Thursday, April 23, 2009

The Life of A Legal Assistant

Ya know, somedays, I just feel like I'm over-stressed, underappreciated, and not one person cares. A friend sent me this cartoon a long time ago, and its just so appropriate to depict the life of a legal assistant.

Writing for Comics!?


As an adult, full-time working student, I often find myself having to take whatever class fits a given requirement that will actually fit my working schedule. This means, I really miss out on taking classes of interest, and am just stuck taking whatever class fits my schedule. So after speaking with my advisor and trying to juggle around the schedule, I am enrolled to take a class which meets the "arts, aesthetics, and creativity" general education requirement. The problem is, the topic is "Writing for Comics." I've never even picked up a comic book in my life!!!

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Complications of being a Full-Time Student and Full-Time Legal Assistant

Non-traditional college students are faced with many challenges that other "traditional" college students do not even comprehend. Not necessarily in order of importance, here are a few off the top of my head:

1. Very few scholarships are available for part-time students; most non-traditional students who must work to put food on the table do not have enough time in their already busy and complicated schedules to attend a full-time academic program.

2. Even if you can get a scholarship as a part-time student or if you do attend college full-time, if you work full-time, and even worse, if you hold a good paying job, your chances of getting a scholarship go out the window if you make more than $15,000 a year, which most non-traditional, adult, working students do. Unfortunately, the fact we often have mortgages or high rent payments, car payments, insurance premiums to pay, hungry tummies to feed, which all leave us pennyless and poor, most college financial aid offices look at us as though we must be nuts for asking for any money!

3. When the heck do we have time to get the homework/studying done!? As if working 40+ hours a week and attending classes was hard enough, I spend an average of 8 to 10 hours every week studying. Time management is key. I also try to find ways to study whenever I find myself with a few minutes to spare. In fact, this semester I am taking a class on real estate law which requires a lot of reading from a very thick textbook. My intention is to take the book to Staples or Office Max, have them unbind the book, scan it into an electronic format which can be read in Adobe/Acrobat so that I can sneak some reading in on my smartphone while on the go.

4. It is getting harder and harder to refrain from strangling these snot-nosed clueless 18 and 19 year old kids every time they claim they are just too busy to complete assignments (especially when working on group projects). Just the other day I heard a young lady say she had to drop a class because she has way-overextended herself. Hopeful I had found someone I could relate to, I chimed in and said, "yeah, I know what ya mean!" She then added that she feels so much better now only taking 2 classes. I asked what else she does when she's not at school (assuming she would say she has a job or volunteers). She said mostly sleeping and hanging out with friends!!!

My Dream

Lets face it, none of us wants to be at the bottom of the food chain, don't we all want to make something of ourselves?

I've been a pee-on legal assistant for the last 5 years of my life. I thought I was content, even decided to go on to a paralegal certificate program. It was through that paralegal certificate program, and by working for a firm of well-versed attorneys that I realized I want to pursue my own law degree, I don't want to put up with "scan this, copy this, go fetch this" for the rest of my life. Darn it, I'm going to law school!

This blog will mostly focus on my dreams and aspirations of becoming an attorney, with a little other stuff mixed in. I hope it will be both entertaining and useful not only to other undergraduate students thinking about going to law school, but to other paralegals, and other adult, working, college students. Follow me as I bust my you know whats as a legal assistant while going to school full-time to attain a bachelor's degree for the sole purpose of applying to law schools.