I’m not
in college anymore. I haven’t been for
some time. More than 5 years, it’s
been. But there are more differences
between law school and Dwellworks than my undergrad experience and this
job. If nothing else, this would be a
considerably different post were I still in undergrad.
Law
school, at its most basic, is an intellectual bloodsport. Every grade is subjective, based on a
bell-curve with B in the middle. If
there are 20 people in a class and the lowest gets a 95%- sorry, that’s a
C. The A’s probably garnered some bonus
points or something. Actually, it’s not
even that exact. Done correctly, the
professors just ranks every exam (and the final’s the only grade you get most
of the time, with some slight shading for attendance and participation, should
the professor be feeling generous) then does some basic math: the curve says
only so many get A’s, B’s, and C’s, so the top so many (usually 2-7) are A’s,
on down the line, with the biggest proportion at B. It’s a blessing and a curse. It’s not common that people actually do so
well that A’s on a regular scale become B’s and C’s on the law school
curve. It is true though that many
people’s worst grade in law school comes in a class that is, by class
consensus, “easy.”
When grades are based on
competition, the environment, particularly the first year is harsh. It’s not so easy to not worry about what
everyone else is doing. That’s the
number one piece of advice upperclassmen have for 1Ls, but none of us really
heed it, no matter how far along we are.
After the grades come out, they release ranks based on GPA, and all the
“best” employers require a certain class rank percentile to even apply. At some point, law school just becomes a
caste system based on subjective class rankings generated from subjective
GPAs. They even publish a list of who
got the highest A of all the A’s in a given class. Sometimes, just existing in the environment
is a challenge.
Eventually, law students either
stop caring or let caring too much get in the way of their outer life. Deep down, I think both sets are a little bit
of the other, and a little jealous of the other. Either way, there’s a bit of Stockholm
syndrome peppered in: we start to thrive on the edginess it creates. It’s the context in which we best understand
the day to day. Law School does not
prepare you for interactions with non-lawyers.
At this
point, I’m not actually sure I need to say what the biggest difference is
between all of that and Dwellworks. You
probably work here too if you’re reading this (and if you don’t, props to you
for reading the random blog of random interns at a relatively random company you
have no association with).
What’s
the biggest difference? My colleagues,
even the lawyers, aren’t sort of my enemies too. It’s not a MAD (in the cold-war sense) world
in here. Dwellworks is built on values
and one of them is actual teamwork; like, really collaborating for the greater
good of everyone as individuals- and not just the greater good of the company
(ultimately it’s because Dwellworks, as a company, realizes the two are
inextricably intertwined). Much of the
time in law school we’re somewhat torn: even as we develop real friendships,
there’s the lingering specter of how you have to hope for the worst from your
friends in order to achieve the best yourself.
It’s toxic, and it is the opposite of Dwellworks’ corporate culture and
ethos.
I’m not
quite sure why law school is the way it is.
Perhaps creating a culture where it’s “kill or be killed” creates the
best lawyers. Or maybe it’s that some
artifacts of antiquated days last longer than they ought in the legal field,
because actual innovators rarely remain prototypical lawyers who have any say
in how a law school is run. Whatever the
case, Dwellworks is a healthy environment, while law school rarely is.
The
most competitive we ever get at Dwellworks is when we’re collecting school
supplies for children who need them in Cleveland. Sure, the reward isn’t a high-paying law job
at a soul-crushingly large firm, but the worst-case-scenario isn’t loads of
student debt and unemployability because your class rank wasn’t high enough
either.
I think
this prompt intended to get stories about how much earlier we have to get up
and how much harder it is to get through an 8 hour workday at a desk than any
of us realized. Like Bilbo Baggins, I’ve
been there and back again. You’re either
sitting somewhere and doing homework (possibly a desk) or sitting somewhere
(definitely a desk) doing assignments.
The only actual difference at all is how you can be confident that you
don’t have to work once you get home.
You even kind of get graded at the end of any job: your future
references or promotions are going to be based on how you did. That’s more important for your overall life,
probably than grades in school could ever be.
It is
not as if we stop learning when we graduate from college anyway. For many of us, that’s when actual learning
actually starts. Some of us just wear
nicer clothes for our day-to-day after college.
But some of us went to Denison, so not even that's true.
-Zack
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