RutgersBound (2022-2023)

EDUCATION
- Colorado State University
- Major in Creative Writing
- Minors in Psychology and Philosophy

X-TRA CURRICULAR
- Editor-in-Chief- CSU Undergraduate Lit Review
- Editorial Assistant- Colorado Review
- Asst. Coach in Debate at local HS
(Of three varsity teams coached, one went to state and two went to nationals in SC)
- Member of Student Legal Services Advisory Board

UNDERGRADUATE WORK
- Kinkos- Document creation
- Fin Aid Office- Student Loan Counselor

POST-GRAD WORK
- HR- Staffing and Business Dev. Specialist
- Largest B2B Publishing Firm in the World- Editorial

OTHER STUFF
- Had to write one of those 'not as dumb as my LSATs would lead you to believe' letters.
- Car broke down on day of LSAT with testing center 40 mi. away
- Economically disadvantaged background

Here to meet:
(Wait, is this NOT MySpace?)
Other students heading to Rutgers in the fall. Will be new to the area and would like to have some contact with a few other 1L's prior to the first day of classes. Even if you are a jerk (maybe especially if you are a jerk), be nice to meet you.

___________________________

The Rutgers-Newark Story
My girlfriend of 5 years made me apply (after year 4, I just started giving in)
As part of a RIDICULOUS corporate mixer, a staff member and senior editor read our astrological charts. When she read mine, she did not read the same run-of-the-mill cold reading answers (e.g., I sense you have some troubles at home or with a family member that you are currently dealing with) and instead asked me first, "had I ever considered or was I currently considering law school." This was weird b/c only my top-level manager had known about this pursuit. Further adding to the weirdness was her insistance on the East coast (at the time a region I had applied to just to sate my girlfriend). She said my sign was a water sign and unlike most configurations screamed law b/c of an obsession with justice, keen ability to communicate, and knack for emotionally distancing myself. This wasn't divination so much as consulting her book, which I am sure says tell any tall, loud people you meet that they should be a lawyer.

Fast-forward to that night, and I received my first admission email (Rutgers-N). Spooky, or sad delusion, you judge future arbiters of many fates. I'll let you vote below, or you can TEXT your vote to 1-800-JUD-GEME. Text KARMA if you think we ought to be open to all avenues of fate in this world and if something so persistently creates for itself a position for which to be considered, then we ought not dismiss it so lightly. Text IDIOT if you think I am just compensating for not being able to get into just about any other school to which I applied, and further, judging by my scores, you don't think I should be getting into Rutgers either. Feel free to vote as many times as you like, for just like the 2000 election, no one guarantees that your vote will actually be counted.

So I got into the one school I didn't care about. A happy accident as it turns out. Rutgers is a hidden gem in an ostensibly sickly seaboard. The many student assessments I have found have been unanimously positive about the learning environment, the faculty, the job prospects, and most importantly Rutgers' committment to diversity. A quick note on 'sickly seaboard': I have never been to Jersey, so my experience is second-hand anecdotal. I have been to Boston, but that's it. So how come I can call an entire region "sickly"? First, I reserve my traditional right as an American to speak authoritively on issues I have little to no expertise in, and second, I currently live in an area frequently mentioned in top 10 lists of best places to live (Most recently, No. 1 by 'Couples' magazine). Although, if you want to testify to the advantages of living in Newark rather than anywhere else, I would love to hear from you.

So I am very excited to visit Rutgers on April 28 to see for myself how wonderful this legal wonderland really is. I would appreciate to hear from anyone who has visited the campus and can give me pointers on questions to ask, or anyone who needs questions answered.

Lastly, as this whole diatribe is starting to sound like an Academy Award speech, I would like to thank the creators of lawschoolnumbers who certainly recognize that in the seventh-month wait to law school, 0Ls need to find a certain number of healthy and unhealthy obsessions with which to singularly occupy their every waking thought:

"Will I get into this school? This person did and they have the same scores as me, which means . . . (nothing). This person applied at the same time. This person was waitlisted on my birthday. This person doesn't accept comments? Is that how they got into (insert reach school name here)."

And once they are accepted, you think that would bring them a respite. It doesn't:

"What are my first-year classes? Who are the profs? What do their online profiles say? Should I note that they like to scuba dive with marine life-preferably hundreds at a time? What texts will I use? Which casebooks should I buy? Which commercial outline series? Which hornbooks? Any hornbooks-Scott Turrow's "1L" says hornbooks rule, but its from 1970 and Falcon's "planet law school" says hornbooks are unceccessary. Which black letter law crib notes should I use? Who would win in a war, West or Aspen?

And once we get there, I can only imagine our reaction:

"Which seat should I sit in? Will the third row keep me out of the externship competition this summer? Who should I walk to class with? Should I join a study group? Should I create an outline myself or work with a group? With whom should I moot? Should I use 'whom' in legal righting? What the f*&@ is 'assumpsit'?!! Does my prof even know what book we're using?" And so on and so on until all we can speculate pon will be the grades everyone will get.

However, I am completely psyched for this neurotic mindbend they call 1L. To borrow a great phrase from Jarhead, we should all get T-Shirts made emblazoned with 'Welcome to the Suck!'

Hope to see you there!