to find something there or in DC, and I figured it wouldn’t be too difficult, simply because of all of the different organizations and groups in the area.  But with our economy the way it is, it didn’t really make sense to pay for an apartment for the summer when I didn’t have set plans and would probably be working as an unpaid intern anyway, so it seemed best to come on home.  I was also dreading the different “social dynamic” (if you will) in Cary, North Carolina versus being on a college campus.  I’m sure you get the picture.  I wasn’t overly thrilled.

Around spring break, I looked into some internships around home and discovered that I was “way behind schedule.”  I was told by one particular organization that their summer internships are full by January and I felt like I couldn’t find anything else that was worthwhile in my area.  I gave up on all of that and finished out the semester, trying to live it up in Baltimore with my friends before coming home to what I was sure would be an entirely boring summer.

When I got home, I unpacked a bit and then let myself be lazy for a couple of weeks.  (Yes, weeks).    One week, my dad got me several LSAT books and I started looking through those and getting entirely overwhelmed with thinking I’d never get into law school with such an uninteresting resume, etc., and my mom decided to stick it to me straight and tell me I really needed to just find something to do with myself.  I fixed up my resume and called several smaller law firms to see if they had any undergraduate internships and that sort of thing and went on a couple of interviews.  At the same time, I also (on a complete whim), emailed the Public Defender’s office, asking the same question, and was asked in for an interview there, as well.

I never heard back from any of the law firms I interviewed with, but after my interview with the Public Defender’s office,  I was asked to start immediately, and I did.  I’ve been there for about two weeks now and it’s amazing.  I’m actually really happy with the way things worked out because I think I’m probably getting  a lot more exposure to a lot of different things in this office.  When things are a bit more slow and there aren’t tasks for us to do, they send us to court (just a block down from the office), which I always enjoy.  The undergrads are “office interns,” so most of our work is filing/copying/computer-related, but it’s a really casual atmosphere in the office and everyone’s always open to talk to us about what we’re actually doing and the particularly interesting cases they’re working on,so there is a good amount of experience beyond just my newly-acquired skill of alphabetizing things super-fast.

The office and courthouse are located in downtown Raleigh, and while it’s not as big or bustling as  downtown Baltimore or some of the other amazing places my fellow Hopkins students are this summer, I’m really excited about going to work every day and the opportunity I have.  It’s definitely one of those growing up experiences in a lot of different ways and on different levels — trying to figure out how to dress professionally for work when I’m an unpaid intern, understanding that you really can’t compare the different cases and sentences, doing whatever needs to be done in the office even when it’s not particularly appealing (those 500 index cards won’t file themselves!), and on a personal level: making the best of whatever circumstances you’re in instead of wishing for something else.

I’m glad I finally found the perfect summer experience, even if it did take me a little bit longer than it should have.  I mean, sure, sometimes I miss going out on the weekends with my Hopkins friends, but it’s nice to be here with my family and doing something meaningful at the same time.  I think this summer is going to be everything I need it to be, even if it wasn’t originally everything I wanted it to be.  Until next time, enjoy your summer!  As for Dad and I, the lake and sea-doos await.