Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto

Time and again through out law school I am asked by those that live outside the hallowed halls of justice “Is it hard?”
Duh!
I am at a loss to tell them exactly how hard it is.
It is nothing like graduate school of any kind other than maybe doctors or veterinarians. (but then again I nearly failed undergrad biology sooooooo)

I have figured out a way to explain it

Imagine putting together a something really complicated. Say a robot.
You have only rudimentary diagram written in Chinese in which you can understand the occasional tab “A” going into slot “B”.
You spend five or ten minutes staring at the diagram and then back at the pile of parts trying to figure it out. It is confusing and your brain just can’t quite seem to grasp what goes where and why.

Now imagine doing that 12 to 15 hours a day.
Now imagine no diagram and no picture of what it is supposed to look like when it is assembled.
Now imagine that the robot looks different where you live because your state decided it should look a certain way.
Now imagine that if you don’t get the robot assembled in time, and correctly, you loose your job and go substantially into debt all at the same time.
Now imagine that you can only find out how to put the contraption together by going to classes in which you read about tiny electronic parts that seem to have nothing to do with how it works. You can’t asks questions, but the teacher asks YOU questions about how you think it should work.

Then tells you that you are wrong.

Then you go into debt to buy books that tell you about each part.
Some of the other people who are putting together robots may lie to you about how to put the robot together so that yours will not work.
Then they tell you draw your own diagram and put the parts together.
Then you show up one day and they hand you a new pile of parts and give you three hours to put it all together and explain how you put it together.
If you can’t put your robot together in time or if your robot works but does not work as good or look as pretty as the other robots your family is ashamed of you, everyone considers you a failure, and you have to pay the robot people 20 grand for allowing you to try to put together their robot.
If you do succeed, you get to put together 4 more robots this semester and then you get to do that for about 3 years.

Then you get to try to put together a giant robot made out of all your other robots. But the state gets to design your robot and the pieces don’t really fit. You are supposed to find the pieces that fit together the best.

If your robot doesn’t work you wasted 3 years and 100 grand and can’t work for anybody putting together robots because you are not licensed to do so.



By the way -
I took out the trash today.