If you are a first-year or a transfer law student and are one month in or even a week into your law school journey, you have experienced a great deal in a short amount of time. You may have moved to another town or a new state. You may have left a career behind or traveled the path from your undergraduate institution directly to law school. Even without a significant physical or career move, you have had to adjust to a new academic environment. An environment unlike any you have encountered before. This adjustment can shock the system, whether you realize it or not, and it can manifest in your behavior, your emotions, your patience, and countless other ways. Be kind to yourself! It is okay if you do not feel entirely like yourself right now.
As academic support educators, we sometimes experience similar experiences to those of our students. We make career changes and these changes may require us to move to a new city or a new state. We may take on new and different responsibilities or at the very least, we must learn the particulars of a new work environment. We have to figure out the culture, make new friends, locate the copiers, and remember which floor houses the mailboxes, along with everything else that comes with a new environment. We must extend the same kindness to ourselves.
The experiences we share with our students testify to the realities of the human condition. Regardless of age, experience, knowledge, and ability, we all encounter similar challenges, emotions, and realities. As educators, we can extend the same care and flexibility to our students that we would hope others would extend to us. Growing pains serve a purpose: they make us stronger and drive us to improve.
As we work with new students, particularly those unfamiliar with the law school learning environment, we should ask ourselves what we can do to support them. I challenge us all to recall how we felt when we started something new. How long did it take us to grow comfortable? What challenges did we face? When did the work become second nature? How many times did we stumble or make mistakes? Keeping these experiences at the forefront reminds us that growth always requires a process.
Have an empathetic and rewarding academic year.
(Goldie Pritchard)
