Dear Prospective Students,
Hi. How are you? Good? Good. I’m writing this because I know going to law school comes with an insane amount of questions. Some of them, you just can’t find answers to. Sometimes you’ll find conflicting answers. Hopefully this letter will answer some questions you have about BU, but this will be kind of stream of thought, so maybe you’ll just be reading the ramblings of a somewhat sleepy, and hungry law student.
BU is a great place to spend three years. One of my main reasons for choosing BU over other schools is because it’s in Boston, and half the city is made up of people in college or professional school. It’s like an entire city built for 20 somethings and it definitely caters to us. This may not be a great proposition if you’re an older student though. BU has great professors and the school is very social. We do the bar reviews like most schools, but it seems like there are almost monthly social events that almost everyone goes to. This does not mean that students don’t work. They work hard. Still, I can’t remember any student trying to cut someone else down like I’ve heard about in other schools. No ripping papers out of books, no giving fake outlines, and no refusing to give class notes.
Where should you live? Well, that depends on who you are. For the most part, law students live in the Allston/Brighton area. While you’ll be surrounded by undergrads, it’s cheap, near school, near cheap bars and food. The ride can be a little long to school, and it can be noisy, but meh, it’s the standard. Fenway and Brookline are nice areas to live, but will cost a little more. The restaurants are a little nicer, you can usually walk to school, and it’s quieter. Oh, and if you’re near Fenway you can usually get really cheap tickets to Red Sox games on game day. Backbay is expensive, but chic. Cambridge is nice, but kind of far. The only people I know who live there either have spouses at Harvard/MIT, or they went there for undergrad and just stayed there. Other neighborhoods are far away, so I don’t know many people that live there, although one person commutes from Providence and says she gets a lot of work done on the train. I personally don’t recommend it.
I can see this is getting long, and I haven’t answered a whole lot, so I’ll just address one thing that I know a LOT about: dual degrees and concentrations. I started at BU, and chose the school primarily due to, the dual degree program in law and international relations. It’s great if you have a specific career in mind, like being a diplomat, or if you want to do legal work in another country. Still, if you think it’s just a good way to travel and practice law, you may be out of luck because it’s an extra semesters worth of money, you’re off the normal law school hiring schedule, and my experience showed me that employers do not really desire the international relations degree. Still, the program isn’t that hard, and it does provide a nice break from law school classes. Law and an MBA might be a better option though. Concentrations are probably a better bet. You graduate on time, it shows that you have a particular area of interest, and you develop an expertise.
Well, that’s it for now. If you want answers to specific questions, you can either write me an email, or these guys.
Regards,
Eric
