Last week we bought a new car. It had been 13 years since the last time we had done this, and it was both exciting and terrifying. On the one hand, the old car made funny noises that seemed to say, “you may think I’ll stop when you hit the brakes, but I might not…..” but on the other hand, the car also said, “at one time you had three car seats in me.” Sigh. It was a leap–most likely absolutely one we needed to take–and it was hard. Cleaning out the car and finding the original upholstery color (dark gray, who knew?) under the years of sand and fur was bittersweet.
Last week, I took my son to the dentist and had to drive the new car into a parking garage. This is a garage I never liked, but it was nerve wracking to drive into it with a car that I feel should not yet be scratched and dented. Today I parked at Trader Joe’s and needed a drink, a shower, and a nap afterwards. It is going to take some time to understand the nuances and become skilled, but the bottom line is that this is a car, and while it does things I haven’t yet discovered, it is still at its core a big machine to move from place to place. I know how to drive a car (some might argue otherwise, but I live in Massachusetts, and I am better at this than a lot of folks). My skills are translatable from car to car.
I think this is like being a 1L. Next week at orientation, law school will be all new and shiny for students. And like the 700 page owner’s manual that came with the car (with a 300 page abridged version), there is going to be a lot of reading and information coming at students. I think part of what I need to tell students at orientation is that they have learning and study skills, and while the vehicle they will be using these skills on is not the one they are accustomed to, the skills are still there. These skills will need a little tweaking to capture the nuance and quirks of law school, but they will get the job done until those finer skills emerge.
(Liz Stillman)
