By: Law School Applicant2   

Subject:   Generic¹ Law School Essay2

Many college students know exactly what field to enter after graduation and have been preparing for that field over the course of their entire college career. However, I had difficulty discovering a career field rewarding enough to devote my entire life to, a career field worthy³ of education. While I had always considered pursuing the law and majored in public policy as an undergraduate, I was never passionate⁴ about it. I didn't have clear goals, and it seemed to me as if my degree and my circumstances were pushing me into studying the law; I needed to rediscover why I fell in love with the law in the first place.

As a college senior, I took the LSAT because all of my classmates were taking it. I did not prepare, and I really did not want to attend law school after college; thankfully, my low LSAT score guaranteed this. I needed to understand more about life before I could give myself to a career. After being in school for about two decades, I felt completely out of touch with reality and did not think I would ever find career direction by attending more schooling⁵. With these thoughts in mind, I determined⁶ I needed real-world experience to help me find the direction I so desperately⁷ sought.

 

I accepted an investor⁸ relations position in New York that tested both my intelligence and my work ethic⁹. The first few months moved at a hectic¹⁰ pace as I attempted to acquire knowledge of my new pursuit and to control the responsibilities assigned to me. However, I quickly adjusted and maintained a schedule of seventy-hour workweeks. Because of my hard work and growing expertise¹¹, my colleagues began to acknowledge me as an important member of the organization and my opinion became respected and sought out. This respect provided me with a great deal of confidence, and I began to realize that I had unlimited¹² potential. I had finally regained¹³ the attitude necessary for success, and my recent LSAT score is a testament¹⁴ of this self-awakening.

 

While I may not have taken the direct route to law school, I took the course that suited me well. I needed to find goals that would drive me through all-nighters and exam periods. Over the course of the past few years, I have transformed from an inexperienced college graduate to a respected professional. My departure from classroom study has helped me grow into a more confident, independent individual who has developed the ability to set goals and focus on the path to achieving them. I believe I am now prepared to make the most of my future educational experiences, and I hope for the opportunity to do this at ______.

 

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 Essay Number: 1026 - Posted on: Mar¹⁵ 30, 1999   Expires on: Apr 30, 2005 CollegeGate LLC  * CollegeGate LLC *

By: Law School Applicant2   

Subject:   Generic Law School Essay

In Japan, international flight attendants are known as "flowers of the

sky." They are considered intelligent and attractive, and celebrities¹⁷ and

famous athletes have been known to take stewardesses¹⁹ as their wives. As you

can imagine, this reputation has made stewardessing one of the most popular

jobs among young Japanese women. When I was in Japan, I too had imagined

growing up to be a stewardess¹⁸: I would speak English fluently, fly all over

the world, marry someone after 5 or 6 years of my work, and eventually quit

the job to take care of home and children.

After spending three years in south Korea and seven years in the United

States, however, I changed my goals quite a bit. The things I've seen and

the people I've talked to have reshaped my perspective on life: No longer

will I be content with a job that has little social impact. Instead, I plan

on attending law school so I can pursue a career in international business

law.

 

What caused such a dramatic shift in my future plans? Part of it was my

first-hand exposure to foreign relations. The three years I spent living,

studying, and teaching in Korea enabled me to view my country from an

outside perspective. Korea had been occupied by Japan for 36 years, and the

people had strong feelings of hostility²⁰ and distrust toward Japan. At

first, I thought the negative feelings were because of Japan's aggressions

during its colonial rule of Korea. But my job as a Japanese instructor²¹ gave

me the opportunity to discuss this issue with my Korean students, and I

soon learned the real reason behind their feelings: Koreans resented Japan

not just for past grievances²², but more importantly, because Japan still

refused to admit any wrongdoing. Coming to this realization²³, I aspired²⁴ to

have a career which would enable me to solve problems between Japan and

other countries.

 

My desire to explore the complex relationships between groups or countries

did not stop once I left Korea. At Dartmouth College, I majored in both

Sociology and Asian Studies, which allowed me to do comparative studies on

different societies of the East and the West. During my senior year at

Dartmouth, my honors thesis explored the Japanese religious cult² which was

responsible for the 1995 Tokyo subway gas attack. I found the project to be

one of the most valuable educational experiences I'd ever had. The subject

intrigued²⁵ me because the explanation provided by the media--that all the

terrorist acts committed by the group had been masterminded by the

leader--did not satisfy my desire to understand roots of the attack.

However, I was limited by what I found in newspapers, and I found it

difficult to collect other materials since few academic articles on the

event existed at that time. So I turned to other sources of research,

including my correspondence with Professor Helen Hardacre at Harvard

University and Professor Manabu Watanabe at Nanzan University, Japan.

 

With their help, I was able to examine the terrorist group from a different

perspective. After nine months of studying Aum publications, newspapers

and reports, and other "cult" literature, I found that complex

relationships between the group and society outside -- the media, families

of the members, anti-cult movements, and the government -- contributed to

Aum's violence and, finally, led to the attack. My paper demonstrated that

it was difficult for a "deviant" religious group to exist peacefully in a

disapproving²⁶ society, and religious institutions would have to be regulated

to prevent conflict.

 

After my graduation, I had two internships in Washington, D.C. At

Consumers for World Trade, a nonprofit organization dedicated²⁷ to promoting

free trade and open market through advocacy and education, I attended

trade-related seminars and Congressional hearings on trade legislation,

wrote articles for CWT's weekly and monthly newsletters, and conducted

research for a database of U.S. regulations and restrictions²⁸ on imports.

This first-hand experience with issues related to trade policy enabled me

to examine the benefits of free trade and liberalization of market while,

at the same time, learning more about the xenophobic Japanese market. I

became particularly interested in exploring this issue and chose to intern¹⁶

at the Economic Strategy Institute, which was known for its research on the

economic and trade issues between the United States and Japan.

 

At the Economic Strategy Institute, I have been involved in two major

projects. One is a study on a WTO competition policy agreement and

U.S.-Japan trade relations, which was sponsored by the Japan-U.S.

Friendship Commission, and the other project involves research on U.S.

influence on the development of Japanese anti-trust law. I examined the

origin and prominent characteristics of Japanese anti-trust laws or

competition policies.

 

Through these projects and others in the future, I aim not only to

understand how Japanese competition policies have contributed to Japanese

market structures andpatterns of business organizations, but also to

examine possible changes to the current economic structure of Japan. These

questions fascinate me, because I think it's time for Japan to open up its

markets to foreign competition, to develop stronger and more democratic

economic structures.

 

Some might be surprised that a young Japanese girl whose only ambition was

to be a stewardess would have such lofty ambitions only ten years after

leaving her country. But now that I have been exposed to the bigger picture

of international trade and economic issues, and now that I know I am

capable of one day influencing relations between Japan and other countries,

how can I demand less of myself? My current ambition is to study

international business law, which is crucial in solving trade frictions²⁹ and

other trade barrier related problems between Japan and other nations,

especially the United States. With the excellence³⁰ of its legal instruction

and its strength in international business law and comparative law, I

believe _____ Law School would provide me with an unparalleled opportunity

to pursue that goal.

 

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