Law School Discussion

It's only as bad as you make it.  I second whoever said that law students like playing the role of "stressed-out student."  You can tell that some people are intentionally burning themselves out because they think they're supposed to, and, more importantly, it gives them an excuse to act however they want.  I would say a lot of people justify the drama they create by being a stressed-out student.

The biggest key to doing well in law school is confidence.  The one big advantage non-trads have generally over the straight-from-UG crowd is that they have confidence in their ability to get that volume of work done.  The process of starting law school, from taking LSATs to applying, to choosing a school, to enrolling, all the way through 1L seems designed to erode your confidence.  Especially all these books and people on here preaching their systems and guaranteed successful ways to study.  A lot of 1Ls enter law school thinking it is fundamentally different than other types of school.  It's not.

Most undergrad programs are poor preparation for law school, not because law school is completely different, but because you don't have to be on the ball to do well in a lot of UG programs.  You can slack off, you can catch up, you can only study for a month or two out of the semester.  Law school is fundamentally different only in the sense that most of this slack is gone.  If you had good study habits, they don't need to change, you just need to use them more.

The worst part is not only does the whole process make you think you need to change the way you study, it seems like it can make people believe that they aren't intelligent.  Don't let anyone do that to you.  If you got into a law school, you're a smart person.  If the school let you in, the school believes you are going to be successful.  You need to believe the same thing.

As far as specifics, treat it like a job.  The work is not 24/7.  If you can put in a solid 40-50 hour work week Monday-Friday, you'll be studying on few weekends.  Get a little ahead, so you have some wiggle room when a big assignment comes your way.  And when it comes to studying, don't listen to what anyone has to say unless you want to.  It's your education, there's no rules about how you do it.  Don't even let people question anything you do.  "Oh, you study in the library, doesn't that make you much more stressed out?"  Stuff like that.  Most of the time it's harmless but even then, it can cause you to doubt yourself.  Just do whatever seems to work, and if you have a bad semester, put it behind you, think about what you can do to change, and work on it.

If you want to substantially raise your GPA, you have to take a lot of courses.  At least at my school, 1Ls take more hours than 2 or 3Ls.  Thus if you're taking 12 credits every semester, and you're getting all As, it helps, but not as much.  If you want to avoid being kicked out, you take less credits.  Thus if you do bad, it will lower your GPA less.

If you can take notes straight into an outline, you'll be ahead of the game.  Only do this if it comes naturally though.  It's hard to make yourself think like that if you don't, and it can hinder your ability to do well on the test.  But then your outlining at the end of the semester will be just putting in class notes and editing it, which will take much less time and leave more time for reviewing the outline and practice exams.

I think most students here turned it in.  I think almost every who started it turned it in.  Those who weren't going to do it didn't even start it.

I pretty sure the # of people who work harder second semester is offset by the number who do well and think they have it made and slack off.

Just do what made you successful, and don't worry about what everyone else is doing, at the very least until it actually causes your ranking/grades to go down.