Outread, outwit , outlast

              What is it about law school and suicide?

             

     In case you are totally clueless, there seems to be a connection.

            

     For sure, you have heard of Miriam’s (yes, our Senator Miriam) son’s death. The reason for the young person’s demise: suicide; and the factors which allegedly drove the lad to take his own life: failing marks in two subjects in law school.

             

     This incident was not the only suicide case I have encountered in my several years as a law student.

            

   In my first year in law school, a schoolmate (in my former law school, for I have since transferred to another law school) committed suicide. The reason given was love life-related but academic pressure as a contributing factor was not disregarded. At almost the same time Miriam’s son died, another law student in one of the law schools in Metro Manila took his life for allegedly having flunked the same subject (Statutory Construction) thrice.

             

    If this trend continues, then taking up Law can be lumped in the same category as smoking, global warming and air pollution. Yes, taking up law may be hazardous to your health!

             

    Facetiousness aside, I am pressed hard for explanations why the incidence of suicides among law students is quite high.

            

  Well, to start with, taking up Law is difficult—--and I mean really, really difficult. I believe no other course demands so much focus, effort, and passion than Law. There are the voluminous books to read, piles of cases to digest, ambiguous provisions to analyze and memorize and a thousand and one other things to do.

              

  There are also law professors who are Tasmanian devils in human form. They don’t just antagonize you, they rip you apart, regurgitate you and spit you out. And oh, do not forget the astronomical costs of getting a law student all through those four years (or even more) in law school.

Even my friends who are taking up Medicine would concede that law studies is much more demanding than medical studies. They have compared their lifestyles with mine—and they have seen a huge difference. In law school, there is also the constant fear of being kicked out. You see, every law school has “quality control". Any self-respecting law school, in order to maintain quality, has to slash the population of students as they progress through the course. The fit survive, the weak perish. Law school environment is the academic equivalent of the “Survivor”. You have to outwit, outsmart, “outstudy” everyone.

   In short, once you enter law school, it becomes your life. It will be your ONLY life. By default, everything else has to take a back seat. You are compelled to study the law, think about the law, breathe the law, dream the law, see the application of the law in the most mundane of circumstances, speak the law, and even perspire the law. Okay, I’m exaggerating but you get the picture.

  

  For all of the above, a law student’s only remuneration is his or her grades. Getting passing grades is vindication enough for all the toil, sweat, tears and blood a law student puts into his studies.

             

   Now, the catch is this: What happens if your very “life” is imperiled? What happens if despite all the hard work, and despite the invocation to all the saints your best is not enough? What if you still flunk—not just one, but several subjects? Or worse, get kicked out.

  It is at this point that the weary law student snaps … and is driven to commit suicide.    

            

    Let me offer you a metaphor.

             

   You are cruising on your dreamboat hoping to ride into the beautiful sunset. Unluckily, you encountered rough waters and eventually got shipwrecked. After several days of floating in the freezing ocean waters, you are washed in what seems to be a paradise island. Thinking that redemption is at hand, you approach the natives for help only to discover that the natives are …cannibals!

             

   You are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. Between Schyla and Charybdis. Any iota of choice is forfeited. That’s what law-school life is. You just have to do interminable Sisyphean tasks with the reservation at the back of your mind that all your effort might be futile and pointless since you will never measure up to your professors’  preposterous standards.

            

   In my years in law school, suicidal thoughts has toyed my head several times. Thank God I haven’t snapped yet.

            

    So next time you meet a law student, please oh please be gentle and nice to him or her. If he or she hasn’t jumped to his or her death yet, he or she might just lunge at you.

The time for cramming 

Bar Exam 

[This was written a few years back; I found it in my journal.]