The road this Norwich graduate traveled to get to where he is today has taken him across the state, across the nation and abroad.
Nate Guinn spent his childhood in Norwich. He participated in various school and community events such as varsity tennis, he was the vice president of the student body and an Eagle Scout. He says he tried to stay involved in the local community as much as he could through a variety of ways.
After graduating high school in 2000, Guinn went to college in Oswego to study history. “I wanted to become a history teacher,” he said. “That only lasted about one semester.”
Once Guinn realized becoming a history teacher was not what he anticipated it would be, he began to do some public interest law work. “I thought that it was rewarding and I really liked it,” he said. He then changed his major to pre-law and took a lot of political science courses. Although he was studying law throughout his four years at Oswego, he didn’t make the final decision to go to law school until his last semester.
Needing a break, Nate says he came back home and took some time off. While home, he worked at NBT in their legal department. “I found I liked that a lot too,” he said.
Guinn began to look into law schools that would let him start courses in the spring semester. “I realized I wanted to go somewhere new and different than anywhere I had been before,” he said. Guinn found a college that sparked his interest and traveled to California. He began his two and half year law degree at Whittier College in the spring and says the entire experience was great. “I surfed a lot, the weather was always nice and warm ... it was great,” he said.
In preparation for getting his law degree, Nate studied abroad in Spain for a summer, where he says he learned a lot about their legal system and about his own. “I would suggest that anyone studying law should experience what other legal systems are like,” he said. He also says he feels the United States has the best legal system, although, while studying abroad, he could then see and explore the intricacies that the system may have.
