It was June 2017, and one of those days, it struck me that the two years of my law school were done! I came back home (Nainital) for my summer vacation. I had applied for an internship at the High Court of Uttarakhand in Nainital, and well, I had gotten it. I was looking forward to going to the High Court situated in between the beautiful hills of Uttarakhand. The advocate I was interning under was very helpful. He taught me a bit about CPC and CrPC, taught me a little drafting, discussed his cases with me, and even asked me for my views on it.
My internship at the High Court was as smooth as it could get. There were some days I was taken to the sessions court in Haldwani, Uttarakhand, and the condition of the courts seemed quite similar to the district courts I had been to in Bangalore. But as a second-year law student, I didn’t ponder why the condition of the courts was like that. I didn’t care because I was so engrossed in my own life. I was determined to make the best out of it, and I was desperate to work and learn.
Although I was interning here for June, I did not have any internship lined up for July. I had applied in so many law firms under a lot of lawyers, but leads were none. It was mid-June when I was on LinkedIn, for one of my tasks of an Executive Assistant (yes, I was still working with them!), I came across a lot of posts that people wrote on it. I had no idea how LinkedIn worked, so I just read the posts and again didn’t care. I did not know that one could find jobs on LinkedIn; I did not know how one could make connections. I did not know anything. I had five connections, and I thought I was going in the right direction because back in law school, no one even knew what LinkedIn was. I, at least, had five connections (my humor was stale back then)
I was at my internship when one day, I happened to open LinkedIn, just randomly (no, no tasks), and thought of typing a post. I was agitated because I hadn’t gotten any internship for the next month, and as insecure as I was, about being from a non- NLU, I ranted all about it. I vented out and created a 1300 characters post. Without thinking about what it would lead me towards, I just posted. The post was nothing but a vent out of a 2nd-year law student who was desperate to work, but opportunities were available with discrimination. I logged off and got back to my work at my internship.
That night, I logged on to LinkedIn to see what was going on, and to my SHOCK, there were already 5000 views on the post, and about 15 people had commented on it. I received a lot of connection requests, and for the next five minutes, I was only staring at the screen. It happened within 8 hours of my post getting published. I was startled, shocked, and insert every possible shock emoji here.
From a nobody on LinkedIn, I had a lot of advocates, and in-house counsels messaging me, leave a comment on my post, and even offered me an internship on the spot. I, a person who was a tad bit low because she couldn’t get an internship for July, now had seven internship opportunities, and oh, that overwhelming feeling. I still needed some time to believe all of it was true, so I just let it be. It felt a dream because I had FIVE connections, how could my post have 5000 views in such a short span on time!!
I had such a sweet sleep that night, and the next morning was a turning point of my life, and the credits ONLY go to LinkedIn. As soon as I woke up, I downloaded the LinkedIn App (yes, I didn’t have it until now) and logged into it. The notifications, the connection requests, the messages – I WAS ON CLOUD NINE. So within 24 hours, there were 15,000 views and comments that touched my heart. There were students like me who resonated with my post, there were professionals who understood what I felt, and there were lawyers who had wholeheartedly welcomed me to intern with them. One comment was made by Mr. Navin Kumar Jaggi, a well-known name in the Legal fraternity. He said even though he receives thousands of internship applications, I am welcome to intern with them in August.
Just a day ago, I was thinking about how I could make it into this profession without a godfather, and today, I had opportunities without one, or maybe LinkedIn was my godfather?
Anyhoo, I talked to a lot of people, connected with a few, and there I had an internship for July. It was under a criminal advocate at the High Court of Delhi. As for the internship offer by Navin Sir, their slots were full in July, and I had college from August, soI made other choices. There was this point where I had internship options, and none of this would have happened had I not posted on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn CHANGED my life. Suddenly, I was confident, a little less insecure of my law school, optimistic about things coming my way. From 5 connections, my network grew like crazy. People started knowing me; I started knowing people. From a clueless law student, I was this LinkedIn obsessed girl who started spending more time on LinkedIn than on any other social media.
Within three days, my post garnered 25k views, my connections increased in hundreds, and I was getting to learn so much from other people on LinkedIn. Suddenly, I was this celebrity in my head, whose first post went viral. I wanted to write more, explore LinkedIn, and I did.
My third internship was in Delhi, so after a month-long internship at Nainital, I embarked upon another journey. I had gotten this internship through a referral on LinkedIn, so I was nervous and scared. I just wanted my internship to go as smoothly as I hoped it would. I was blessed with yet another kind advocate who never made us (me and my other co-interns) feel like we were interns. I felt like a part of his chamber, his practice. People often said, “Interns are ill-treated, and they are not respected,” but my experiences of all the three internships were contrary to this belief, or maybe I just hadn’t interned in that place as of now.
The summer of 2017 was different. It opened me to a whole world of new experiences with two internships and introduced me to my godfather! What more could I have asked for?
PS: In case you are curious about what exactly I had written, here's the link to my first post ever! :)
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