The law school fairest of them all

Hey, law school fans,

On Wednesday, there was a law school fair in the ballroom of the Wilkinson Center. The BYU Pre-Law office doesn't do a great job of getting the word out...the way I found out about it was a junk email from Michigan State. Then, all my law school junk emails started telling me about this law school fair, some of them from schools I was actually interested in and a few that said I could get an application fee waiver if I stopped by their table at the fair. Awesome.

So I was pretty excited to go. I had all kinds of things I wanted to find out, but at the same time I didn't really know what to ask. But I got some advice from my law school pals Bert van Uitert, Erin Kulesus and Aimee Brown (thanks, guys!). Erin and Allisyn were really excited to go with me too.

Even though I didn't really do that much, for some reason it was really fun. I guess it really is like a fair, or like a carnival. But instead of cotton candy and huge teddy bears, you get to dream about the next phase of your life. Erin and I both became even more thrilled by the idea of a new adventure. And there were so many options!

The ballroom at the Wilkinson Center was full of schools, and there was a pretty good representation. Harvard, Yale and Princeton weren't there. But Cornell and Columbia were. And, it ranged all the way down to the bottom tier schools that send me junk email all the time. It was just cool to see all these great schools from all over the country all at one place.


All of the schools in my narrowed-down list were there, which was a nice bonus. In addition, there were a few more schools that for one reason or another convinced us enough that we'll maybe apply to them too (the fee waivers helped):

Iowa - Because we're pretty much open to moving anywhere in the country, I didn't really know how to choose among all the state schools in the country. I know some state schools stand out, like Michigan and Texas. But I didn't really know the differences among Iowa and Wisconsin and Georgia and New Mexico or most anywhere else. But the guys at the Iowa booth made us feel pretty good about it, especially Erin. Erin, of course, was really big on finding out what family life would be like at each school, and what life would be like for the "law school widows." And she felt really good about Iowa, which means I do too.

Virginia - This school is one of the best state schools, and ranked ninth overall. I've always known it was a great school, and I think it would be cool to live in Virginia. But I wasn't planning on applying because I didn't think I could get in. But, this was one of the schools that had a fee waiver. So, hey, I might not get in, but it's worth $16 for the CAS and $0 for the application. (Plus, Allisyn got some swag from them - a little teddy bear.)

Minnesota - The lady at the Minnesota table was really nice. Kind of a grandmotherly type, and talked about the great family environment there.






We picked up a whole backpackfull of brochures, pamphlets, business cards - plus a pen from Washington and a pen from Notre Dame. And in addition to that Virginia bear, Oregon was handing out rubber duckies holding a gavel and a law book. Pretty clever.

Allisyn at home with her Oregon Law rubber duckie.

(Skip to 9:11) (If the video isn't loading for you, click here)

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THE CONVENTION - 3x02
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We got stuff from all these schools:

Already on my list
Texas
Notre Dame
UC Davis
North Carolina
Washington
Arizona State
BYU
Utah
Baylor
Gonzaga
Willamette

Will probably go on my list
Virginia
Minnesota
Iowa

Ones I would maybe apply to only if my LSAT is surprisingly higher than I expected
Stanford
Michigan
Columbia
UC Berkeley
Vanderbilt

Ones I got fee waivers for
Utah
BYU
Virginia
Oklahoma
Vermont
Texas Tech
Oregon
Akron (this one I didn't pick up, it was given to me by a desperate University of Akron representative)
(and Baylor and Willamette are already free)

Ones I would maybe apply to only if my LSAT is surprisingly lower than I expected
Florida
Ohio State
Temple

Others I just picked up for fun (either because they make me think of good college sports, or "The Office")
Nebraska
Alabama
Cornell
Syracuse

The guy representing Stanford was none other than Tony Montague, one of my MTC teachers! It was really cool to see him. I've run into him on campus a couple times since being home from my mission, but that's all. I had no idea he was even at Stanford. So that was cool. (Too bad that he can't pull some strings, haha. Even if I could get into Stanford, though, it is super expensive to live there. Tony said the apartment he and his family live in is $1,700 a month. And that's student housing. Yikes.)

Probably the best sales pitch came from Baylor. The girl was super nice, told us her apartment that has three bedrooms and two bathrooms was only $600 a month (that's less than we're paying in Provo for two bedrooms and one bathroom), and that Baylor has a spring term and a summer term, which might be better than finding a job for the nine months between graduating from BYU and moving to law school. Baylor also got me thinking about the benefits of being "a big fish in a little pond." Even if I could get into Virginia or Notre Dame, it might be worth going to a school like Baylor. It would be easier to be in the top of my class (which, one person told me, is noticed by employers no matter what school you went to) or on the law review. So, something to think about.

Anyway, I've got a big stack of brochures to read!

I can't wait for law school.

P.S.: If you want to read Erin's blog post about the law school fair, click here.

MTC Tryouts

I'm going to take a little break from talking about this summer, and talk about the future. My future employment, that is.

I'm loving my job at OCDC, but I can't take it with me when I go back to BYU with Erin in a couple months. (A couple months!) I'll have to find something new (because I am most certainly not going back to my old BYU job). After last year's experience, I could really go for something easy, mundane, and mindless. (Like vacuum the Harold B. Lee Library for a couple of hours a day, and that's it!) Or...

...go again for my dream BYU job: MTC teacher.

For those of you who don't know, the Missionary Training Center is where all church missionaries go before heading out to their assigned missions. The biggest one is in Provo, Utah, right next to BYU (and that's the one where I stayed for two months before I went to Cordoba). At these MTCs, missionaries learn what it is they are actually supposed to teach, teaching skills, spiritual preparation for two years of missionary service, plus lessons in the language they are supposed to speak in their missions.

Most missionaries loathe the MTC. It's a small campus of close to 2,000 missionaries at any given moment. It's where the two-year separation from family and friends begins, and this is where it hits most missionaries that they will be very far away (geographically and in terms of communication) from their loved ones. A lot of missionaries (mind you, these are 19-year-old boys mostly) can't handle up to 12 or more hours of study a day in a tiny classroom. This is also where you start having a companion, and it might take some getting used to having the same person near you 24/7.

But, I loved it! I was lucky enough to have a great group: Savanah Fernandez (now Rodriguez), Lauren Reidhead, Spencer Salmon, Jaime Bowen and Bradee Hughes. We were each so different and had so much fun together, even though we were detained in a closet of a classroom for two months straight. We had two great teachers, Phillip Shorten and Tony Montague, who loved their time as missionaries and kept that missionary spirit alive for us. And I credit my tenure at the MTC as being a major part of the testimony of the gospel that I have today.

(from left to right: Elder Bowen, Elder me, Hermana Fernandez, Hermana Reidhead, Elder Salmon, and Elder Hughes)

I think even as early as when I was a missionary at the MTC, I thought working there when I returned to BYU would be a fulfilling and enjoyable job. Even when other Cordoba missionaries thought I was crazy for wanting to go back to the MTC, I still looked forward to the day when I would.

Well, here's hoping that this fall semester will be that day.

Instead of a job interview, what I do is a lesson out of Preach My Gospel (the missionary manual) in front of a panel of MTC evaluators. Recently they made available the option to teach a lesson on video and then email them the link. So, here are my two videos. The first one is the "teaching" and the next is a brief "self-evaluation." Enjoy!

MTC Video on Picasa