Legal Career: Day 1

(August 15 2018, but written far after my bedtime and technically on August 16 oops)Today was my first day at law school. I was pleasantly surprised by how nice the professors were, and overwhelmed by all of the socializing I had to do. The faculty kept emphasizing how important making friends and collaborating was, but they also warned us not to compare ourselves. Seems paradoxical to me.We don't have any real assignments yet, but it certainly was a daunting task to push my way through other rabid 1Ls at the Used Book Fair. Tragically, I watched the last copy of the contracts textbook I needed get swept away from the display table half a second before I could grab it. That slip cost me $200. Later, when I was back home in the apartment, I placed all my amazon and B&N online orders for the books I didn't manage to cop. Adding those charges to the four used books I fought and haggled for, it turns out first semester textbooks alone cost me $715. This is what a friend of mine would call a Fat RIP (TM).In my legal writing and research class was made to do a lengthy ice breaker. Everyone had to explain WHY they chose to go to law school. (Brb, pulling up my long abandoned personal statement,) The activity was cringe inducing, but I was strangely comforted by how simple some of the reasons were (e.g. "I didn't know what else to do and I like being in school"). I'm not sure what kind of law I'm interested in, and I've been feeling a lot of pressure to get that figured out already, but it seems other people are in the same boat of ambiguity. And at least I know I'm interested law because I want to advocate for social change. So that's a start.On the other hand, this activity also gave me a good amount of anxiety. So many kids said they came from "lawyer families" and with that, I became suddenly aware that the class was heavily white. Perhaps worse, I had unintentionally (but maybe subconsciously on purpose?) sat myself in an opposite corner among a cluster of other brown and black girls. You could feel the class tension in the air, as many minority students pointedly started to mention that they were the first law students (or even college graduates) in their families. I felt that this tension went bizarrely unaddressed even when we dispersed into the hallway and mingled outside of the classroom. But I guess everyone was trying to do the healthy thing and not fixate on our relative inequalities from the get go.Despite the weird vibe, I did make a friend in that classroom! And apparently we live in the same apartment complex. Looks like my apartment is really going to be a place of respite for me, especially since my two roommates and I are really getting along and have sort have formed a de-facto 1L girl squad. Main take-aways from today: Friends are great, and so is staying in your own lane.