Why did you choose to study law?
Some reflections after 10 years since I made that decision.
The short and honest answer to why I chose to study law is that I had to study something, and studying law was my way of securing a seat in a decent college in a big city. I believe this is what any student contemplating their further studies should do, as it has paid off well for me.
In the past 10 years, I have been able to land a job in one of the highest offices in my home state, secure a seat for my master's at a SEBI-run institution in Mumbai, and land a job in a BSE-backed securities exchange in Mauritius. All this became possible because I chose well, not exactly what to study during my undergrad, but where to study it.
At various stages of my life, I have either asked myself this question or someone has asked me, either during interviews or regular conversations. My answer has always been tailored to win the context in which it was asked, and I have never attempted to answer this question in a deep and meaningful way until now.
The first time I asked myself this question was when I finished school in 2013. I distinctly remember my father asking me what I wanted to do with my life. I didn't have any plans until then, but I had to have an answer, so I said I would study English Literature from Delhi University. He asked me about the prospects after studying that. I said I could prepare for the Civil Services Examination and work in government departments. My answer was at the intersection of a standard template for any student born and raised in Bihar and my interest in literature.
Up until then, I knew for sure that I was naturally better at words than numbers, and a career in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics was not well-suited for me. My 12th-standard marks were also a representation of this, so I completely ruled out applying for IIT and NIT examinations. I don't know how students approach college examinations now in 2024, but back in 2013, most of my friends from defense school who couldn't get into the armed forces would appear for all examinations to secure a seat in any college for any course. My approach was also pretty much the same, with the only filter being that I was done living in a small town, and I wanted to move to a big city, preferably either Delhi or Bangalore, because I had relatives in both places.
I moved to Delhi in 2013 and realized that securing a seat for a course like English Literature based on my 12th-standard marks was not possible. I had been humiliated by a professor in one of the colleges, who, after looking at my marks sheet, told me that with those marks, I wouldn't do anything in life. After wandering from North to South Campus, I realized that I could only get admission to one of the evening colleges in South Campus, and I would have to study Political Science there.
I told my father that I wanted to return home and give myself some time to think about what I wanted to do with my life. At that point, I knew I was better than what I was receiving, and I wouldn't be happy with the options I then had.
I researched and looked for my options, and that's when law came to my rescue. I learned about the program, and unlike admission to Delhi University, it required an entrance examination, and mathematics was only 20 marks. I thought to myself that this was my second chance in life, and it seemed pretty doable. I communicated my decision to my father and took a gap year to prepare for the law entrance examination in a coaching center in West Delhi.
Up until then, I had only heard of a senior from school who had cleared CLAT to secure a seat at NUJS Kolkata. I wasn't close to him, so I never called to ask about how to go about my preparation. Thankfully, I found a guy from school who also decided to study law, and we rented a place together and started our respective preparations.
This CLAT preparation developed my interest in law and I would always look forward to Sunday for law classes. The class was conducted by a practicing lawyer named Mr. Sanyog Vyas. He shaped my formative understanding of law, and it was his lectures that helped me sail through my Torts and Contracts paper even after I got into law school.
Even at that point, I was only interested in English and law classes, and I hadn't really worked hard for mathematics and IQ.
I applied for three law entrance examinations - CLAT, AILET, and Christ University - and luckily got into Christ. I was lucky because my scores in other examinations would have left me nowhere again.
Anyway, here are my top take-aways from the answer to the title of this essay for anyone who's contemplating the decision of finding the right college (not limited to law school):
Choose a college over a degree, a teacher over a subject:
When you're contemplating the question of what you should study after 12th standard, you must keep in mind this principle, i.e., to choose a college over a degree. They say that one should study what they're interested in and thus should choose their degree accordingly. Well, this argument has some merit, but according to me, not entirely. Your interest matters; that helps sustain a career, but what matters above all is the institution that is going to help you kick-start your career. A good college is going to place its average student somewhere in the real world; a bad college is not going to place its best student anywhere. Now, we're all different, come from different backgrounds, facing different challenges, thus a good college is very subjective and varies from person to person. But here's some of my objective criteria based on my experience that could potentially help anybody navigating the right college to commit to:
Choose a college in a city:
A college placed in a metro city would have better access to people, institutions, both public and private, and all the rich and smart kids would go there. So, if you're someone from a remote village in Bihar, you must at least aim for a college in your district. If you're someone from a district, you must at least aim for a college situated in the capital of your state, if not the top metro cities in India.
Point to note:
I didn't sit for placement after my undergrad because a) I wasn't confident that I would get a job, and b) because I thought that being a lawyer, I must know the courts and institutions of my hometown, so I returned to Bihar. But when I applied for Judicial Clerkship at Patna High Court, my application stood apart because I had studied in a good college in Bangalore. This was highlighted and told later to me by the Secretary Establishment who was responsible for conducting the selection process, and later, upon my selection, I was engaged in the Chief Justice's office of Patna High Court. So, you get a sense of how the branding of a city and a college go with you wherever you go.
There's another point to note here: my college has also given me access to a lot of smart people, and it is important to recognize here that as a human, we're all trying to mimic and impress the people we surround ourselves with. Now, a bad college will set a very low bar for you, and you wouldn't care to work hard because you won't have friends doing remarkable things in life. No matter what I still do, professionally or otherwise, like writing this essay, I still care what some of my peers, whom I have looked up to so much, think about everything that I do.
Ranking of a college:
Now, a lot of you would Google and research online to find the veracity of a good college. There are a lot of ranking parameters and results online, but one cardinal rule that any student could follow is to look for a college where any public bank is giving collateral-free loans to a student for their course to a particular college. On an individual level, it is very difficult to measure the associated risk of choosing either a course or a college, but these financial institutions have done that before they provide loans to any student. So, even if you don't need to take out a loan, it's a good parameter to check if, for that course and college, you'd get one from a public bank or not. One good example, from the time of writing this, is the government's National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) ranking and PM Vidyalaxmi scheme. The government has said that students who have gained admission in 860 quality higher education institutions, as defined by the NIRF, are eligible for the loans.
Always remember that, on an undergrad level, you're paying for college, not for knowledge and wisdom (that one only acquires with time and deep personal interest and experience). You're going there because this institution is going to help you become part of the economic and political engine of your country.
College provides you with a bundle of services, and not just your degree. Be conscious of it, and make this decision wisely, because you wouldn't only find your first job there, but also, this is the time when you'd probably find the love of your life.