It is a pretty tense period for most of law school students in Taiwan now. During this period, there are some key words that may better be avoided in daily conversation, such as "the exam" and "a lawyer".
I call it a disease that only infects law school students who are waiting for the outcome of a Bar exam. The prevalence of the disease peaks in late October every year. The symptoms are being utterly anxious and become very conceited, depressed or even extremely elusive when the outcome is announced.
Yi-Wen, my law school classmate, told me she has tossed and turned at night in bed recently because it is the third time she took the exam and it will be almost the end of the world if she still can't find her name on the website this time. Although I have never prepared for a Bar exam, let alone taking a Bar exam, I can still understand how Yi-Wen feels now.
In fact, getting the disease is not the worst part. It is the stage before getting the disease a law school student really suffers. To prepare for a Bar exam, most students will go to a cram school and try to study for ten to thirteen hours a day, almost seven days a week for a whole year in a library or at home.
Every morning when you wake up, there will only be two places that you are going to - a library or a cram school. You will have your breakfast on a bus because you may rather spend more time getting some sleep in bed. You may not want to brush your hair or make yourself look nice because all textbooks and rules that you need to read and memorize will exhaust you first. Watching a movie, having dinners with friends, daydreaming will all become a luxury because time will never be enough. You will feel guilty and hopeless to pass the exam if you give yourself three days on vacation. Because everybody is still studying so hard in a library.
I am not exaggerating it and it is certainly not just Yi-Wen's story. It is a lifestyle that many law school students have right now.
How much time do we law school students have to afford living a lifestyle like that? To what extent we will consider it is not worth to sacrifice our chances to explore the world for merely a piece of paper which proves we pass a Bar exam?
Sometimes I am wondering if those students know that there are a lot of choices besides being a lawyer. You might just be a good paralegal that provides legal opinions. You might become a novelist who writes an interesting novel about law. You might become a secret agent working for the government. You might even choose to run for the president!
I doubt if it will be the end of the world for me if I never pass a Bar exam in my life. But living a lifestyle like that will surely be. I can be a paralegal because spotting the loophole in a contract is like a treasure hunt. It is usually fun. Writing a novel about law sounds a great idea because I might become next J.K Rowling. Who knows! Even though I have never thought about being a secret agent, it might be an interesting job, too, as long as there is no limitation of height to be a secret agent.
After getting some working experience and watching some classmates preparing painfully for a Bar exam, I question myself a lot recently if I will be happy when I really become a lawyer. I think I can only find out the answer when I really become a lawyer.
The answer about my future career may be still unknown. But one thing is for sure that after I get my master degree, I will also try to prepare for the exam but I will do it in my own pace and also try my best to keep my own lifestyle at the same time.
I call it a disease that only infects law school students who are waiting for the outcome of a Bar exam. The prevalence of the disease peaks in late October every year. The symptoms are being utterly anxious and become very conceited, depressed or even extremely elusive when the outcome is announced.
Yi-Wen, my law school classmate, told me she has tossed and turned at night in bed recently because it is the third time she took the exam and it will be almost the end of the world if she still can't find her name on the website this time. Although I have never prepared for a Bar exam, let alone taking a Bar exam, I can still understand how Yi-Wen feels now.
In fact, getting the disease is not the worst part. It is the stage before getting the disease a law school student really suffers. To prepare for a Bar exam, most students will go to a cram school and try to study for ten to thirteen hours a day, almost seven days a week for a whole year in a library or at home.
Every morning when you wake up, there will only be two places that you are going to - a library or a cram school. You will have your breakfast on a bus because you may rather spend more time getting some sleep in bed. You may not want to brush your hair or make yourself look nice because all textbooks and rules that you need to read and memorize will exhaust you first. Watching a movie, having dinners with friends, daydreaming will all become a luxury because time will never be enough. You will feel guilty and hopeless to pass the exam if you give yourself three days on vacation. Because everybody is still studying so hard in a library.
I am not exaggerating it and it is certainly not just Yi-Wen's story. It is a lifestyle that many law school students have right now.
How much time do we law school students have to afford living a lifestyle like that? To what extent we will consider it is not worth to sacrifice our chances to explore the world for merely a piece of paper which proves we pass a Bar exam?
Sometimes I am wondering if those students know that there are a lot of choices besides being a lawyer. You might just be a good paralegal that provides legal opinions. You might become a novelist who writes an interesting novel about law. You might become a secret agent working for the government. You might even choose to run for the president!
I doubt if it will be the end of the world for me if I never pass a Bar exam in my life. But living a lifestyle like that will surely be. I can be a paralegal because spotting the loophole in a contract is like a treasure hunt. It is usually fun. Writing a novel about law sounds a great idea because I might become next J.K Rowling. Who knows! Even though I have never thought about being a secret agent, it might be an interesting job, too, as long as there is no limitation of height to be a secret agent.
After getting some working experience and watching some classmates preparing painfully for a Bar exam, I question myself a lot recently if I will be happy when I really become a lawyer. I think I can only find out the answer when I really become a lawyer.
The answer about my future career may be still unknown. But one thing is for sure that after I get my master degree, I will also try to prepare for the exam but I will do it in my own pace and also try my best to keep my own lifestyle at the same time.
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