Reflections of a 4L

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How do you think it feels when on your first day of 4L, a 3L comes up to you and says, “Hey… umm… I thought you were supposed to graduate last year?” Apparently, the answer is “awkward” – for both people (it happened to Lauren Epstein – you can ask her!).

This year, there are twelve 4Ls roaming the halls of Flavelle – all JD/MBAs in our final year. Describing 4L is a bit like describing a victory lap in high school – it sounds really awful to most people (in the eyebrows raised, “oh that’s great” kind of way) but it really isn’t as awful as you may initially expect. And if it is as awful as you expected, well – we’re your elders (so to speak) so just listen to us anyways, put a smile on your face and say thank you. You’re welcome.

The primary feeling is that of being an outsider, because you just don’t see the same friendly faces in the halls anymore. We’ve got the rest of the people in the joint program, the handful of second year friends we’ve made, and a few keeners who we recognize from classes last year. That adds to about… 20 people. I feel obliged to add here that the reason we don’t know the current 3Ls so well is that in their first year, when we otherwise would have bonded, we spent the entire year getting through our first year MBA, secluded in the halls of Rotman.

Interestingly though, we also feel old and wizened, since we’ve been around forever. Our first year profs (Benson, Roach, Sossin) literally didn’t even teach some of you and Sossin is now the dean of another law school. We don’t even understand the UV references to “new” profs like Dubber.

Nevertheless, despite feeling wizened about the ways of law school, we can’t help but feel like children: Our class in both the law school and the business school (the year in each school that we started with) has graduated, found jobs, written the bar (or CFA) and have been working full time with an income while we (mainly me) are still struggling to make it to biweekly, 10:30am and 2:10pm classes. Pathetic!

Like 3L senioritis, 4L is senioritis plus a little ennui on the side: Classes have lost their appeal (even the ones you saved your only “A” to get into), we’ve been to law ball too many times before, and it’s exhausting having to play nice if we want in on any note sharing or group study.

Yet, in addition to the laundry list of 4L complaints, there are some surprising upsides. We’ve got school ‘figured out’ enough to know how things work and how to stay stress-free, so this year has been pretty relaxed. Personally, I found 4L was the perfect year to go on exchange, since I didn’t feel like I was missing anything. We can take on part-time work or volunteering with ease, work out every day and still catch a full night of sleep. Plus, as we no longer have as many friends with free time, we are less broke than we thought we’d be since we no longer drink 4 days a week! The boys even noted that being a 4L has been great for “macking mad bitties [women] at pub night.” More practically, we are also all ready to leave school and start our professional careers (and awesome future life) already.

So I suggest life as a 4L, especially for the 1Ls considering adding the MBA or MGA to your list of degrees. Do it – you certainly won’t regret it. I’m sure I’ll look back at life after 3 months (or days) of real work and wish I had a fifth year, but for now – goodbye and goodluck!

 

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