Student Profile
Sherry E. Streicker, 2002
Although Scientific and Technical Communication is not a typical pre-law course of study, each passing day demonstrates how well BATSC prepared me for the academic adventure I am encountering at Emory Law School. BATSC trained me to read and understand difficult technical information and then present this information clearly and concisely in my writing: these skills transferred extremely well to law and my professors are impressed by my ability to explain complicated legal concepts in a succinct and highly readable manner. Most of my classmates struggle to master the technical aspects of legal writing (and wind up producing legalese) but I already know how to use a consistent voice and tone in my writing and present information objectively in a professional, structured manner (without resorting to jargon or convoluted sentence structure) because I already studied it for four years! My undergraduate coursework in grammar, editing, and visual rhetoric imparted an awareness of sentence structure, linguistic detail and document design that gives me a distinct advantage in the law school game: because I understand the nuts-and-bolts aspects of the craft of writing and recognize the things that differentiate a winning brief from a less successful document.
I just finished my first semester at Emory and my professors are already pushing me to apply for a judicial clerkship because of my writing skills and I’ve already had a few summer job offers from firms who were impressed by my writing background. At this point, I’m not sure what path I want to take but I am certain that the skills I developed in the BATSC program in conjunction with my legal training will serve me well throughout my career.