What was the first thing I thought of when I thought about the prospect of moving to Detroit? Crime, car thefts, empty buildings, chaos, ruins. I had never been to Detroit, much less even the State of Michigan when I applied to Wayne State, which is located blocks away from high rises.
A year ago Detroit wasn't on my mind, Detroit was a distant city that was dying a slow death that I preferred to ignore.
Before moving to Detroit I lived in a small town on the border of Kentucky and Indiana, the big claim to fame was that Sherman Minton had lived there at some point, and there was a drive-in in the area. I was finishing my last year in college, which was about a mile down the road from my elementary school. Obviously I had never traveled far. I had just taken the LSAT and planned to apply to two schools in Indiana, one in Illinois and one in Kentucky, however sometime in the Spring I panicked. I realized most of these schools did not fit what I was looking for, so I rearranged my schools, only kept one and changed the rest. Wayne State became my third choice out of five. I was accepted early, and offered a scholarship.
I remember telling my parents and they were just SO sure I would get into my Indiana school, until I didn't. When they found out I would end up in Detroit, I am sure a lot of the words I described Detroit with probably went through their heads, my dad even told me that I did not want to live in Detroit. Either way I made my first campus visit in June. I had already paid my deposit before I had even been to the state of Michigan.
Fast forward to August and I have an apartment in Detroit, within view of Canada, and am starting law school. This is not where I saw myself 5 years ago when I started college, much less a year ago, but this is where I am. I might as well explore the city while I am here, and so far what I have found has been surprising, so this is my effort to show everyone else what I am seeing for the first time.
