If you’re a 1L, Thanksgiving is your first break in law school. Good for you for making it this far. You can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it has LRW written all over it. If you’re a 3L, this Thanksgiving may be the last time you get to take five days off in a row to celebrate the holiday—which would normally make you sad but you’re just too busy getting stuff done over the break for it to register.
Even though you have a load and a half of work to get done over break, you’ll still have Turkey Day itself. Take some time to OD on tryptophan and yams with marshmallows and those little creamed onions and pie and stuffing and that green bean casserole with the crunchy fried onions on top and cranberry sauce…well, we can’t forget that. Where was I? Oh yeah, how to spend the day itself. Chances are you will be around people who are Not In Law School. This is a chance for you to practice.
Practice what, you say? Practice telling people in very concise (i.e. don’t drone) terms what you want to do when you graduate. It’s bound to come up and it will continue to come up in lots of interactions you will have throughout your law school career. So start thinking about it.
What you do not want to do is be totally flippant. Getting in the habit of saying “Something that pays” when asked what you want to do with your degree is a bad idea. It may be good for a laugh over turkey and stuffing but getting in this habit may well hurt you down the road. Giving a concise, well-thought out answer may actually help you down the road and may allow you to develop a useful contact or three.
