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It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted. |
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> | Challenging Conformity |
| | -- By AmithavReddy - 19 Feb 2025 |
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> | Ever since I was a child, I have experienced a tug of war between assimilating to the society around me and remaining connected to my family abroad. Attending weddings, touring schools, and visiting restaurants during my frequent trips to Hyderabad, I found stark differences between myself and nearly everything around me. However, at home, I was ashamed by my obvious connections to Indian culture, furiously wiping off the kumkuma my mom had applied on my forehead before my first day of school. Over time I had learned to camouflage myself within my environment––masking my accent and altering my clothes at a moment’s notice. |
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> | My ability to camouflage was honed through a childhood of movement as I attended six different elementary schools. This constantly changing environment made me an individual who is engaged by challenging and unknown circumstances rather than being daunted by them. In fact, I choose to seek out scenarios that are foreign to me. Whether it was joining the dance team Virginia di Shaan to please my creative and energetic side or participating in stimulating debates for the Jefferson Society, I continue to partake in varied activities that inspire me. |
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> | My childhood desire to assimilate manifested itself through these novel activities and allows me to constantly gain new skills. This is evident not just in my extracurriculars, but also in my course selection. The decision to take Chinese came naturally to me after a life of yearly visits to India honing my understanding of Telugu and Hindi along with my experience learning Spanish throughout high school. Learning about various languages and cultures allows me to connect with people of all backgrounds, and this endlessly excites me. The constant movement and activity in my life has underscored the importance of continually broadening one’s horizons. |
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> | I appreciate the influences of people’s cultures in their varying relationships with the American legal system and have served immigrant communities with this personal understanding in mind. The personal significance of immigration within my life is reflected in my parents’ own American citizenship journey and the many roles I have filled across the spectrum of immigration over the years, from a volunteer Spanish translator at parent teacher conferences to a legal assistant at an immigration law firm. Through community service, my own battle of adjusting my identity in order to assimilate while simultaneously attempting to maintain a strong relationship to my culture has allowed me to authentically empathize with the difficulties that those who are not American nationals face. While assisting artists, teachers, and community leaders with their visa applications as a legal intern, I exemplified this mentality; using my unique attunement to their personal narratives, I meticulously translated their culturally-specific contributions into a legal language that would make them desirable candidates for work sponsored visas. |
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> | In today’s business atmosphere, diversity of thought and background are integral to success. I hoped to leveraged my childhood experiences and understanding of many of the world’s cultures to help generate inventive ideas at law school and legal career; additionally, I was excited to meet new individuals after joining Columbia Law School who share my appetite for knowledge, but who have their own unique past to develop my perspective of the world. |
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> | However, my time at law school has unveiled to me how the structure of law school and legal is not conducive to one expressing their true thoughts or personality. Rather, a system of conforming to meet a professor’s ideologies or mold into a cookie-cutter version of the ideal job applicant is what every law school student is incentivized to do. Traditional law school mechanisms such as cold calls prevent real, inspired class participation as students simply answer standard questions about cases in the reading, but are unable to interact with the material in a novel manner. The typical discourse in a law school classroom involves a professor lecturing without any free-flowing discussion or engagement from students about their views on the course material. |
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> | Furthermore, the grading system in law schools where all of the focus is predicated on the performance on a singular final exam prevents students from truly engaging with course material either. Students solely concentrate on the topics that will be testable on the final rather than wishing to delve deeper into a specific subject that piqued their curiosity. During the course of my next two years at Columbia, I aim to take advantage of the flexibility in course selection to interact with areas of the law I am unfamiliar with currently. By doing this, I hope to avoid falling victim to the conformist culture in law school and being forced to suppress my personality to match those around me. |
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> | I will strive to use my upbringing and experiences to my benefit and not shy away from bringing my authentic self to any professional setting during my legal career. I understand this may prove to be difficult in the current legal landscape, however I have seen how the most successful legal professionals I have interacted with are those who are able to connect with people from all walks of life. The most innovative ideas stem from diverse communities where varied experiences inspires creative and effective solutions. Moreover, I believe that there is no path to long-term success if I am not genuine in my interactions with those around me. My goal is to not fall prey to overworking myself and being dissatisfied with my experience in BigLaw as so many others do. The first-year law school curriculum is not indicative of the roles that many Columbia law school graduates adopt after graduating and they are shocked by the stresses of their BigLaw jobs once hired. With this mind, I hope to never lose sight of the importance of unique perspectives and how they have driven to the position I am in. |
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> | In this moment, I am grateful for all the experiences that have shaped me into the person that I am today and wish to ensure they shape the lawyer I become. |
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Subsection A
Subsection B |
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