Apparently not every evening student has kids

This column originally appeared in the Georgetown Law Weekly, Nov. 14, 2006. For those who don't know, evening law students at Georgetown graduate in four years instead of the normal three, and are designated as Section Seven.

In a previous column, I revealed that I do not know all that much about evening students. Apparently, not every section seven student is raising children; for many, their kids have already left home for college. My apologies. I have been told by evening students that they are often the forgotten Georgetown students, as most events, talks, lectures, and classes are aimed at the full-time days students.

Evening student Morlocks deserve respect.

Why is that? Why do we neglect the evening students so much? They are valued members of the GULC community, and should be accorded respect. In many ways, they are superior to the day students.

1) Evening students have done more in their life then run for Fraternity Treasurer.
I'll like to invite all the day students to look at their resumes. See all the fictional crap you listed under "accomplishments?" Evening students have actual accomplishments there. You interned for Harper's Monthly? An evening student founded Atlantic Monthly. You worked as a paralegal after college? An evening student was a paratrooper during college; he studied during drops. You studied abroad in Europe for a semester? An evening student did, too, except it was called Pangaea back then.

2) Evening students know how to cook.
The section seven students have to know how to cook, because the cafeteria is closed by the time they get here. When your corporations class goes on break, you run down and grab a sandwich; when the evening corporations class goes on break, the law center has transformed into a Mad-Maxian wasteland, where there is no food, the pop machines only have ginger ale and Yoo-hoo, and wild packs of roving Gewirtz 1Ls roam the land looking for booze. There is no one to make over-priced chicken fingers, no one to refill the soup tureen, no one to grill panini sandwiches. The evening students have to make their own sandwiches, their own soup, their own Thermoses(TM) full of Jello(TM).

Trying to get food at Georgetown after 6pm is tough.

3) Evening students do not have tawdry flings with other law students.
Maybe it's because they are all married, or maybe it's because they know how stupid it is to become romantically involved with people with whom you work, but no evening student will date any other law student. It is just as well, because when would they have the time to date, really? There are section seven classes every night of the week, and exams on Saturday. That leaves Sunday for dating, which is impossible because that's where football lives. Go Bears.

4) Evening students are less politically irritating.
Everyone has strongly held beliefs, but evening students do not believe in purchasing silk-screened t-shirts displaying those beliefs. In the entire history of Georgetown Law, there has never been an in-class screaming match over a politically-charged topic during an evening class. Not so with day classes; I have never taken an class for an entire semester without discovering what each and every person thinks about the President/School Prayer/Gay Whales at extraordinarily high volume. I expect the rancor in the day classes to get worse now that there are a whole lot of GOP staffers without jobs.

5) Evening students do not blog about everyone else in class.
All I know is that I read a blog someone posted about a stupid thing I said in class while I was saying it. That is not ok. It is also not ok to blog about law school drama in general, even if you disguise people's names. You are not clever enough to hide it, because if you were you would not have started the blog in the first place. I once read a blog from another student who listed people he hated, and the pseudonyms he gave people rhymed with their actual names. Someone came up to me after one particularly venomous post and asked, "Did you read that blog last night? Apparently he really hates this guy Narc MaBong."

6) Evening students actually donate money back to Georgetown.
Look around at the major contributions to the GULC, and you'll see that many, many more of them come from evening students than you might expect. I suspect that they donate at a higher rate because the bitterness of law school is spread out over four years instead of three. Perhaps they give back at a higher rate because they see people they entered law school with graduate a year ahead of them, and realize everything actually turns out ok a year after law school is over.

These reasons, and more, say to me that we should do better about reaching out to the evening students. Administrators can insure that cafeteria services remain open until after every evening class goes on break. Student groups can make sure that some of their events reach people in section seven. And if you are a full-time day student, introduce yourself to an evening student and offer to baby-sit.

Mark Nabong is finally some other editor's problem. His columns can be found online at chicago-typewriter.blogspot.com.