Law School: Probably Worth the Health Risk

Jessica Sykes
Volume 3, Issue 12, (Originally Published on Monday 27th May 2013)
 
There's a certain kind of poetry to making it to your final year of the JD only to realise that all you want is to become a writer. The kind of poetry that makes you want to stab yourself in the eye- spoken word I'd say.
 
There are two main elements to how bothersome this epiphany is. The first is that it almost seems as though the obscene amount of debt and finely tuned anxiety I've accumulated are somehow not worth it now, given that I don't actually want to use my degree. But perhaps poverty and some whimsical emotional shortcomings will just put me in good stead for a writing career, with the added bonus of now possessing a cynicism far beyond my years.
 
The second is that I'm such a stubborn asshole that I'm going to finish this bastard JD anyway. Most likely I will be the most gloriously overqualified hobo in history; thank God I'm well across squatter's rights.

Yet somehow it is still well worth it. I'll come out of these three years far more logical (which wasn't difficult); more capable of beating friends in arguments (which has been met with mass disappointment in said group); and having been exposed to some of the most incredible people that Melbourne Uni can offer. And whilst the visiting lecturers have been incredible, it's pretty hard to regret studying an obscenely overpriced and incredibly difficult degree that has brought friends of such a high calibre. Although I'm sure others will celebrate their incredible intellectual abilities (yawn), I'm much more impressed to have friends who can cook, hold themselves horizontally from a pole, stir people to within an inch of their lives and deliver easily the best dead pan known to man.
 
Not bad for three years and $100,000.
 
Jessica Sykes