My friend who started here when I did calls it Camp Law School because it’s like going away to summer camp.

 In some ways, I completely agree.  Socially, I do feel like I’ve reverted back to high school.  There’s the SBA, which is (let’s be realistic) still a popularity contest.  It looks good on your resume, but it’s no different than the student council was in high school, or even middle school.  And there are still “cliches.”  One first-year told me that she didn’t feel like she had yet found her “group” and was worried about how she “fit in.”  Not to mention all the relationship drama.  The bar can be a real shitshow some nights, everyone trying to hook up with someone else, or keeping it a secret that they are hooking up with someone else, or trying to keep their long-distance SO out of mind while mindlessly hooking up.  I think a lot of people forget that these people are going to be our colleagues and our competition for the rest of our working lives.

However, it’s very different from summer camp in very important ways.  I would never send my kid to such a camp, not even if they were the most troubled teens in the world.  I have noticed that everybody’s psychological ticks come out.  I’ve always been slightly OCD, but now I can’t write with the same color pen two days in a row, I have to wash my face and hair in the same exact order everyday, and I will never eat a bag of M&Ms the normal way again.  I suddenly have this urge to work out for 2-3 hours every day, which adds up to 3-5 hours every day with the driving, showering, getting ready, etc.  And I can’t sleep.  At all.  I did an experiment to see if alcohol would help (ok, I probably would have gotten drunk regardless of the experiment), and even when I’m wasted I toss and turn all night.

 It’s a very strange sociological experiement, this whole law school deal.  You’re forced to grow up very quickly, but in so doing you revert back to your childhood days.