Grad's guide to graduate admissions essays - Colleen Reding 2015
Emory university school of law
Law
A 3-foot box of lacquered pine doesn’t leave much room to mentally or physically stretch, suffocating even with the amusements of half-witted graffiti from some past steward. Gearing up for college I was a dreamer. Back on the task of an admissions statement now, it reminds me of scrawling a 500-worded ode to cosmic servitude as an aspiring folkster, comparing a high school mission trip to Dylan’s “A-Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” stanza by stanza, in retrospectively endearing naiveté. Which is why early forays into development economics came as such a soul-gripping surprise then, when poring over some of the world’s most far-reaching and humbling questions was done in a cubicle under an isolated florescent glow, tracing inscrutable equations with clean gnawed fingers. Even as a self-aware introvert, this claustrophobia was something wholly new and unsettling.
Midway through my sophomore year I started working in the library’s student-owned coffee shop—a meager, income-induced pursuit that led to a profound ideological shift I never saw coming. A steady stream of like-riddled aspiring Earth-shakers trickled single file through a pamphlet-strewn jamb, on the scent of caffeine. For a minute and a half each, I commanded a stage—a chance to prod, tell a quick joke, trade thoughts from a recent lecture. Behind that counter, I found the power to kick down unintentional barricades on both sides that higher education is wont to create and came to understand the overlooked potential encased anywhere footsteps cross.
By my senior year, I was working at a well-loved bar near campus, waiting tables between other obligations. I got to see eyes red and dry with aimless conviction from term papers one day, scanning between espresso options with wary taps to appraise the vitals, that then turned moist and blue an evening later over a pitcher of wild conversation. Most weeks I spent 30—40 hours between the two hubs, increasingly animated with the confidence that there was something so captivating about the work beyond its simple surface. There is a therapeutic quality to that engagement I don’t know how I could have found otherwise. It’s an art form of at-a-glance empathy—knowing when to lock ears, console, vent, beam warmly, compliment generously, ask the right questions, or recall personal details—in whatever display, mutually assuring that a human connection is never as distant as it can seem.
It made me a realist, too. The callowness of a wide-eyed gaze at a blue-green world was slowly replaced by an understanding of the infinitely important interactions and actions of every day. In a fantastic performance by Elvis Costello in the White House, playing “Penny Lane” with President Obama in his audience, he opens saying, “Music is often an ’us against them’ proposition. And the next song you’re going to hear is named after a place from which my mother comes from about half a mile away so you can imagine when this thing of wonder and beauty came on the radio, myself as a young boy, my dad, my mom, and the cat all stopped and took notice.” For me, my experiences working in that environment and giving weight to each personal moment rinsed the paralyzing confines of “us and them” or “mine and theirs” from my mind, allowing me to redraw the battle lines to allow for collaboration. I could illuminate my own studies next to the radiant brilliance of my peers rather than fumble with a match alone in the dark, and strive to provide the same enlightenment for them. Even with countless nights left to race dawn against deadlines in a fortified corner of the library, it ceased to be a lonely endeavor once the lives and work of those around me became more and more enmeshed with my own, sharing the same slew of guideposts and lettered awnings to keep pushing forward down the lane.
What has thrilled me about pursuing a law degree focused on environmental and resource issues is its simultaneous breadth and concision. I know the field is and will increasingly be charged with attacking among the most complex regulatory issues and far-reaching problems we face this century and beyond, many with stunningly elegant economic and technological solutions that are slowed by political stalemate and uncertainty. The stakes could not be higher, with huge markets to make, break, or maintain a stake. At the same time, there is a unique and invaluable potential for localized impacts, as households, neighborhoods, cities, and on up the line become laboratories for the advancement of new policies. My experiences have taught me so far to cultivate big ideas through small, engaged efforts. Even when the starched white apron comes off and the lingering bite of fresh grounds is finally lifted from my favorite shirts, I’ll hold that dearly, in my ears and in my eyes.