my path to law school

I wanna start sharing more life stuff on my blog because, while I love talking fashion, there's way more to life than that. One thing that's been big in my life for the past few years is school & thinking about future careers. I recently got accepted into law school so it seems like I probably know exactly what I want to do with my life. I do have some ideas of what I want to do, but right now I'm just going with the flow hahahah. Today I'm gonna talk about how I arrived at the random point in life that I'm at & how I made the decision of the career path that I wanted to go into.

I think knowing your strengths and weaknesses is a crucial quality to possess. I need to work on recognizing my strengths, but I'm great at recognizing my weaknesses (because I'm a pessimist). I knew in high school that I absolutely sucked at math and science. Since I was able to discern this, it made deciding on a major 10x easier. Instead of being a bio major and then realizing I sucked at science, I avoided wasting my time and chose something I knew I would enjoy and be successful doing. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't/can't push hard and overcome your weaknesses, but in my case I knew that it wouldn't be worth the suffering and I wasn’t passionate about it. My strengths and interests were really in reading, english, and history- in terms of school subjects. These were things I actually enjoyed learning and could easily understand and master. This is what initially pushed me toward law school. Once you know your strengths and weaknesses, look up jobs that require you to use your strengths. I literally did TONS of research on jobs and still do. I saw jobs that I never knew existed and realized that I don't have to be stuck in a little bubble when it comes to what I can do in the future.

Here are some resources you can use to figure out what jobs may be best for you:

My Next Move

What Color Is Your Parachute

Career One Stop

After I analyzed career paths and my strengths and weaknesses, I decided to be a Criminal Justice major. If we're being completely honest my final decision on my major was heavily influenced by my obsession with the TV show Quantico at the time, HA. My major was very easy for me and I actually enjoyed going to class and learning about all things Criminal Justice. Now that I'm done with my major, I almost regret not picking a more general topic because what I can do with a criminal justice major is VERY limited hahah. If you're planning on going to law school you can typically have whatever major you want since there's not usually a specific major requirement. Some majors do look better than others on your application, though.

When I decided to be a Criminal Justice Major I definitely had law school in mind. But, I honestly wasn't completely certain that law was what I wanted to do as a career. I feel like it's so so so much pressure to decide all of your future plans when you don't even know if you will want the same things in the future. While I was extremely interested in going to law school, I was also worried that I might end up hating my career down the road. I looked into changing my major, but every other major that I was interested in required me to take another math class so it was a NO from me hahah. Basically I just continued with my daily life from there on, stopped stressing about my future, and prayed that what I'm supposed to do will just happen the way God has planned it. After a while everything fell into place in ways that I never expected. I always imagined going to college for at least three years, but after a meeting with my lovely advisor my plans were completely changed.

My major offered an amazing 3+3 law program. Essentially, you complete three years of undergrad and then three years of law school (instead of 4 years of undergrad and 3 years of law school). With this, you complete your senior year of undergrad and first year of law school concurrently. I actually only did two years of undergrad because I already had college credits coming in and I took 18 hours each semester. This saved me tonsssss of money and I'm so glad I decided to do it. No matter what major or career plans you have, it is so important to look at what unique programs your school offers. Louisville has tons of great programs for all kinds of different majors. Without doing some digging I would have never known about this program and I'd be spending thousands of extra dollars on school.

In order to be accepted into law school at UofL I still had to apply and take the LSAT. The 3+3 program doesn’t guarantee entrance into law school, so it was important that I did well on the LSAT, in school (GPA), and on my application. I started studying for the LSAT the summer before I took the test. I set a goal for myself to get above UofL’s median LSAT score & after some studying I was able to do it. If I could go back I would definitely spend more time doing practice tests. I didn’t even take a full practice test until like a month and a half before the LSAT. I think those are the most helpful because you can see the areas you struggle in and focus on those when you’re studying. Also, I'll link the books I used to study below.

Throughout the application process I definitely doubted and second guessed myself. Since I could only apply to one law school the pressure to get accepted was high. If I didn't get in I would have to take another two semesters of electives and filler classes in order to graduate (which is something I did NOT want to do). I knew deep down that I was fully capable of getting in, but law school is so intimidating. During the process I just had to continually remind myself that whatever happens God has a plan for my life and if I keep trusting in Him it will alllll workout. When I was accepted I was so surprised and relieved that it was all over.

Like I said, I still have no clue what exactly I want to do after I finish school (there are a plethora of options), buttttt I know it will all work out for the best no matter what. If you don't know what you're doing with your life, you aren't alone. Do your research and know who you are and you will surely find a career path that is right for you. I truly believe it will all work out the way it should if you trust in God and do what you're passionate about (oh gosh that was cheesy CRINGE but it's tru).

Thanks for reading!

-CDH