- Posts: 1
- Joined: Dec 20, 2016
- Tue Dec 20, 2016 1:21 am
#31532
The clock was ticking, and I could feel my professor’s sharp gaze over my shoulder. As I carefully added two reagents together in my research lab during an organic chemistry course, I watched as the liquid in front of me turned from clear to purple. I became fascinated with laboratory research because of the immediate products I saw during my work in this lab, a cool breath of fresh air after years of subjective coursework. I would later learn that an immediate payout is rarely a realistic result in a actual laboratory setting—but the idea stuck. After wandering my way through potential careers, I thought I had found the perfect route. Though I have since learned that this is not the case, my experience in research taught me the importance of attention to detail and the importance of perseverance—skills I know I will use throughout my career as a lawyer.
When I was young, I begged my mom to let me visit my dad at work in his medical office. I loved watching him fix each patient’s problem, and more than anything, I loved sitting in his office. I spent hours flipping through page after page of medical journals, looking at the pictures, trying to see if my elementary school education would help me see the inconsistency on the x-rays on each page. Each photograph was a mystery to me, a puzzle that I wanted to solve. This mindset has stayed with me since, and led me to choose my major in college—Biochemistry.
Soon after I completed my introductory chemistry coursework during sophomore year, I began to seek out internships and undergraduate research positions, where I could gain the experience I needed to pursue a career in chemical research. I found what I was looking for in a polymers and coatings research lab developing heat sensitive surface coatings, a promising venture that had countless real world applications. During the interview, my professor, Dr. Philip Costanzo, showed me various polymers in the shape of small bottle caps that his current undergraduates had created. With the evidence of their success sitting in my hands, I was instantly on board to get started.
The next summer, I found myself half way through an internship in [place] when I realized that research often didn’t end with a tangible result, and that my personality was ill suited to the field I had chosen. I enjoyed doing the investigative work, such as planning or set up, for each experiment, but found that an increasing amount of what I was doing was speculative. Each discovery we made led to ten new experiments varying a single small detail of the original, and so on. The summer culminated with a presentation in front of the graduate chemistry department, where I realized that I could explain the entire project, but I couldn’t explain where the project would eventually end.
While I had realized over the course of the summer that I didn’t see a future for myself in chemistry research, it was my first exposure to intellectual property and patents. Because the semi conductive polymers we were creating at USM were unprecedented, I had to carefully word my presentations to the department, and avoid revealing information under current patent review. After a meeting with my advisor, I began doing more research on the implications of law on scientific research and learned about the various positions lawyers can hold in the STEM fields.
At the completion of my internship, I returned to [university] to finish my undergraduate degree, but patent and intellectual property law stayed in the back of my mind, a career path I wanted to look into.
After a year of careful thought and consideration, I am in pursuit of a juris doctorate to apply the skills I have learned in research and my academic coursework to provide counsel to the science industry. My academic coursework taught me the importance of hard work and perseverance in learning complicated topics, which I believe will translate well into my future study of the law. By pursuing a law degree, I can enter a profession that better fits with the abilities I have discovered through my work experience, and at this point in my life, I want to pursue a career that will better challenge my strengths at communication, reading and writing. For these reasons, I believe I will make an excellent addition to a well-rounded and diverse class at _____ law school.
When I was young, I begged my mom to let me visit my dad at work in his medical office. I loved watching him fix each patient’s problem, and more than anything, I loved sitting in his office. I spent hours flipping through page after page of medical journals, looking at the pictures, trying to see if my elementary school education would help me see the inconsistency on the x-rays on each page. Each photograph was a mystery to me, a puzzle that I wanted to solve. This mindset has stayed with me since, and led me to choose my major in college—Biochemistry.
Soon after I completed my introductory chemistry coursework during sophomore year, I began to seek out internships and undergraduate research positions, where I could gain the experience I needed to pursue a career in chemical research. I found what I was looking for in a polymers and coatings research lab developing heat sensitive surface coatings, a promising venture that had countless real world applications. During the interview, my professor, Dr. Philip Costanzo, showed me various polymers in the shape of small bottle caps that his current undergraduates had created. With the evidence of their success sitting in my hands, I was instantly on board to get started.
The next summer, I found myself half way through an internship in [place] when I realized that research often didn’t end with a tangible result, and that my personality was ill suited to the field I had chosen. I enjoyed doing the investigative work, such as planning or set up, for each experiment, but found that an increasing amount of what I was doing was speculative. Each discovery we made led to ten new experiments varying a single small detail of the original, and so on. The summer culminated with a presentation in front of the graduate chemistry department, where I realized that I could explain the entire project, but I couldn’t explain where the project would eventually end.
While I had realized over the course of the summer that I didn’t see a future for myself in chemistry research, it was my first exposure to intellectual property and patents. Because the semi conductive polymers we were creating at USM were unprecedented, I had to carefully word my presentations to the department, and avoid revealing information under current patent review. After a meeting with my advisor, I began doing more research on the implications of law on scientific research and learned about the various positions lawyers can hold in the STEM fields.
At the completion of my internship, I returned to [university] to finish my undergraduate degree, but patent and intellectual property law stayed in the back of my mind, a career path I wanted to look into.
After a year of careful thought and consideration, I am in pursuit of a juris doctorate to apply the skills I have learned in research and my academic coursework to provide counsel to the science industry. My academic coursework taught me the importance of hard work and perseverance in learning complicated topics, which I believe will translate well into my future study of the law. By pursuing a law degree, I can enter a profession that better fits with the abilities I have discovered through my work experience, and at this point in my life, I want to pursue a career that will better challenge my strengths at communication, reading and writing. For these reasons, I believe I will make an excellent addition to a well-rounded and diverse class at _____ law school.
