Three months from today I’ll be starting 1L orientation at Columbia Law School! I guess the countdown is on. “Are you excited?” is a pretty frequent question I get when people find out I’m going to law school. While I’m sure there are feelings of excitement, more than anything I feel focused. With awareness and reflection I’ve pinpointed my biggest college mistake to learn from in Grad School.
Studying What Sounds Good, Not What Feels Good
Story time: I went into Harvard with plans to study Government, but my sophomore year I had fallen in love with a Sociology course. Ultimately I became a double major in Government and Sociology.
It wasn’t until recently that I realized that college wasn’t my first run in with Sociology. The summer before my seventh grade, at Prep for Prep, I took a course called “Invictus”— a condensed, watered down, middle school version of Sociology. I thrived in that class and at the end of the program when I received only one award for academic achievement, it was for Invictus.
I was afraid of what it might sound like to say that I went to Harvard to study Sociology.
Fast forward to sophomore year of college. It was pretty obvious that I hated Government. The sophomore tutorial (broad introductory theoretical overview) bored me beyond belief. On the other hand, the theories of Marx, Weber and Durkheim, intrigued me. That should have been enough reason to drop Government and fully devote myself to studying Sociology. But I didn’t.
I studied something I had absolutely no interest in or passion for whatsoever, and it showed in my grades.
Why? Because I was afraid of what it might sound like to say that I went all the way to Harvard to study this thing called Sociology. Coming from a Nigerian background, aunts, uncles, family friends and more would hear that I studied Government and Sociology and latch on to the “Government” piece without paying any attention to the latter. What would be the reactions if I dropped Government altogether? That paired with campus wide assumptions that Sociology was an “easy major” and almost an academic cop out made me feel like I had to do more. What was the consequence? I studied something I had absolutely no interest in or passion for whatsoever, and it showed in my grades.
To be fair, the problem was also brought on by my own expectations and bad habits. I’m the type of person that creates a plan and sticks to it, sometimes to my own detriment. “I have to study Government because I said I’d study Government.” “If I don’t study Government, how else will I be prepared for law school?” All of these thoughts ran through my mind. If I had taken the time to seek guidance and do research, those myths would have been dispelled. One of my biggest role models and inspirations, Michelle Obama, studied Sociology at Princeton before she went on to law school. Shirley Chisholm, the first African American female to be in Congress and run for president, studied sociology and became an educator before embarking on her own political career.
I always tell myself that if I had another year at college (although I certainly didn’t want one) I would have dropped Government and stuck with Sociology alone. At law school, I hope to truly follow passions by keeping an open mind studying what I truly want to study. It’s safe to say that I’ve proven myself, even though the reality is there was really nothing for me to prove in the first place. If I end up sticking with public service, great. If I decide to change things up and go corporate, so be it. Maybe I’ll surprise myself and decide to clerk after law school. Either way, law school will be what I make of it and that certainly shouldn’t involve other’s perceptions or my own false perceptions of my academic path.
WHAT’S A COLLEGE MISTAKE YOU MADE THAT YOU WANT TO GROW FROM?
“No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead” Phillipians 3:13
