My mentor, Khai, recently invited me to the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Association’s mentoring programme launch. I’ve had to navigate in networking contexts before. Last year I was one of the delegates from Sydney Law School to the Australian Law Students Associate (ALSA) annual conference. In many ways the two events felt similar. In many ways the two events felt different.
At ALSA we were all subject to a 20 minute lecture by a managing partner of a large city law firm about the importance of networking. His speech reminded me of a scene from Confessions of a Shopaholic. Asked to write one thousand words on APRs, Rebecca proceeds to do some research. A few moments later her boss appears behind her and exclaims, “Rebecca… did you just type ‘good angles on APRs into Google?” Either that or he just copy and pasted the Wikipedia page on networking. His delivery then reminded me of a scene from the Simpsons.
Mr Burns: Did you get that report on the accounting department?
Homer: Yes sir, I did. "The accounting department is located on the 3rd floor. Its hours are 9am to 5pm. The head of this department is a Mr. Johnson or Johnstone."
Given his enthusiasm I do not think I could be faulted for not seizing the opportunity to market myself to my fellow peers. Bring together a few hundred law students there will be natural diversity of course. Some, like myself and fellow Pinnacle Scholar Veronica Mason, will devote our attention to the mooting and skills competitions. Others will be there for a week of revelry. But at the end of the day you could naturally begin with questions like “which law school are you from” and remark about the differences between their curriculum and yours. You take out your phone and you say, “hey we should add each other on Facebook!” Then you go off to use the bathroom or get another drink and you avoid that person for the rest of the night because you don’t want to talk to them again. That would be awkward. If you bump into them in the hotel lobby the next day, you nod your head in acknowledgement, smile, wave, say hi, but you do not slow down (in fact, quicken your pace in case there was any doubt in their mind about your intentions) and hope you’re not catching the same tram as them.
Among the company of Sydney’s gay and lesbian business community my enthusiasm for networking was not exactly rekindled. I remember asking Khai at the beginning of the evening, “Do I just go up to people and ask them ‘so, what do you do’? That seems a little rude”. There is a modesty I am accustomed to, both with asking about another person’s private affairs and volunteering information about my own. So without Khai to tell everyone about my clerkship and my judge’s associateship I do not think I could have represented myself in the best light. But because Khai did, everyone was really nice and genuinely engaged me in my life and my achievements. My opinion of networking has recovered.
Society demands networking apparently. It is, at least in business, a fact. An aversion to social interaction with strangers is seen as something shameful by most people. All of my close friends have confessed to me that they feel similarly while admiring my ability to engage strangers in conversation. I don’t feel the need to resolve the question whether my friends and I are in the minority with our anxiety. But I am confident enough to admit it and try my best to overcome it.
By Nathan Li
For my first blog post of the year, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Ying Hao Li. Ying Hao means vast ocean. The characters are written 瀛昊and the similar character, 嬴 is the family name of the first emperor of China. If the Chinese text renders properly, you can also see it is one of the most complicated characters to write. My mother had great hopes for me, clearly.
I can describe myself quite ordinarily of course. I am 21 going on 22. When I left high school I wanted to go to university to study as much as I can for as long as I can. I enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts (Media and Communications) and a Bachelor of Laws – so I could be there for six years, seven if I took an honours year for my Bachelor of Arts. I decided that I will study government in my Media and Communications course because I wanted to be a press gallery or court reporter. Like many other students I had a change of heart after my first year. I couldn't bear the intellectual punishment of committing myself to studying only government and only media to the exclusion of other subjects. So I exorcised the Media and Communications part of my degree and started taking the wide range of humanities that a Bachelor of Arts allows me. So I took philosophy and genders studies and majored in history. I am now in my final year of studies and I have the freedom to choose my law electives. So I chose again to broaden my horizons with a law honours thesis in administrative law, advanced federal constitutional law and tax. After this year, who knows where I will be. I hope to secure an appointment as a judge’s associate or work at a law firm.
But like my name, which at first seemed quite ordinary, these very trivial things can appear extraordinary.
Let me begin elsewhere however. In the book of Genesis, there was a story. It was a story about a man and a woman who gained the knowledge of good and evil. For their knowledge, and their insolence in obtaining that knowledge, they were expelled from the gated Garden of Eden. Because they would not submit, because they wanted the same knowledge possessed of their maker, they were exiled. But from their exile, civilization grew.
Regardless what you believe, there is a grain of truth to this story. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Alexander Pope thought knowledge was dangerous because a little of it will cause us to speak like fools. Perhaps he was unnecessarily patronizing. A fool will betray his ignorance whether armed with knowledge or not. For the rest of us, arming ourselves with knowledge is a dangerous thing for those who trade on power and oppression. A little knowledge, like a little flame in a dark room, will illuminate our surroundings and show us the walls that hold us back.
The story in Genesis is apt to describe the study of the humanities. I studied law and government, philosophy, gender studies, and history because these pieces of knowledge equip me with the skills to question the way things are. And often knowledge means having knowledge of the questions that are never asked, let alone the answers to these difficult, difficult questions. So exercise your wits and ask questions. Let us ask, what does globalization means for individuals who do not share the profits of multinational corporations? Or is national security worth preserving if the means by which our government polices terrorism is by taking away the rights of its citizens?
Don’t be complacent with the familiar and the ordinary. Test your limits and embrace the extraordinary.
By Ying Hao (Nathan) Li
