UW’s first year law students are slowly making the necessary adjustments to their new demanding lifestyles.
There are currently 48,697 first year law students enrolled across the country, according to the American Bar Association, and UW’s law students are just a handful of them. As UW law students get ready to close out their fourth week of classes, many are starting to feel a little overwhelmed but are making progress.
Almost every law student comes from a different educational background, which brings diverse knowledge as well as a different take on law school for each student.
Logan Sharpe, a first year law student, said his political science undergraduate major prepared him for what he is learning now, but not necessarily for how much work law school takes.
“Law school requires a lot of work ethic, which was something I always got from working a job and not necessarily in my undergraduate studies,” Sharpe said.
Sharpe said it was difficult adjusting to law school because he thought he knew what to expect.
“The most difficult thing so far has been thinking that I knew what law school would be about and thinking I knew what I would be tested over and I actually had no idea,” Sharpe said.
Sharpe said he is still adjusting and is making progress while trying to figure out his study skills and habits.
Holli Welch, who received her undergraduate degree in marketing, said she feels like her major did not give her much insight into what law school would be like.
“It’s not that it isn’t a valuable degree and I didn’t benefit from it; it was just a different way of looking at the world than law school is,” Welch said.
Welch said her adjustment was a little easier than it was for some others because she has lived in Laramie for the past four years and knew what to expect at UW, but law school itself has been a major change for her.
“As far as school itself I don’t think anyone’s really that adjusted right now,” Welch said. “Whenever someone with a similar name to yours gets called on, your heart drops to the pit of your stomach, at first out of fear for yourself and then out of fear for someone else’s sake,” Welch said.
Even with minor anxieties and less free time, Welch says it will all pay off when she looks forward to her future career as a business lawyer.
“I don’t think you put yourself through professional school to not get something valuable out of it,” Welch said.
Kellsie Nienhauser was a business administration major and she says the law classes that she had to take for her undergraduate degree gave her some preparation for some of the law school content. However, Nienhauser was not prepared for the amount of studying that is necessary in law school.
“The content isn’t really hard it’s just a lot more reading and studying,” Nienhauser said.
With all the effort these students are putting forth and even with all the long nights they have to look forward to, they are looking to the future as comfort.
“I’ve been going on about four hours of sleep since I started, but I hear it gets better after the first year,” Nienhauser said. “And it’ll all be worth it in the end.”
