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Hello Friends it's been too long. I have been in law school attending my first year. A busy, exciting, confusing, frightening, but certainly educational experience. First I would like to talk to you about the first semester. Last summer I was given a schedule of classes with a list of pre-selected classes. For most schools the first year curriculum will be a pre-set amount of classes. You will have no say in this scheduling. The classes I had were Torts, Property I, Civil Procedure, Legal Writing.
One thing that I can recommend is certainly getting familiarized with these subjects. I don't mean to say that one should exchange the classroom experience and pre-learn the material. A simple commercial outline, or Example and Explanation Series (Aspen Publishers) on the topic will be an excellent starting point. By familiarizing yourself with the material before hand, you will be surprised how it facilitates your learning experience.
Secondly the first semester is not to be taken lightly. Everyone is in the same haze as you and people are afraid to open up. Everyone has some preconceived idea of what law school is like and for some reason it seems that the idea focuses around the "dog-eat-dog" world of law school. No one trusts anyone, nobody shares anything. This will change. I promise...
Keep in mind that the curriculum is demanding. Unless you have an extremely expansive photographic memory, you will need to outline your material so that you can streamline what you have learned in class and from your book and entering it into a recognizable format, that will help you memorize and understand concepts for the final exam. The biggest mistake I noticed is that people leave this process for the end of the semester. I too fell prey to this problem on one of my classes. It doesn't work very well because during finals time, you don't want to be writing anything, you simply should be reading what you have learned...DIRECTLY FROM YOUR OUTLINE. Therefore the best advice is start outlining weekly......ok fine bi-weekly. This routine forces two things: 1) you look at the notes for the past two weeks, and streamline them into a short understandable version (omit all class doodles)and 2) you are forced to place that section of streamlined notes into a section of your outline, which will ultimately make you understand how the piece of notes fits in the general picture of the course map. This will certainly help understand the course much more clearly.
A short word on commercial materials. Some people won't go near them, some swear by them. My thought is that as long as you have taken notes during your classes and made good outlines, you can use additional materials to supplement or understand that material better. I felt that a combination of outlines and a commercial study-aid is best. The idea however, is to study smart not burn yourself out by reading the commercial study-guide on top of your daily reading. The nature of the study-aid is supplementary, that is it should supplement your knowledge (or help explain it), however it shouldn't teach it. (unless you are totally lost).
Finals will come around very soon. You will be surprised how fast time goes by. Before you know it the library will get busier and busier, people more and more stressed, and the general decorum becomes one of tense feeling. I created a mix of studying in the library and studying in my apartment, however some people only did one. Obviously do what makes you comfortable. But beware that distractions might be larger at your library, then at your apartment. Your friends are at the library, they are studying the same stuff and the need for commiseration is strong. At the apartment the remote control and fridge beckons. Thou shalt fight the urge.
Lastly, day of final examination. I have never really had a great sleeping schedule. It has changed tremendously during my law school year. I was forced to sleep at say 11-12 every night and wake at 7:30 every day. This becomes routine and it helps during exams. Best advice is obviously a good night sleep. Don't read your outline till 3 AM. The retention rate at that point is minimal. You ain't gonna learn anything that way. I frankly wouldn't recommend even reading the outline the morning of the exam, but some people swore by that practice, so I will leave it out there. Lastly, get yourself a good breakfast (or whatever meal you are at), because 4 or 5 or 6 hours of testing will drain the crap out of you. Take a bottle of water or two. Pace yourself. Many students bring earplugs for the exam. This is particularly helpful if your school allows you to type your exams on your laptops. Can you imagine 80 students punching away at their keyboards simultaneously? It sounds like a textile factory. Not pleasant. Finally, relax, take some deep breath and take the exam.
Note: After the exam, there will inevitably be a group gathered outside the class (library, cafe, whatever) talking about the exam. This is not a great practice. You are therefore presented with two options. Go home and relax and not worry about who did what on what question, OR, stay and drive yourself nuts for the next three or four weeks while you wait for your grades. In making your choice keep in mind that if this was your first exam, you don't want to be worrying about what you did on question 45 on the civil procedure multiple choice. You need your focus going forward. Choose wisely...
Next posts will be on second semester; extra curricular activities; subject specific experiences etc. Keep reading folks....
