With the whole of September and half of October behind us, I can’t help but notice how fast my senior year is going by. Classes still feel more or less “new”, I have handed in only a few things to be graded so far, and yet the first break is already here. Of course the break itself is welcome; this fall break has already provided me with a chance to catch up on some class reading, and I hope to do some more serious job searching a little later in the week.
Fall break also provides me the downtime to consider what is merely weeks away. For one, I am competing in my last Moot Court regional tournament in Albany, New York. If I qualify for nationals, I will be heading with my partner to New Orleans, Louisiana for the Moot Court national tournament in late January. If I don’t do well, I’ll be done competing in Moot competitions for good, which only makes me appreciate time spent with the team that much more. Senior Ball is also seemingly right around the corner, which falls right around the time of Thanksgiving break. Given how fast the first stretch of this year has gone, I know that this upcoming stretch between fall break and Thanksgiving will fly by. Now, more than ever, I am trying to be cognizant to enjoy each day, even those relatively mundane ones.
While I attempt to enjoy the present, I simply cannot ignore the fact that it’s time to plan for what is to come after Holy Cross. This means looking for appealing job openings, polishing up my resume, and writing cover letters. I am far from certain what I’ll be doing next year, but I am sending applications to a handful of think tanks in Washington D.C., some law firms for paralegal positions both local and further away, and the Dismas House for Prison Rehabilitation. Surely, it will feel incredibly rewarding to see what all my hard work has lead up to, but it’s also somewhat fun to send applications out to a variety of jobs and wait to hear back. A lesson I have taken from talking to many Holy Cross alumni is that finding one’s vocational calling is often term a longer-term process. I am excited to see what my hard work and some amount of random chance yields for a first job.
In the meantime I’ll do my best to savor my second-to-last semester at Holy Cross. Before I know it, I’ll be writing about the upcoming month from my desk at home over Thanksgiving break.
