As I am working hard to finish my quarter at school, the law school I work at is gearing up to start the fall semester. This week is 1L orientation and we had a few groups of them in throughout the day for library tours. They all look so eager I wanted to hug them. I was part of the tour, my boss introduced me as the circulation librarian which was kinda cool. Since many of the students think I and the other circ assistant are librarians anyway, it makes sense. Nonetheless I felt both elated–I’m a librarian–and a bit of a fraud–I can’t officially call myself a librarian until I finish my degree (some librarians make a huge point about this but obviously the ones in my law library don’t because they know that except for teaching and research reference with the students, we two circ assistants do librarian work especially for the professors).

So the new faces of the eager 1Ls had me excited today. We shall see how long their eagerness lasts. I was talking to a 3L and he said about midterm time they won’t be so eager anymore. We admitted a class of about 180 and by the end of the year it’s expected 20-30 of them will have dropped out. My boss, who has worked as a practicing employment law attorney, says law school and the culminating bar exam are a test of endurance. If you can get through all that you will be able to handle the long hours and unexpected twists and turns of being lawyer.

Amongst the crowds of 1Ls the 2Ls and 3Ls are starting to appear too. One of the 2Ls, a cheerful and smart young woman breezed into the library this morning with a big smile on her face. “Hello! How was your summer?” I asked her. She said that it was good, and then, with the eagerness of a 1L asked, “Did you miss us?” While I had plenty to do in the very quiet library over the summer I could still honestly tell her that, yeah, I missed them. I had no idea how easy it is to get attached to students. This is going to be a fun year.