Nearly every college student has approached the “I want to change my major” crossroad in their academic career–and for some, it’s happened more than once. Information Technology alumnus Sam Levine is one of the rare few who took classes in Biology, Accounting and finally graduated with an IT/Economics degree in 2012. He then earned a highly-coveted spot in Nova Southeastern University’s three-year law school at the end of his collegiate journey.

“I actually never had plans of becoming a lawyer. Although, I knew I didn’t want to sit in front of a computer for the rest of my life. I like to describe myself as a people person, and I wanted my career to focus more on my interactions with people than on interactions with my computer,” Sam said.

As a child, Levine’s parents told him he had a ‘smart mouth’– like many youngsters do–and now jokingly realizes how fitting his personality is for a career in law.

“Whenever I would give my dad lip or argue with him, he would always sarcastically say, ‘if medicine doesn’t work out, you should go for law!'” he admits.

Levine is thankful for his background in IT and heavily uses technical skills in legal research. His IT background helped him create advanced search queries for caselaw. He regularly changes formatting requirements for memoranda, complaints, demand letters and other intricate documents on a dime.

“The troubleshooting skills that I learned as an IT major helped me immediately overcome technical obstacles in my legal studies,” Sam said.

Since graduating from Nova in May with a Juris Doctor (JD) degree, Levine has taken the Florida Bar Exam and is interested in practicing various forms of law: intellectual property law, business law, real estate law and elder law (estate planning and probate).