Q. I have made it to a national law school. What should I expect? How should I prepare for a life at an NLU?

Ans. 1. Prepare to be crushed and subdued in everything you think you are great at. If you are great at debating, you might not be in the debating team. Prepare for that.

2. Prepare for great opportunities to come your way. Prepare for people snatching the opportunities from you because it is they who deserve and not you. Prepare to be stronger to catch some of the goodies yourself.

3. If you want to do well in academics, prepare to slog. There is no other way out.

4. If you want to enjoy to the fullest, you can enjoy to the fullest. But then, you won’t get a high paying job easily. Prepare for that.

5. Prepare for some great lectures by great faculties. Prepare to be handled some really good sleeping pills by many a ‘doctors’. It could be anyone: ‘Dr. ABC’.

6. Prepare for your initiation into a free, adult world.

7. Prepare for food which sucks, water that makes you ill and air which is foreign. Don’t worry. You will like it soon. Everything is hateable before it becomes lovely.

8. Prepare to say a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the opposite sex and cigarettes and other maya jaals if you haven’t yet said so.

9. Main Samaya Hoon (I am time. Remember Mahabharta?) Prepare to see time fly by, like a bird. It will also drop shit on you. It will also sing wonderful songs for you. It will be as ugly as a vulture, as beautiful as a peacock. Sometimes you will ponder: what animal is this? Don’t ponder. Work. Word hard.

10. Prepare to get bored one year down the line.

11. Prepare to get excited two years down the line.

12. Prepare to be called a ‘failure’ , ‘a real loser’; a ‘tremendous success’ by your ego depending on what path you choose.

13. Prepare for missing your parents and at 20, crying.

14. Prepare for enjoying your friends’ company so much so that you forget to call your parents.

15. Prepare for politics. Prepare for smite. Prepare for love. Prepare for hate. Prepare for pride.

16. Prepare for wasting a month doing nothing. Prepare for slogging for a month, 14 hours a day for a Jessup, for the Harvard law review article.

17. Prepare to read tomes. Piles of tomes. Prepare to write 15,000 words of ‘well researched papers of publishable quality’ in 4 months. When you have done it successfully prepare to say a ‘wow’ to yourself. If you do it well, tell me how.

Welcome sire. Your preparations have just begun.

PS- This is an enlarged and edited version of a forum post earlier. Thought, a blog post will make more sense.