Personal Statement for Law School Anonymous

I waited patiently by the bench in what all Jomo Kenyatta University chemistry majors call the "Super Lab," staring for what seemed to be hours at a small flask bubbling with something that looked like a cross between Pepto-Bismol and whipped cream. I was waiting for the color to turn just the right shade of blue before I could go home for a late dinner, but it was obvious that this solution was as far from blue as baseball is from rugby. I realized then that "Super Lab" was not so Super, and neither was a career as a chemist.

Every term-break since high school, I worked at Jomo Kenyatta Laboratory as a research assistant. One of my major projects involved working on a team to develop probes for the detection radioactive substances. When I turned in my final report, a computer program that would give the same results in five minutes four people would in a week, my pride turned into disappointment when my supervisor took credit for all of my hard work.

Unbeknownst to me, somewhere in tiny print in the contract signed as an employee; it said something to the effect that as an employee I would relinquish all rights to everything that I developed at Jomo Kenyatta National Laboratory. I felt that it was unfair for a company to claim...