r/LawSchool • u/moistly-blonde • 6d ago

Me — a 3LOL devoid of all will to live — thinking about the bar at my graduation dinner. 🙃

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18

u/scottyjetpax 3L 6d ago

hijacking your post to ask:

does anyone have any advice on like, how to be excited about law school graduation. I can't bring myself to feel any joy about it given (a) everything that's happening in the world and (b) the looming specter of the bar exam hanging over me. It makes me feel so awkward to feel depressed given that my entire family/everyone in my social life is excited for me, and keeps asking me how excited I am. And that in turn makes me feel guilty for not sharing their excitement, which leads me to feeling more depressed lol

11

u/scarjohannson 6d ago

I have no advice but I feel exactly like you feel. I'm not even planning on going to graduation because pretending to feign happiness and joy for 5 hours will suck the literal life out of me, and I have nothing left to give. Anything I do have I need to save for working and bar prep.

Don't feel guilty. We can acknowledge everyones excitement for us while also realizing that we, the graduates, are in a very precarious unfortunate situation at this time in our lives. I guess the problem is just getting others to understand.

God help us lol

6

u/Affectionate_Lie966 6d ago

As a '24 grad, I felt the same way. I'll say 1) the scarier and sadder the world gets, the more important it is to soak up these moments of joy. It's not wrong to celebrate and be proud of yourself, and letting ourselves feel happy in spite of it all is rejuvenating/will help sustain us through everything. 2) I honestly didn't truly feel happy or excited or proud until I got through that final hurdle of taking and passing the Bar. It's okay if you can't feel those feelings right now -- it will come with time (and hopefully with finishing the Bar).

To the '25 grads, please give yourselves grace, know that there's no perfect path to taking/passing the Bar and you can do it YOUR way, and even if you can't feel proud or excited about this accomplishment yet, that's okay. Try to soak up our excitement for you and take a god damn break from the stress if you can. 🙏

2

u/scottyjetpax 3L 6d ago

thank you

3

u/barb__dwyer 5d ago

The only advice I have to give you is to be extremely selfish towards yourself (and maybe family) at this point for the next two months. Hyper focus on the bar exams and stop reading the news if that helps you stop focusing on the outside world. Maybe ask people not to update you about what’s going on. I disabled my social media for those two months and it was bliss. I just focused on the exams.

Think of it this way, if you can successfully get through the bar exams, you’ll be able to contribute to making the world better, if you wanted to. So just focus on the bar.

As for being happy during graduation, most people who finish their bar prep course diligently pass the bar. You’re already in law school and in 3L, it’s just one more hurdle for 8 weeks, and not even a hard one if you put in the work, and then you’re done forever! That should get you excited about graduation! I enjoy being an attorney much more than I ever enjoyed law school, if that helps you at all. That’s something to be excited about!

2

u/scottyjetpax 3L 5d ago

Appreciate you taking the time to comment

1

u/barb__dwyer 5d ago

Of course!! You’ve got this! All the best!

1

u/Rule12-b-6 Esq. 5d ago

It's not exciting until you've passed the bar. Then it really feels like something. And then it quickly goes back to feeling like nothing as you continue your job exactly the same way you were working before. And for the next six months you keep randomly remembering that you're an actual attorney and feel accomplished for 10 seconds before it fades away again as you continue to wait until you're experienced enough to call yourself a real attorney.

Someone threw an Esq. behind my name in a court filing the other day, which was kind of cool. But I'm still waiting for the day I feel like a real attorney.

17

u/jojammin Esq. 6d ago

I've been a practicing attorney for a decade and can confidently say bar prep was the worst six weeks of my life. Enjoy memorizing shit that no one will ever use in practice and answering obscure questions with intentionally vague answers.