Dev Ranjan ‘23
Interviewed by Jonathan Peterson ‘23.
So, where are you from, how did you decide on law school—just tell me about yourself!
I grew up in Kentucky and went to college there, but I moved around a lot as a kid as well as between undergrad and law school. I decided to pursue law in 2017. I was working as a sommelier and really came to the point where I had to make a career choice. My coworkers were all preparing for the Master Sommelier exam which was the next logical step in my career as well, but it’s a serious commitment. People spend over a decade just working on this exam.
There are very few Master Sommeliers in the world, right?
Around 200. So yeah, to pursue that would be a very focused decision. My career would be focused on wine for the rest of my life. I didn’t feel like I wanted to make that decision—I enjoyed my job andI still love wine, but I just didn’t want to base the rest of my life around it. If I was going to dedicate myself to something, I wanted it to be something that really felt like it was worth pursuing, and so I landed on law.
For one thing, my wife and I were about to get married and we’re an interracial couple. For a lot of United States history that was illegal basically everywhere, but even into the 20th century, it was illegal in some areas. Then, there’s the Supreme Court case of Loving v. Virginia, and it just blew my mind. As a sommelier, I went to work, did my job, and some people got to drink wine. As a lawyer, people go to work, do their job, and all of a sudden interracial marriage is legal! And that’s just crazy. So, I want to do something where I can try really hard to be really good at it and at the end of the day, I can accomplish something truly worth accomplishing.
Moving past law, I know you have an interesting background. Could you pick one particularly special experience to highlight?
That’s tough. After undergrad, I spent a solid amount of time traveling and rock climbing. That was amazing. It taught me that I don’t need much to be happy. Before that, I had my apartment, my espresso machine, all of my nice stuff. Before leaving Kentucky, I sold everything and basically moved into my car. I just drove around doing whatever I wanted, which was basically rock climbing. Another lesson I learned was that, while what I was doing was great and made me really happy, there’s a big difference between the idea of being happy in a moment—or even happiness in general—and being satisfied or fulfilled with what you’re doing.
A lot of what I’ve done—traveling, rock climbing, distance running—these make me happy. But, after doing them for a certain amount of time, I would always return to the fact that, at some point in my life, I need to do something that actually feels like it’s satisfying me. Something that feels like I’m working on something worth working on. I think a lot of people may not realize that being happy and being satisfied are two very separate things, at least to me. In fact, I actually feel like I made an anti-quality-of-life decision coming to law school. I could have pursued other professional avenues, but this feels very worth it for me because I believe it will fulfill other aspects of my ideals or personality that are really important to me and are separate from just happiness.
Was rock climbing helpful for putting things in perspective for you in that regard?
It was. It taught me a lot. So, I was never that into school, especially in undergrad, partially because I started getting into climbing. I’ve even thought, maybe I should have dropped out and gone back when I was more committed. I ended up with some pretty not-great grades. However, something that climbing taught me was that I had the capacity to try really hard. Sometimes that manifested in a specific climb and returning to that climb over and over and over again. Sometimes, in that particular moment, it’s just a matter of how hard you can try to do something as a human being. That’s something people really learn when they get into things, especially sports, that a lot of what holds you back is your mental capacity to give it your all. To endure pain. Discomfort. To acknowledge that a certain goal is more important to you than not feeling those things.
Now that I’ve returned to academics, I’ve applied that mental fortitude, something I totally lacked, to my schoolwork. In undergrad, if I’d had a paper to write or a test to study for and it felt like too much, I’d be like “ugh, I don’t want to do this. I can’t make myself do this.” I realized, through climbing, I don’t really have that anymore. I can make myself do a lot. I took that excuse away from myself. I also realized that just because something is hard at first doesn’t mean you can’t be really good at it. When I was younger, I looked up to people who were natural talents. I wanted to be one of those people for whom things came effortlessly. And so, I thought that if I started music, or a sport, or whatever, if I wasn’t immediately the best at it, that meant I wasn’t talented enough. I’ve learned now that your starting level doesn’t mean everything in the long run. After five years of working on a skill, that first introduction doesn’t really mean as much. I treat things now with the assumption that I can be great at them, which makes you work harder.
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dpr4vh@virginia.edu