Life Decisions

I've been meaning to write this post for a couple days but got caught up in the madness of planning the Bulldogs in the Bluegrass closing luncheon. But now that that is over I can write about some of the plans I've begun to make for the rest of my life.

At the beginning of this summer, I had no idea what I wanted to do long-term with my life. I was pretty sure I wanted to do Teach For America, truthfully in part because then I could delay for another two years finding a career for myself. However, as I've come to the realization that I am a senior and don't have a lot more time left before I have to enter the "real world," I knew that I would have to come up with a plan for at least the next couple years after graduation. I'm not exactly a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of gal, and I just can't allow myself to leave my future up to the hands of fate. So basically this has been a summer of introspection for me in trying to determine where I want the path of my life to take me.

Then I checked out a John Grisham book from the library. Stupid me, I had forgotten that every time I read Grisham it always makes me want to be a lawyer, and here I find myself reading him just at the time when I'm trying to figure out my future. So a few days later when I drove my friend Matt to the bookstore to buy a GRE prep book, and I tried to determine whether I should buy an LSAT or GRE book or neither, I couldn't stop myself from buying Kaplan's LSAT prep book. I still hadn't decided whether or not I would take the test or if I even wanted to go to law school, but I figured it couldn't hurt to do a little preparation just in case. Plus many days I didn't have anything to do at work, so this was just as good a way to spend a day as any other.

I began to do a little studying during work. Read a chapter here, do some sample problems there. Then last Saturday I took a full length practice test for the first time. I absconded to the Bellarmine library and made myself do the whole damn thing. When I calculated my scores, I pleasantly discovered that I had done pretty well, especially considering that it was my first time taking the full length test.

Armed with the knowledge that I could do well on this test and several experiences from this summer confirming my hunch that the legal profession could be the one for me (meeting with judges, etc.), I registered on Tuesday to take the LSAT in February. Here follows my tentative life plan for the next five years:

Right after graduation: do TFA, Mississippi Teacher Corps, or Yale Admissions Office for two years. This plan is still hazy, and depends quite a bit on whether I'd be hired by any of these entities. Also, after working for Teach Kentucky I have my doubts as to how effective two-year teaching programs like TFA and MTC are, so I'm going to have to talk to some people about that.

After two-year hiatus from higher education: go to law school. Where? For what? I don't quite know yet. TBD.

After law school: who knows? But I am starting to consider JAG - the military's law branch. This is definitely still in the tentative phase, but I do come from a fairly military family (sister graduates from pilot training in three weeks!), so it wouldn't be unheard of for me to join the service. I just have to decide whether or not that's the path would be right for me.

Obviously, I don't quite have all the stops on my life journey completely mapped out yet, but I do have an outline, and for that reason I consider this summer a success. And now I can have a semblance of an answer when people ask me what I want to do after graduation, which makes me breathe a lot easier.

Whew, that was a long post.