- Posts: 22
- Joined: Jun 22, 2015
- Thu Jan 07, 2016 3:24 pm
#21643
Hi again! Thanks again so much for the help you've given me so far (Dave, Jeff, and all the others) concerning the LSAT as well as the Personal statement. While I did purchase the Personal Statement critique, and I believe it helped, I have since changed certain parts. This was done by the suggestion of Jeff in his second review (to remove at least some or all of the "Israel" part of the story). So I basically changed up a few things. I'd love if somebody gave it the once-over to see if it's ready, and obviously to add any suggested changes... I'm ready to submit it but I'm maybe a bit scared and would feel much better if one of you guys reviewed it to make sure nothing is terribly wrong. Thanks. 
When you tell someone you were homeschooled, they often look at you as if you've told them you were raised in the forest... by wolves. They're just not sure what to think. It's that foreign. The questions start kindly with, "How did you learn to socialize?" and end somewhere with "What was the problem?"
I was homeschooled because my parents believed that education was about family and self-motivation. My education was a hodgepodge of learning experiences that pieced all together, created a direction for living. This started at the early age of five, when kindergarten ended and I was forced to retire my title of “Under-King,” a label of power I’d received by placing second in the reading competition. I delightfully earned six cookies that day, though I unhappily discovered later that they were oatmeal raisin.
Upon finishing Kindergarten, I didn’t set foot into another classroom until I was thirteen, when I began taking college summer classes, and at sixteen when I began college full time. While I was enthusiastically looking forward to the challenge of college, it was a dramatic change from the type of education I had received up until then. While before it had been up to me to find exciting and different ways to approach education, I was suddenly thrust into a classroom and expected to read through chapters in a textbook, memorize the material, and then take exams.
At first, the confines of a classroom were(was?) a struggle. Education that had once felt so free, spirited, and creative was now trapped inside a fluroescent lit concrete box, with only textbooks, the professor’s lectures, and the occasional Powerpoint slide to teach me. While I had once learned history by taking an exciting trip to Colonial Williamsburg to watch the war reenactments and read the recovered letters of actual soldiers during the revolutionary war, I now learned primarily in a library, where I read the same letters in textbooks and scanned through black and white photos of the very same fields and houses that I had visited myself. In order to learn about the subject of law, instead of reading about it in a textbook or memorizing facts about certain local property laws, I regularly took the number nineteen bus downtown where I watched fascinating court proceedings play out right in front of me. At the helm was my grandfather, Judge Simons, who always made time later in the day to kindly answer the many questions I’d written down during the proceedings.
But while the schedule and method of homeschooling was different from more traditional education, it still gave me the tools to not only match, but exceed the challenges I faced in college, as well as the hurdles I will face in law school. The main staple of homeschooling is self-commitment and an intrinsic drive to learn. I didn’t do my schoolwork because a teacher forced me to, or because the deadline was fast approaching, but because I genuinely wanted to learn. My commitment has always been to learn new things in the service of growing as a person. At thirteen, when I could have joined my cousins on their frequent afternoon video-game sessions, I instead began my five year journey researching and completing my historical fiction manuscript, which is currently in the hands of a literary agent (and which I hope to share with the world soon). Later, during my junior year studying abroad in Israel, I chose one of the hardest scholastic programs that intensely focused on the study of Talmud. In addition to wanting to grow closer to my Jewish roots, I wanted to give myself the best chance at gaining the tools I needed for law school. The many volumes of ancient Judaic law, written in Aramaic, helped me build my resilience and ability to spend many hours a day poring over text, often stretching through the night with my study partner. The numerous layers of in-depth analysis, while I admit sometimes incredibly frustrating, honestly made me appreciate how much there is to learn about law analysis.
But while homeschooling taught me self-motivation and the passion for education, it was in college where I learned how to most effectively tackle each challenge set before me, and finding law to be in my future, I did my best to prepare for law school. My articles in the Touro College newsletter focused on legal issues regarding such things as parental custody laws, gun control, and immigration. I sought out a lawyer to help me continue my studies in Talmud, but through the lens of modern law. When we reviewed certain types of property, criminal, or family law, he would relate them to American law in order to compare them to the ancient theories of legal practice. Entering law school is not just about choosing a profession for me, but also continuing my ambition to expand my own education. I feel ready and am looking forward to diligently putting in the time and effort to develop this next learning experience.
When you tell someone you were homeschooled, they often look at you as if you've told them you were raised in the forest... by wolves. They're just not sure what to think. It's that foreign. The questions start kindly with, "How did you learn to socialize?" and end somewhere with "What was the problem?"
I was homeschooled because my parents believed that education was about family and self-motivation. My education was a hodgepodge of learning experiences that pieced all together, created a direction for living. This started at the early age of five, when kindergarten ended and I was forced to retire my title of “Under-King,” a label of power I’d received by placing second in the reading competition. I delightfully earned six cookies that day, though I unhappily discovered later that they were oatmeal raisin.
Upon finishing Kindergarten, I didn’t set foot into another classroom until I was thirteen, when I began taking college summer classes, and at sixteen when I began college full time. While I was enthusiastically looking forward to the challenge of college, it was a dramatic change from the type of education I had received up until then. While before it had been up to me to find exciting and different ways to approach education, I was suddenly thrust into a classroom and expected to read through chapters in a textbook, memorize the material, and then take exams.
At first, the confines of a classroom were(was?) a struggle. Education that had once felt so free, spirited, and creative was now trapped inside a fluroescent lit concrete box, with only textbooks, the professor’s lectures, and the occasional Powerpoint slide to teach me. While I had once learned history by taking an exciting trip to Colonial Williamsburg to watch the war reenactments and read the recovered letters of actual soldiers during the revolutionary war, I now learned primarily in a library, where I read the same letters in textbooks and scanned through black and white photos of the very same fields and houses that I had visited myself. In order to learn about the subject of law, instead of reading about it in a textbook or memorizing facts about certain local property laws, I regularly took the number nineteen bus downtown where I watched fascinating court proceedings play out right in front of me. At the helm was my grandfather, Judge Simons, who always made time later in the day to kindly answer the many questions I’d written down during the proceedings.
But while the schedule and method of homeschooling was different from more traditional education, it still gave me the tools to not only match, but exceed the challenges I faced in college, as well as the hurdles I will face in law school. The main staple of homeschooling is self-commitment and an intrinsic drive to learn. I didn’t do my schoolwork because a teacher forced me to, or because the deadline was fast approaching, but because I genuinely wanted to learn. My commitment has always been to learn new things in the service of growing as a person. At thirteen, when I could have joined my cousins on their frequent afternoon video-game sessions, I instead began my five year journey researching and completing my historical fiction manuscript, which is currently in the hands of a literary agent (and which I hope to share with the world soon). Later, during my junior year studying abroad in Israel, I chose one of the hardest scholastic programs that intensely focused on the study of Talmud. In addition to wanting to grow closer to my Jewish roots, I wanted to give myself the best chance at gaining the tools I needed for law school. The many volumes of ancient Judaic law, written in Aramaic, helped me build my resilience and ability to spend many hours a day poring over text, often stretching through the night with my study partner. The numerous layers of in-depth analysis, while I admit sometimes incredibly frustrating, honestly made me appreciate how much there is to learn about law analysis.
But while homeschooling taught me self-motivation and the passion for education, it was in college where I learned how to most effectively tackle each challenge set before me, and finding law to be in my future, I did my best to prepare for law school. My articles in the Touro College newsletter focused on legal issues regarding such things as parental custody laws, gun control, and immigration. I sought out a lawyer to help me continue my studies in Talmud, but through the lens of modern law. When we reviewed certain types of property, criminal, or family law, he would relate them to American law in order to compare them to the ancient theories of legal practice. Entering law school is not just about choosing a profession for me, but also continuing my ambition to expand my own education. I feel ready and am looking forward to diligently putting in the time and effort to develop this next learning experience.
