A World Apart

Hey everyone. So I just arrived in Chicago this past week. It's definitely different a world apart from Phoenix, where I spent the summer, and from Boston, where I spent the past two years. The best news is that I won't have to deal with any more 100 degree weather. I also don't have to deal with having a car, since I'm living in downtown Chicago which is definitely a nice convenience.

First off, the area is pretty cool. My apartment sits less than one block away from Lake Michigan, and the picture above is taken right from the window in my room. Surrounding my apartment is all of downtown Chicago, which consists of lots of really nice apartment buildings, Northwestern's 20+ acre downtown campus, the beach, and the magnificent mile. If you don't know that magnificent mile, it's a world-renown shopping district that goes through the city of Chicago. It has all the top shopping spots, nice restaurants, tons of people in the summer, and lots other of things to do.

My building is about a 4 minute walk from the law school campus, which sits adjacent to the Kellogg Executive Campus (downtown) and the Med School campus. Generally, in the morning students are hustling about through the city to go to class and professionals are walking or taking the metro to work. In the summer, people are always outside, either running, tanning on the beach, swimming, or just enjoying the warm weather while we have it, since Chicago does get extremely cold in the winter.

It definitely is a big change to be headed back to school again after a few years off. I've spent a lot of time in the law school since I've been here. Not everyone is here on campus yet, but when you enter into the law school, it's a surprise to see people in jeans and t-shirts and starring at laptops rather than taking in all the city has to offer, especially in the summer. But I'd expect nothing less at law school. The kids seem to be a bit more serious than the b-school kids. They're definitely sharp, but they also seem to want to work really hard. And since law school grading is based on a curve, it seems like we'll all be spending a lot more time in the books than I will be next year at Kellogg.

In terms of facilities, the law school building is nothing like that of Kellogg. Kellogg is actually pretty old for a business school, though fortunately a new building is in the works. However, the law school has some of the most attractive physical facilities of any law school and the best location of any major urban law school, since it has prime real estate downtown less than a block from the lake and beach.

School wise, this week I'm doing a summer preparation program that Northwestern has, which is sponsored by one of Chicago's bigger law firms. The point of the program is to allow a handful of the students to get a head start on how to prepare for law school. Basically, we all had to apply to this program a few weeks ago, and the school accepted about 30 of us. Today was the first day of the program, and we are learning about things such as outlining, briefing cases, performing the Socratic Method, and other similar things. All these things are pretty foreign to me, since I've been in business the past few years. But despite being a world apart, I'm pretty excited to learn a bit about the legal industry. I plan to post a little about my experience in this program later in the week. Stay tuned!