a blog entry about post grad life and my unconventional journey to law school

I graduated from my undergraduate university with a 3.17 gpa. For a long time it was really hard to admit to people and in all honesty I was ashamed. That number would be in the back of mind with every job application and graduate program I applied to. However, I don't want to sell myself short-- I had a 3.5 departmental gpa and was presented with the opportunity of writing a thesis to be award honors designation. So, instead I say that I graduated from my undergrad with honors because I sure as hell made sure that I did! (semantics)

Post grad life was difficult for me, but looking back it was definitely harder in the thick of it. I took a year off to study for the LSATs, apply to law school and build up my resume. My post grad job opportunity was amazing. At twenty two years old, I led a successful overseas venture to the Middle East to help stimulate conversation between people on the ground in refugee camps and people at headquarters (at the job I was had at the time) who could ensure people in country received the funding needed. In the midst of that, I studied for the LSATs, took the test ..... and tanked it. I took a deep breath, studied some more, took it again and barely scraped by. Then the contract on my job ended. Six months post grad and things were starting to look pretty grim.

I was home, unemployed, applying to schools and tutoring high school students on the side. Hearing back from schools didn't take very long..... All of a sudden I was staring at four "we are sorry to inform you"s and five "we are pleased to offer you a place on our waiting list"s but zero "congratulations!" It was time to think of my next steps; I was heart broken but I needed to pull myself up by my boot straps and refocus.

I obtained a part time position at a global non-profit and started looking at serving in the Peace Corps (you can read about my PC journey here ). Suddenly my life was taking a completely different direction.... within a couple months I was accepted into the Peace Corps and accepted a full-time position with my organization until my intended departure date. It was around this time that I was accepted to a law school with absolutely no scholarship. I had a smile on my face while I declined the offer. April 2020 it hit the one year mark of when I started to seriously consider the Peace Corps. It's been a year of gaining amazing work experience, working on myself, challenging myself more than I ever thought was possible and being evacuated from the Peace Corps.

Coming home I was faced with the same feeling I was in March 2019: the sadness of my intended path being 'taken away' from me. There was something different this time... I knew that if one door was closing another had to be opening. It was the way life worked, so my sadness was overshadowed with the question of " what's next". On March 16, 2020 I found out I was being evacuated from the Peace Corps. On April 16, 2020 I was accepted to Tulane Law. From the moment I had to leave my new home I battled with the “why” and there it was finally looking me in the face. I came home, applied to two schools (one law and one grad school, one I was waitlisted from and one I was rejected from the year before). I got into both of them and received amazing scholarship packages for both. My "why" became evident ... it was finally time for me to continue my education.

So when I say you got this, no for real... you got this. What is for us will always be for us. I definitely didn’t want to wait to continue my education, but I did. My GPA didn’t change, my LSAT score didn’t improve, but my work experience sky rocketed. These institutions that I thought only cared about numbers cared more about seeing the type of person that I was and the work that I was doing.

So say this to yourself "what is for me, will be for me, because I got this".

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