ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú

James Loy 

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast by the hosts and guests may or may not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú University.

Student 

I'm a senior, I'm about to graduate, and I've done a lot of cool things in college.

Student

I never thought that I was gonna be an intramural curler. I never thought that I was gonna be the student body president.

Student 

These four years have been the biggest amount of growth I've seen in my entire life.

Student 

It's not just about the academics, but like, what kind of person you turn into, which is super cool.

Cyle Ginsberg 

I was randomly paired with a roommate my freshman year who is now actually my best friend

Maggie 

O, yay!

Cyle Ginsberg 

Like, it was one of these rare like success stories,

Maggie 

yeah

Cyle Ginsberg 

We lived together freshman year, sophomore year. We're still, like, super close friends.

Maggie 

I love that about college. It's a time to just explore who you are, what you want to be, what you want to do. That's what college is all about. So this is major insight the podcast where we talk about how to find your place and purpose on campus. My name is Maggie Snee, and who are you?

Cyle Ginsberg 

And so I remember he was absolutely giddy for the first day of school. I was like, yeah, this will be fine. Go to class. I was one of these, like, I needed to be at every class at least, like, 15, 20 minutes early. Made the professor introduce myself. Like I was that kid. He actually woke me up that morning. He was like, it's the first day of school, like it was, it was a good day.

Maggie 

Awww

Cyle Ginsberg 

My name is Cyle Ginsburg. I am a senior international studies and economics double major. I've got minors in philosophy, Arabic and middle eastern studies, and this is my first time ever recording a podcast. So I'm excited to be here.

Maggie 

We're adding something else to the bucket list, right? You can check that off. So do you want to talk a little bit more about what got you into your majors? You know? How did you originally find yourself interested in those things?

Cyle Ginsberg 

Yeah, so economics is pretty simple. Junior year, took AP econ in high school. Loved it. I was partially my favorite teacher that I've ever had was the teacher for economics. And it just, it clicked for me. Econ is one of these subjects where it really doesn't matter how smart you are, it either makes sense or it doesn't. You can't brute force your way through it.

Maggie 

As someone who took microeconomics, I can say that is true.

Cyle Ginsberg 

Yeah

Maggie 

I have no idea how economics works

Cyle Ginsberg 

right

Maggie 

...at all.

Cyle Ginsberg 

And there's plenty of people who don't. But for me, I've described it, and my friends always scoff, but I've described it as almost like a guilty pleasure of mine, like, like, I don't plan, I don't plan to work in economics.

Maggie 

Yeah

Cyle Ginsberg 

It's just something I enjoy, and I enjoy studying and understanding. So that's econ. International studies so I actually applied to college as a political science major, and then I realized, even before I got to college that I was more interested in the people that live in different countries than the governments of those countries. So I switched even before my first day of class to become an international studies major.

Maggie 

Dang. So I mean, you weren't even here, and you were like, We got to make a change.

Cyle Ginsberg 

Yeah. I was like, this isn't gonna work. I took, I took a college level government class my last my high school was on trimester, so my last trimester.

Maggie 

Oh, wow.

Cyle Ginsberg 

And I didn't like it, so I was like, I can't do this for four years.

Maggie 

Dangg. So you kind of, like, you got in that mindset. You were like, no, that's not gonna work out. I gotta, I gotta change that up real fast.

Cyle Ginsberg 

Exactly.

Maggie 

I mean, change. That's such a natural thing in college. I feel like sometimes it can be really, really scary to confront that feeling, almost. Did you have a moment where you were like, oh no, like, my plan is gonna change, or was it just a very natural transition of like, no, I gotta, I gotta scrap that. We need to go with something different.

Cyle Ginsberg 

I knew going into college that I eventually wanted to go to law school. And for law school, it really doesn't matter what your major is, as long as you enjoy it and are good at it.

Maggie 

Yeah.

Cyle Ginsberg 

So that's that was a pretty easy transition.

Maggie 

So I mean, like, speaking of that, you saying, like, law school doesn't really matter what your major is, as long as, you know, passionate, driven, you're good at what you do. Where did the transition from? You know, international studies, econ, your language minors, like, where did that transition to applying to law school take place.

Cyle Ginsberg 

Right, so I always knew I wanted to go to law school. And I know this answer because I've written it in several different, several essays at this point, but I've always knew I wanted to go to law school because I was good at problem solving, good at critical thinking. Um, I had this fascination with like, right and wrong, and I always used to try to put things into buckets of this is right or this is wrong.

Maggie 

Yeah.

Cyle Ginsberg 

And I learned as I got older that you can't really do that with everything. There's a lot of gray area. So I knew I wanted to go to law school and become a lawyer to kind of work in that gray area.

Maggie 

Yeah.

Cyle Ginsberg 

International studies actually pushed me. I'm gonna enter the field of international law. So I haven't decided exactly what position I want, because you can do public international law. So working human rights attorneys, immigration lawyers, like you're super, super noble pursuits, as far as like, working to help the world's poorest and the world's, you know, the people that have some of these crises going around, going on in the world, helping those people, or I could go into the private sector. So working for an international company, working for an international firm, one of those things I haven't decided, but I know that I want to have a global focus with my law career.

Maggie 

Yeah, I love that. Have you had trouble, like, in applying to law school, or maybe, like, going and deciding a future career path? Have you had trouble really, like nailing down, like, this is what I'm gonna do?

Cyle Ginsberg 

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, definitely, to be completely honest, I have no idea what I'm gonna end up doing for my career.

Maggie 

Same here, and we graduate in a few months.

Cyle Ginsberg 

And I've become more and more comfortable with that through conversations with some of my friends and some of my professors, especially that have that have said it's okay to not know exactly what's gonna happen.

Maggie 

Yes.

Cyle Ginsberg 

But I know I'm gonna go to law school. I haven't heard back from anywhere. No, no except.

Maggie 

Fingers crossed.

Cyle Ginsberg 

No rejections yet.

Maggie 

But no rejections!

Cyle Ginsberg 

So, I'm taking it as good news.

Maggie 

Fingers crossed.

Cyle Ginsberg 

Yeah, but deciding what field of law took me a while. I was like a kid wanting to go to law school, but I like, I didn't know, you know, I watched suits. I thought that would be cool. But being a lawyer, I've been told, is not actually like suits. You know, all your courtroom dramas and stuff like that, don't really do a great job. But, you know, I came to realize that I'm not ready to stop doing my international focus, like I've done four years, and I feel like I'm just getting to the tip of the iceberg. What's going on in the world, like, and there's only so much you can ever actually know that's because there's so much to see. Like, the world is so huge and there's so much going on, I like to keep that big picture kind of focus.

Maggie 

I've always kind of been of the opinion that everything happens for a reason, and in a certain sense, like, we don't have a whole lot of control over things that are gonna happen. Like, even one of the iceberg questions that we ask sometimes is like, would you rather go to the past, or would you go to the future? And one time, I answered it and I said I would go to the past, but I wouldn't change anything, you know, I'd be too afraid of, like, messing up everything that I have now, or that that's happened to me by going back and, like, I don't know, maybe not snoozing my alarm, you know, when it went off, which made me, like, five minutes late to class. I wouldn't go back and change that, because who knows, like, what if? What if I got hit by a scooter, right? If I woke up five minutes earlier and left for class

Cyle Ginsberg 

like and I'm one of the people that ride those scooters, so that would have been, we never would have made it.

Maggie 

Life would be monumentally different.Who's to say?

Cyle Ginsberg 

But that's, that's the saying, right? Is that, if it doesn't stop at your station, it wasn't your train? Yeah, if you know the things are gonna happen that are meant to happen.

Maggie 

Yeah, and that's especially important to remember, I think, when it comes to rejection and failing, sometimes. I and it's so minute and not monumental at all. But I applied to be a campus tour guide last year. I got all the way to individual interviews, and I didn't get the job. And that was the first job I applied for and did not get. And I was distraught. I literally started crying, which, looking back on it now, I was like, what were you doing? Crying over not getting a campus tour guide position. But you know, it just comes back to that, like, you gotta be okay with maybe not getting that job, or maybe you don't do as well on that exam as you thought you did. Being coming comfortable with failure and rejection when you're in college is so important when it comes to appreciating success. I think if you never fail, you never truly appreciate when you succeed.

Cyle Ginsberg 

Yeah, it's really a necessity. I mean, everyone's gonna fail. You're gonna have to get rejected at some point.

Maggie 

And hey, sit in that sad feeling for a bit, you know, feel your feelings, that's important, but then you keep on going better than ever. You can appreciate the next success that you have because of that initial failure. That's kind of the mindset I try to keep, because I've messed up many times since getting here, and I am not afraid to admit that. So I mean, obviously you're applying to law school, you've submitted fair few applications, which we've talked about. What has that process looked like? You know, there are prospective students. Students are already, already in college, considering higher education after college, and it's obviously unique to every person, every institution, depending on what you want to do. But what does that process applying to law school look like for you?

Cyle Ginsberg 

Yeah, so it's definitely not for the faint of heart. I am 14 applications in got two more left to go, hopefully today, actually. And then you wait and see.

Maggie 

Yeah.

Cyle Ginsberg 

You know, there's the basics, there's the hard, you know, the the tangible things. You have to take the LSAT and get your score back, having a GPA that's of a certain level. And also, your GPA for law school applications is calculated differently than your undergraduate GPA.

Maggie 

O, interesting.

Cyle Ginsberg 

Which is something that I luckily learned. So you know, hard facts like that. But then big thing in law school is your soft factors. So they actually refer to them in the admissions process as your softs. So what groups were you involved in? Did you work in college? How did you spend your summers? How did you spend your winters? Things like that, and then just being able to have a narrative, so being able to get to know yourself well enough to be authentic throughout the process, that's a big thing. I love podcasts, so I listen to a lot of podcasts from law school admissions representatives who always say that one of the most important factors in the process is authenticity, and saying that if we read your application and you're not being authentic somewhere that's gonna come out. We're gonna get some sort of vibe that you're showing us what you think we want, and not actually who you are. And we want to know who you are, and you want us to know who you are, because we want you to end up where you're meant to be. So that's been a really interesting process, like sitting and thinking and brainstorming. I'm one of these people. If I have a essay for a class, I usually sit at the top floor of the library for as long as it takes, write the whole thing, submit it, and I'm done. Yeah, I'm a one draft guy. Usually when it comes to academic papers, I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna write it and I'm gonna submit it, and we're gonna see what happens.

Maggie 

Yep.

Cyle Ginsberg 

That is not how I have approached the law school admissions process. My dad has read over everything I've written. I've used the Writing Center here on campus plenty. It helps that some of my good friends work in the Writing Center, so I'm just able to schedule meetings with them and go over my application materials. I've used the pre Law Center. Most undergraduate universities that I know of have a pre Law Center, and mine has been incredibly useful in that process. So yeah, just it's a lot, it's a lot of work. But if you know that you want to go to law school, it's work that you have to put in. On the other side, the average age of a law school first year student keeps increasing every year. More and more often, people are working or doing something else. So you know, if anybody's listening to this and think that you have to go to law school straight out of undergrad, that is absolutely not the case. Most people at this point in time take at least a year off, sometimes 2, 3, 5, 10 years off before going back to get their JD,

Maggie 

Yeah, for sure. I definitely within the last like few months this semester, especially because I have been through the ringer as far as my capacity for all of my classes goes, like, I know that one day I want to go back to school and get a Master's, like, that's what I want to achieve one day. But, man, I could not imagine doing it straight out of undergrad, you know, like, I and, hey, that's someone who's only been here for three years. I'm graduating a whole year early, and I'm still at a point where I'm, like, I couldn't do this for another year.

Cyle Ginsberg 

You need a break. Everybody needs a break.

Maggie 

I need some time off. It's so, so important to find that balance between, like, you know, like you said, so much of the law school applications that you've been doing, part of the work is, you know, those hard skills, like, okay, what classes have you taken? What's your GPA, you know, like, what's your involvement? But then the other side of that is just knowing yourself, like you mentioned when we were talking before we started recording, you mentioned one of your essay questions was, what are your three favorite books, right? I couldn't, I couldn't write a whole essay about that. I'm like, I have to pick?

Cyle Ginsberg 

And it even got more specific than that. I kind of summarized it. But the the real prompt is, if your local library was destroyed and you had to contribute the first three books to restarting it or re founding the library, which three books would you contribute?

Maggie 

Oh, my God.

Cyle Ginsberg 

So to me, it's kind of like, what are your three favorite books? Oh, but it's deeper than that. It's more nuanced. It's what books do you love that you are also willing to give up so that other people can read them.

Maggie 

Wow, that's deep.

Cyle Ginsberg 

yeah.

Maggie 

So your public library has been destroyed like...

Cyle Ginsberg 

Come on this journey with me.

Maggie 

That's so interesting, like, and I think that does speak a lot to like, authenticity of like, truly knowing yourself, but at the same time that can be like, such an uncomfortable thing to grapple with. Has there been any part of the process, as you've been going through these questions, of trying to remain authentic and trying to show who you really are? Has there ever been a point where you've kind of been like, oh gosh, you know, like, has it gotten to a point where maybe you know yourself a little too well? Like, has it freaked you out?

Cyle Ginsberg 

Yeah, I mean, as far as that goes, the common question, and a lot of law school applications, is, what makes you unique? And I had, I wouldn't call it a meltdown, but I had a moment. There was a moment where I had to sit and think to myself, am I unique? Am I different from other people that you know, maybe get good grades or a good test score and want to go to law school, like, what? What really is setting me apart here, and what I was told by anyone in law school admissions is you don't have to be, you know, you don't have to be a superhero. You don't have to be some, you know, super famous person. You don't have to have all this impressive, like, super, super impressive accolades and background and things like that. You just have to be yourself, because we're all unique. And so this process, it's been difficult, but I think it's definitely been beneficial outside of just like the oh, I want to go to law school, because it's forced me to really look at like, who am I? Who have I become in an undergrad because I can guarantee that my law school applications, other than hopefully being much better written than my than my undergrad applications, show a little bit of that personal growth.

Maggie 

Well, as we wrap up here, after a whirlwind of a conversation, I feel like we've barely been here, and yet we've talked about so much. But if you had to go back and talk to freshman year Cyle, his roommate's just shaken him out of sleep saying it's the first day of school, would you have any advice for him? Maybe, just like one thing that you tell him about what the next four years look like.

Cyle Ginsberg 

I'd encourage him even more so than I did, to take things as they come, say yes to things, try new things, make use of the resources around you, and, you know, spend time with the people you care about, the people you love. I mean, I have, you know, a great group of best friends here, in the NYTMCC with the New York Times mini crossword club is what we call ourselves, because that's how we started. It was we all just like to do the mini crosswords.

Maggie 

I love that!

Cyle Ginsberg 

Every day and right now, there's 17 of us that are in this in this group chat. We all spend time together, so things like that, things balancing, balancing your academics, balancing your organizations, but also just having fun. I mean, college is four years of your life, but it's also four years of your life like it's what you're still building relationships. You know, you're not just building knowledge or building experience in college. These are also the people that you're gonna go visit when you all get jobs, or you're gonna go have Thanksgiving with, or you're gonna go see them when they get married, or when their kid graduates, like these are the people that you're going to maintain those relationships with.

Maggie 

Absolutely, college about is about so much more than just your classes and your grades, and you know, how'd you do on that quiz? It's about so much more than that. It's about the relationships, it's about the personal growth. It's about those soft skills, you know, learning how to navigate the world around you as an individual and how you change. It's important.

Cyle Ginsberg 

It's the cliche. But when I'm 70, 75, I'm definitely not going to remember any of the grades I got in any in any of my classes here, but I'm hoping that I could still get on my phone or my whatever we have at that point, the embedded hologram, yeah, whatever it is, and call one of my friends, call my freshman year roommate, or call, you know, any of these people that I've made a connection with.

Maggie 

Yeah, I would definitely. I'd rather end college with people who truly know me and truly care about me, than a 4.0.

Cyle Ginsberg 

Right.

Maggie 

To me, and as much as I love learning and I care about my academics and I I care about doing well. I think I care infinitely more about the people who care about me and the people who love me. It's just like it's so much more important than the piece of paper you get at the end, at the end of the day, a diploma is a piece of paper. You know.

Cyle Ginsberg 

That's what it's all about.

Maggie 

Yes, exactly. Cyle, thank you so much for coming in and talking. This conversation has been so much fun. Everything we talked about kind of bringing it in with a very wholesome, sweet moment there at the end. Thank you so much for coming in and talking.

Cyle Ginsberg 

Thank you for having me.

Maggie 

Cyle Ginsberg is an international studies and economics major at ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú University, where he also studies Philosophy, Arabic, and Middle Eastern Studies. After graduation, he plans to attend law school. Thank you for listening to this episode of Major Insight. Many more episodes are always available wherever podcasts are found.