The JD program at SIU gives you a strong foundation and core legal concepts that you need to be able to ultimately go on to practice law. We really teach at the intersection of theory and practice, so that you can learn in context and take what you've learned into your legal career.
We pride ourselves in making sure that our classrooms bring you the most innovative and challenging aspects of the law. And our professors really do work with students, we learn what helps motivate them, we learn where they might have struggled academically, and we work one on one with them to ensure their success.
We offer a wide range of academic opportunities at SIU School of Law, one of which is our concurrent degree programs. These are designed for students who want to complete more than just their JD. So they get two degrees essentially, when they finish out their entire studies.
So I always knew that I was interested in medicine. And when I was in undergrad, I was able to do an internship with a local coroner. And when I was doing that, I realized that I just absolutely loved forensic pathology and death investigation. But there was a big intersection there between medicine and law. And so at that point, I started pursuing a criminal justice minor, I started to take classes that involve the law a little bit more.
And so somewhere around my junior senior year of college, I said, "Why don't I go to law school in addition to medical school?" I just absolutely love the law, but medicine is my first love. So I decided that I would do a dual MD-JD degree and when I started looking at programs, SIU Law was a no brainer.
SIU is fantastic because it's one of about 15 programs in the country that offers a dual MD-JD, and it's the only one that has about three dozen graduates. So it was really a no-brainer. Once I started talking to the MD-JD community, and hearing what SIU Law and SIU Med had to offer.
At SIU, you can experience a robust amount of academic support. Because of our small size, we're able to not only know you as a student in class and see the work product you submit, but we actually have a lot of opportunities to get to know you as a person. And you'll have a chance to tell us what really is motivating you to be a lawyer, and we can help you get the opportunities you need to succeed even before you enter your career.
