Grad's guide to graduate admissions essays - Colleen Reding 2015
Harvard law school
Law
While working as an intern at the World Service Authority this past year, I received a phone call that I will certainly never forget. In hesitating, heavily accented English, the man on the other end of the line said he urgently needed my help. Immediately setting to work to do just that, I spent the next few months striving to reach my goal of providing this individual with support.
In every aspect of my life, I firmly adhere to a belief in hard work. Though I may not always accomplish the exact result for which I am hoping, I have nonetheless found that my input is consistently proportional to the output I receive in the end. Last fall, I experienced the translation of this personal philosophy into tangible results through an internship that enabled me to observe the good I can achieve as a consequence of my own determination. Though I worked on behalf of an individual on whom I had never laid eyes, he, in turn, helped to confirm my desire to pursue a legal career directed toward social justice.
YOU.
As an intern with WSA, I had the unique opportunity to help craft legal strategies to advise our clients on reclaiming their human rights. While not an attorney dispensing advice or representing a client, I had the responsibility of developing creative solutions to difficult situations, and that man on the other end of the line presented me with one such dilemma.
After a half-hour phone call in which I heard the harrowing story of a young Iranian Christian forced to flee his birth country for the Netherlands, I set to work to do everything in my power to achieve justice for this desperate individual. Having been denied asylum in the Netherlands after exhausting his local legal remedies, he feared deportation to Iran. Simply put, my task was to determine a course of action to avert this.
Yet I quickly realized that there was much I did not know. I had a limited understanding of the European Council on Human Rights, I was unsure of the European Union’s citizenship regulations, and I knew little about Dutch law. But rather than become disheartened by my lack of knowledge, I was inspired to learn. Although I have always loved learning for learning’s sake, this case provided me with an opportunity to learn in order to make a difference in someone’s life, and that fact made the challenge all the more stimulating. Despite the deficiencies in my knowledge, I was certain that I had the motivation to learn all I could in order to develop an effective strategy to prevent this man’s deportation. With a refilled coffee mug and an endless supply of determination, I sat down to think, research, and think some more.
In the end, my hours of brainstorming, reading, and re-reading paid off, as my hard work uncovered the potential for this individual to apply for Dutch citizenship on the basis of family reunification. In our final phone call, my client, upon realizing he would likely be able to remain in the Netherlands, offered me the greatest reward I could have hoped for; he simply said “thank you.” With those two words I was aware that the output of this experience had certainly matched my input to the case. Though there was no A+ or paycheck at the conclusion of this assignment, I received a far more valuable form of compensation, as I was instead rewarded with the confirmation that I had helped a man in need. While for me, understanding the causes of the French Revolution or the subplot of a Victorian novel are rewards in and of themselves, my internship with the World Service Authority provided the more tangible recompense of seeing the positive change my achieved knowledge had brought about. Accordingly, this experience has further reinforced my desire to pursue legal studies in order to gain the necessary tools to ultimately serve as a lawyer whose work contributes to the common good.
Regardless of the type of law I choose to practice, my actions will unavoidably affect human lives, and as someone who deeply cares about all that I do, I greatly look forward to that challenge. While I am not so naïve as to believe that things always turn out as I hope, I know I will consistently be able to rest with the knowledge that I have done my best in whatever it is I seek to achieve.