Mother and son at home, now classmates at school

When John Nelson started attending Augustana he had plans to pursue his undergraduate in government and afterward attend law school.

After graduating last Spring, he accomplished his four-year long goal with the support from his friends and family, especially his mom Jennifer.

John will be attending the University of South Dakota in fall 2018, but he won’t be going alone.

John always knew his mom would be there to support him, but now she has the chance to be even closer.

John and Jennifer plan to both attend law school together.

“We don’t have to buy as many books now,” John said since she plans to attend in the year 2019.

John knew back in high school he wanted to pursue law after doing a class project.

“My project was like a mock trial, where I got some theatre buddies and we acted out the trial,” John said. “Through that, I realized the defense of people that had different grievances against others, and that was the kind of stuff I wanted to go into.”

John has filled his time at Augustana with work pertaining to law. This past semester, for instance, he participated in the Washington Semester.

“I went there, I had an internship with Paul Strauss and Associates, P.C. which is a law firm ran by the D.C. senator Paul Strauss,” John said

John has clear goals for the future as he dedicates his time to law.

“I want to help other people get their due justice,” Nelson said.

As for John’s mother Jennifer, it was during John’s junior year at Augustana when she started to draw interest in practicing law too.

“She went to Dakota State University when I was born and dropped out when I came along,” John said.

She has since then re-enrolled at Dakota State University to finish her undergraduate degree, she said.

It was back when John started taking his LSAT prep that Jennifer started to look at the career as something she wanted to pursue, too.

“The LSAT class is an informal course on the weekends taught by Dr. Peter Schotten,” John said. “She started coming with me to the classes.”

The two collaborated well together in the course.

“We have always been very close and when she started coming to these classes I thought well, we’ll see where this goes,” John said.

The class led to the same goals, and they will both be going to law school.

Jennifer and John will attend the University of South Dakota together.

When it comes to going to school with his mom, John sounded quite excited for the what the future had to hold for the two of them.

“My mom and are very close, we have been best friends for forever,” John said.