Everyone has their expectations of what law school will be like when they get there. If you don’t have family members or close friends who’ve gone through it, those expectations are probably shaped by movies and TV. Some images are very familiar: mountains upon mountains of homework; humiliating cold-calls; classmates ripping pages out of library books so no one else can study from them. It’s all enough to make you wonder why anyone goes to law school in the first place.

Loyola definitely is not like that. (And, for all I know, neither is any other law school – I mean who, in the 21st Century, even looks at library books anymore?) Loyola is a down-to-earth place; a place for students who are ready to dig into their work as lawyers. An attorney I know who practices in L.A. – a person who did not go to Loyola – once described Loyola as “the city’s law school.”

I love that idea. I feel great when I see that idea borne out in real life. I see it manifested in many of the students, who are hard-working, unpretentious, and always willing to collaborate. A good many, it seems to me, are eager to work through law school so they can go on to join the bloodstream of this city – perhaps in public service, or on behalf of clients with special needs. In my own experience interning in both government and public interest law offices while at Loyola, I’ve met so many inspiring grads – from judges to civil rights lawyers to executive directors of nonprofits. They all seem particularly well-prepared for the avenue of service they have pursued.

I’m inspired by the idea that Loyola is where so many people who want to serve this city come to get their education. After all, it has a nearly 100-year history of educating lawyers, much of that history at its current campus adjacent to downtown, where there are so many in need of representation.

If you want to go to law school, but worry the environment will look too much like what you’ve seen in the movies, I can reassure you – that’s not Loyola. While it’s by no means easy (it is, after all, law school) it’s a supportive environment, and one that particularly speaks to the ideal of service. To call Loyola “the city’s law school” is, I think, to pay it a tremendous compliment.

When it comes to the everyday academic grind, I’m a loner. I don’t share notes with other students, and I hardly ever meet with classmates outside of class to go over course material. I don’t even read at the library. I like to read alone, at home, where it’s quiet, and no one can bother me.

That all changes when finals come around. I do some exam studying alone, particularly when making outlines. But I also rely – nay, depend – on my classmates for support. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t really learn anything until I explain it to someone else. (I believe that most people are this way – some are just a little too shy or self-conscious to try it.)

The hardest part, then, is finding a group you can work with. If your group is made up of students you think are ahead of you, you might get discouraged – and that is NOT how you want to feel going into finals. On the other hand, if no one in your group is prepared for the exam, you’d be better off reviewing alone. The key is to find a group of friends who don’t intimidate you, but who don’t fail to challenge you, either. After the first two or three exams, I got my group pared down to a loose collective of buddies.

I’ve taken seven final exams now, and they have all gone just about the same way. By the last two or three days before the test, I’ve made my outline. I’ve asked my professors for help with the topics that have daunted me the most. I’ve made my flashcards, and I’ve found and re-read (or, yeah, read for the first time) the cases that have vexed me the most.

The last few days, then, are basically a protracted conversation with my group. We quiz each other, diagram concepts like supplemental jurisdiction or exceptions to the hearsay rule, and verbally explain concepts from different angles. For 14 weeks out of the year, I don’t need a study group. But for that final week, it’s crucial.

My Saturdays are filled mostly with studying these days. That’s how it was this past Saturday, too. My Criminal Law professor assigned a practice midterm (sounds fun, I know), so I spent about 6 hours, starting in the morning, doing some last-minute studying. Then, I spent 3 hours taking the test. I capped it all off by starting — but, alas, not even finishing — my reading for the same class, to prepare for Monday. By the time I walked out of the law library — the best place in town to while away an entire Saturday, of course — I was more than a little dazed. The sun had been down for several hours.

I put my books in my locker and caught a Lyft to Hollywood Forever Cemetery for their annual Dia de los Muertos Festival.

I got to the festival — which celebrated its 18th year this year — well after it started. The roads through the cemetery were lined with vendors, as well as with altars, which families had set up for their loved ones. I picked my way through the face painted crowd and found my friends waiting for Colombian rock band Aterciopelados, the final band of the night, to start playing.

After 12 hours of studying, it was a best kind of release. We sipped beers and felt the air, the first cool night of the year. Around us, a celebration of life and of the lives of family members who’ve passed on to the other side. It was a beautiful kind of perspective – a reminder that even when you’re buried in books, it’s important to get out and live a little.

In the summer in Los Angeles, electricity runs through the pavement. It pulls surfers to the beach, couples to the gardens of Griffith Observatory, families to the picnic grills and cool grass at Hollenbeck Park. I felt it this summer. On a few bright Sunday mornings, I brought crates of records to a rooftop restaurant to spin for the brunch crowd. I sweated through long, late shifts at the bar where I worked, then watched my friends make music in shifty, cobbled-together spaces. I visited Vicente Pedraza, the man who once ran the influential cumbia sonidera label Discos Barba Azul, at his Santee Alley stall. And Arshia Haq, who, visited Pakistan and came back to L.A. with her own deeply spiritual recordings of Sufi music. (Both allowed me to share their stories in L.A. Weekly.) I brought some of my favorite musicians together in the basement of a restaurant in Chinatown for one transcendent night of music. We stood in the back alley between sets, across from the restaurant cooks taking their breaks, smoking their cigarettes, and talked about our plans.

The news this summer was dire. We watched young people gather under a banner of hate in Charlottesville, then listened with dismay as our president validated them. Closer to home, L.A.’s neighborhoods boiled over with anxiety about displacement and gentrification. Our city’s homelessness crisis seemed worse than ever. It became clear that DACA, the federal program that allows those who entered the U.S. as children to go to school and work without fear of deportation, was the President’s latest target, with 100,000 of our Angeleno neighbors in the crosshairs. The freedom of a Los Angeles summer is intoxicating, but I start school at Loyola with profound excitement — the feeling that I’ll gain an education that will help me do my part to make this city even more just, more equal, more electric.

Not too long after I turned 22, I decided to go to law school.

That was seven years ago.

Back then, I had just graduated from Seattle University with a degree in English, and all I knew was I wanted to write. I had worked as the news editor at the school paper, interned at the local alt-weekly, wrote papers about American economic history, and blogged about politics. I thought I was off to a good start.

But I had also fallen in love with Seattle, and I felt certain I wanted to be a part of the city in a meaningful way. I knew a couple of lawyers, and I figured law school was the way to do that. If nothing else, it would give me plenty to write about.

In the intervening seven years, I learned that things rarely turn out the way you plan.

Seven years ago, I was working at a book store in Seattle and plotting my future. One night after work, I got a text from a friend who told me he could get me a job in New York City. One week later, I was on an airplane. Who could pass up a writing gig in the cultural capital of the world?

Things went from there. I made an adventure out of my 20s. I ended up working in radio in New York for a few years. As part of the job, I spent much of my time in cities like Shreveport, Yakima, and Utica teaching radio DJs how to blog. Later, I learned how to DJ myself, and gigged around the city; I worked as a bike messenger; I worked in bars; I played in a band. I got back to writing, which will always be important to me — it’s the way I find my bearings in the world — and when I moved to L.A. a couple years ago, I got to know the city by freelance writing about the local music scene.

L.A. reminds me of everything I loved about Seattle. It’s a big, complicated, strange city, a city of shiny dreams and stubborn struggles; of Hollywood studios and working class neighborhoods; of Kendrick Lamar and Raymond Chandler; of cumbia blasting from backyard parties and experimental music emanating from warehouse art spaces.

As I became absorbed in this city I was reminded of my original desire to be a useful part of something bigger than myself. I don’t regret a single weird minute of my ‘20s. But I couldn’t be more ready for what’s next.