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August 2, 2007

I still have until August 29 in Ireland, but the end is in sight... some of my fellow interns are beginning to leave. While I was initially disappointed that so much of my time would be spent with other American interns (as opposed to Irish students, say), it's actually been wonderful learning from their experiences (and, of course, I've enjoyed their company!). The other interns have just completed their first year of law school in the States, and have somehow found their way to the Centre based on previous students' reports, I guess. As law school is one post-college track I've been vaguely considering, I've benefited a lot from being able to ask lots of questions and just glean bits and pieces of insight from their conversations about classes, professors, social life, career planning. I still don't know that law school is something I'd like to do – and sometimes, I think, the more I glimpse of it the less it seems to fit who I am and what I want. I don't know. I want something that is interesting, exciting, different from day to day, and hands on. I don't know.

In Ireland, students interested in working in law begin legal studies as undergraduates – so you can graduate college with a legal degree. One of the Irish LLM students at the Centre who has been in here working on his thesis (on Iraq sanctions) was telling me about his experience studying philosophy and law at the University of Galway, then going straight into the Peace Support branch of the LLM programme immediately after. He's tired of school, he says. He plans to head to San Francisco and work for his uncle, a builder. Take a break for awhile.

I had a conversation with another Irish student the other day at a friend's place about how hard it was finding jobs in the country. He'd completed two degrees in the marine biology area but hadn't been able to find a job anywhere. It's New Zealand or Australia or America next, he thinks. It's getting harder and harder to break into the job market here.

Jobs. Real life stuff. That's a world away from, what classes should I take this semester? How should I fulfill my Lit B requirement? How do I get through today's section without admitting I didn't do the reading?   How do I fit in a 15-page paper, a Crimson assignment, and water polo practice tonight?

Internships get you thinking in that big and scary direction outside of the college bubble, I think.