“What do you want to be when you grow up?” When you were asked this question as a child, the answer was always, without fail, “a lawyer.” After all, it looked really cool on TV. People thought your response was so cute, and then immediately felt the need to comment on your ability to win an argument. When you got older and reached high school, you still thought you wanted to be a lawyer, so you joined clubs that you thought made sense with your eventual career choice. When you got to college, you obviously decided to be a political science major, and everyone knew that you were going to law school after graduation because it was literally all that you spoke about.
But wait a second… suddenly, you’re having some doubts. Do you really want to go to law school? Is this a sure thing? Is this really what you want to do with your life?
Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Many people are going through the same thing right now, and over at Refinery29, Sam Welch, someone just like you who now has no idea what job she wants after graduation, is telling the world about her law school crisis:
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In my four years as an undergrad, I took the LSAT twice, drafted personal statements, and gathered letters of recommendations. I was cruising toward law school. Then, this past December, I pulled the emergency brakes. I can’t remember the exact moment it struck me, but when I found myself Googling phrases like “how to know if you don’t want to go to law school” I knew something needed to change.
That doesn’t mean it was easy. Deciding not to go to law school was like ripping out something that was part of my identity. I had spent four years of college calculating my every move in order to prepare myself for this next step in my life. It was hard to feel like my years in undergrad — and the hundreds of hours I spent studying for exams and writing papers — weren’t a total waste. All of my hard work was about to pay off, but I just didn’t want it anymore. Looking back, I don’t know if I ever did. Maybe I just liked the security of having a plan.
I spent most of winter break panicking over what I wanted to do with my life. I wasn’t the only one surprised by this turn of events. My parents were in a state of shock, my advisor nearly fell out of his chair, and most of my friends thought I wouldn’t actually have the guts to withdraw my acceptances. But I stared down every last one of my law school options and I felt in my very core that I just couldn’t go.
If this sounds anything like what you’re going through, please do yourself a favor and trust your gut instincts. You don’t want to be staring down hundreds of thousands of dollars in nondischargeable student loan debt three years from now and wondering why you went to law school in the first place. You don’t want to have to take a job because you feel like you have to and then hate sitting there every day and just going through the motions. You don’t want to live a life that you feel isn’t your own.
Only go to law school if it’s your true passion. You’ll thank yourself later.
I Have No Idea What I’m Doing After Graduation, And I Couldn’t Be More Excited [Refinery29]
Staci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.