I dropped my Housing Clinic before the first session ended.
Today’s class was a blitzkrieg of red flags which made it clear that the clinic would make me miserable. The directors spoke in terms of “amorphous grading,” last minute changes, and court times that force students to skip class.
They also hinted that housing cases move so fast that “good enough” would have to suffice for court preparation, and the student directors said that some of the hearings were so brief that they sometimes only had time to spurt out their first, best argument.
I need a break this semester. I want to snuggle up with the dogs and the tax code. Rushing around crazy and sleep deprived because I let some irrelevant1 clinic play Godzilla to the Tokyo of my schedule is not going to happen. “Looks good on the resume” be damned.
So I am the newest member of the morning international tax course, and so grateful that I put my foot down, and fled.
1 Irrelevant to my career goals.
I really wanted to be involved in a clinic, but I was discouraged from boarding for the same reasons you jumped ship; my solution, well, I joined our tax clinic, to help prepare taxes for people! A couple of Saturdays, and BLAM, another shimmery-glimmering line on the resume!
I am super excited about the tax clinic.