A cynical view is that I don't really know, and that I make up answers based on my audience and my own sense of who I think I am at that moment. Another possibility is that each answer is perfectly honest. I did come because my grandfather was a progressive man who left a mark on his community by breaking barriers, and I want to be like him. I did come because joining the foreign service was not an option after I graduated, and law school was the next best thing. I did come because due to my help, a former trafficking victim’s teenage daughter goes to high school in Virginia instead of languishing in a brothel like her mother. I did come because I enjoy poetry and have a knack for languages, and the law seems to relate well to both.

Practically, I hope that Columbia makes me a good lawyer. Already, it seems half the challenge is defining what that means and figuring out how to enable that definition, something I hope this class will help me do.