School of Hard Knocks

I loved the negotiation workshop because I felt like I was in 2nd Grade again.

You learn a lot in a no-pressure environment, all your classmates are your buddies, and above all, you get to draw a potrait of yourself at the beginning and end of the course to see how much you've learned/changed.

Sadly, some students' after-picture came out arguably worse.

One guy explained his portrait by saying, "The before-me is smiling because I like making win-win deals. But the after-me is no longer smiling because I realize that people can totally take advantage of your cooperative spirit and totally screw you over."

Another student who had an optimistic before-portrait amended it by drawing some frowny faces to indicate his freshly learned lesson: some people are just a pain in the arse to negotiate with because they have unreasonably high demands and won't budge from them.

I myself learned to be more skeptical and untrusting too. Didn't think I could get any more cynical, eh? Lawschool will do this to you. There should be a gate at the entrance of campus with the enscription: Abandon innocence all who enter here.