To begin, ever since
I was in kindergarten I have wanted to be a judge; this is important to know
because the remainder of the paper will be explaining how even after fifteen
years of chasing after this childhood goal, I have adjusted it in a matter of
weeks. At the beginning of the semester I chose to participate in a internship
at the justice court because my initial expectations for this experience was to
get a letter of recommendation and obtain another bullet point to put on my
resume to help separate me from the competitive sea of applicants striving to
get into law school. I had only been in a courtroom once before this semester,
due to running a red light and being a participant rather than an administrator
at the courthouse.
As shallow as this
goal of becoming a judge may have been, once I began the internship I engaged
myself in learning all I could about the court system; I established four basic
goals to base to enhance the experience. First, my primary goal was to see how
the court system worked from start to finish. This was done through interview,
working with and doing personal research with the police officers, clerks,
attorneys, the public defender, prosecutors and the judge. I even, time to time,
talked to the defendants to get their understanding of the law. My second goal
was to increase my ability to interact with people effectively, as well as, to execute
and deliver on tasks and projects that were assigned to me. Third, as I got a
grasp on my duties and tasks, I would then apply my critical analysis skills that
I have learned from the American Studies major to better understand certain
keywords that naturally came to mind through a deep study of the courtroom. My
last goal was to take a proactive approach of constantly challenging myself to
understand why the courts are the way they are. What I came to find out is that
each one of these goals helped to naturally change my mindset of what I wanted
from my career because they helped me look at what I can best market myself in
the job field.
What I have come to find out after seven
weeks of my internship is that although I never once disliked or hated the
court system, but there are other things that came into my life, that simply have
become more appealing to me and my mind. This semester I started to get serious
about my minor in business. I took my first business class, marketing, and was introduced
to a whole other profession what caused a fire to burn inside of me. It was
like a reawakening to my education. The combination of how my mind was focused
on getting a job from doing my internship and the possibilities of jobs through
business got me question what I wanted to do. Jeffery R. Holland, former
President of Brigham Young University, shared a personal story about a vacation
trip that him and his son, Matt, took many years ago. They were driving home on
a maze of back trail roads; they came across a fork in the road, not knowing
which road to take. The father took this as an ideal teaching opportunity to
his son and suggested that a prayer should be said. They both had a feeling
that they should go left and so they went. Ten minutes later they came across a
dead end, Matt being confused asked his father why they went down this back
road. The father responded that the sun was about to do down and this was the
quickest way that he could have answered the two travelers to go down the wrong
road to meet the dead end so that they could proceed confidently on the correct
road. [i]
As the sun setting of graduation approaches to students, there are times that
we are given inspiration in the course of action we must take that leads us to
a flat out dead end. In return, we can know confidently that we need to take
the other direction in the road of life.
This being said, during the course of the
semester so far I have had a great experience at the justice court that are
universal skills for being in a work place. I got to see how the administrative
individuals in the court have an unique perspective with their interactions
with the other employees. There is a code of unwritten rules in the workplace
that is learned only with hours spent in the work environment. Key skills of
how to deliver and pay close attention to detail, even to be able to anticipate
needs from employees and customers, if you can call defendants customers. But,
like any job court houses, or the office place, is not a place for children;
this is a serious practice with real punishment and the difference between
doing and not doing my job correctly could result in people ending up in jail
As I continue to
complete the remainder of my time at the courthouse there is a fresh new
mindset that I have in going forward. Things that I wont do include,
underperforming because I do not want a profession in law, burn bridges of all
the great people that I have met, start over in my education. Rather, I will
use what I have learn to not only understand law, but will continue forward to
develop skills in professionalism, networking, association with clients,
ability to complete tasks and develop myself so that I can market myself to
future employers.
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