Law School Orientation: An Introvert’s Experience
“One never reaches home… But where paths that have an affinity for each other intersect, the whole world looks like home, for a time.” Herman Hesse, Demian
At first, you’re too busy to reflect on the momentous lifestyle change your arrival in Ann Arbor engenders. There’s furniture to build, textbooks to buy, Wi-Fi to set up, and, if you can believe it, pre-Orientation readings to be read – several of them. Your Mom, who happens to be a lawyer, is here with you, making sure you haven’t forgotten to worry about certain things and, thank God, paying for your first round of groceries. But between free-flowing conversation and a To-Do list that doesn’t shorten so much as oscillate, her time with you passes quickly. One moment she’s explaining what dicta is as you take borderline-orgasmic sips of something called a “batido,” and the next, she’s hugging you goodbye outside of Econo Lodge Inn & Suites. As you drive away, you are struck by the realization that, in her absence, you are demonstrably sadder, a little less sure of yourself. It is difficult to quantify the extent to which you have relied on her throughout your life.
In any case, you are now alone. You have the luxury of sleeping in on the first day of Orientation because your Section, “T,” is the last section alphabetically. Thus, you are one of the last 1Ls to be handed a welcome packet by a cheery Admissions officer and kindly directed to 100 Hutchins Hall, the auditorium where most of Orientation is to take place. It is only when you enter 100 Hutchins that you understand the price you paid for sleeping in. Everyone is already here! And they’re already arranged in groups, talking. This is the introvert’s worst nightmare.
See, when you were little, you refused to enter a party that had already started, as it seemed impossibly awkward to join games and conversations already in full swing. In fact, so many tantrums were thrown outside of local laser tag arenas and bowling alleys at times like 6:08 p.m., that your parents were all but forced to bring you 30 minutes early to all birthday parties. It has (you have to hope) been 15-20 years since the last of these meltdowns, but 100 Hutchins Hall is still scary.
You scan the room and see no clear opportunities for socializing, whatever those might look like. Lord knows, you’ve never been able to identify them. So, lacking the courage to approach a group of strangers, you eye the back row, away from the crowds, where two 1Ls are conversing. You wonder if it would be more awkward to sit right next to them or one seat away from them. You choose the latter. You look furtively in their direction, hoping they’ll invite you to join their conversation. But they don’t, so you start impulsively playing the NYT’s Connections. You have the yellow category figured out when Dean Z welcomes everyone to the University of Michigan Law School.
Orientation more or less proceeds in this fashion. You eventually introduce yourself to the two other back row regulars. You meet a handful of other students, all pleasant interactions, and you even eat lunch with a couple of them. But nothing really sticks, and you are beginning to wonder what your inability to make friends at a school where everybody makes friends says about you personally. That is, until the last day of Orientation.
A conversation with a section-mate is going so well that you take a risk, you ask her if she’d like to keep hanging out. She’s down! So, after the two of you giggle through the rest of Orientation, you find a bench on the Law Quad and talk for over an hour. She’s fun and funny, and as you trade stories – she tells you about Badminton Nationals, you tell her about your poker exploits – you realize something: you’ve made a friend. The two of you then learn that your Section is grabbing drinks right around the corner at Dom’s. After asking an undergrad for directions, the two of you meet the rest of your Section on the second-floor deck. It takes only a few minutes of casual conversation for you to see that these people, too, are kind, easygoing. As the conversation becomes easier and more free-flowing, a startling realization comes to mind – this could be home.
Res Gestae Writer Aidan Forbes can be reached at aidanfor@umich.edu.
