part timers, how much time spent studying

[eyarsee]

i'll be a 1l this fall but going p/t eve while working f/t. anyone out there do this and if so, what's a typical day for you like? how many hours study? time for anything else not school related? i like to go to gym but obviously school will eat into that time. i'll appreciate the feedback.

[Dingleberry]

As a fulltimer who sometimes takes night classes with parttimers, I recommend part-timers study as little as possible so as to increase my grade.

But my recommendation is hardly necessary since it is well known among fulltimers seeking a boost in their GPA to take classes with lots of parttimers!

[Stubbs]

What school do you go to?  My school separates PT classes and FT people, at least, I think they do anyway.  They do for the first year.
 
Anyway, I plan on studying for four hours per day, part of that during work hours (I get many breaks), and part of it between work and school, and part of it after school.  I hope four is enough, but I think six is recommended by my school for part timers.

I think the most important thing is that you decide how much you are going to study and then dedicate time to that every day.  If you leave it all for the end of the day when you have time "left over", you'll find a way to do other stuff instead of studying.

[sarahz]

What school do you go to?  My school separates PT classes and FT people, at least, I think they do anyway.  They do for the first year.

Some schools have PT-day programs where students are mixed in with FT students

[ladylaw]

i just joined the dicussion and i had the same question as you eyarsee.  i talked with an attorney last night who went part time in the evenings.  she basically said expect to be in class four hours each night and studying for another couple of hours afterwards. 

however, if you can find time at work during the day and do lots of reading on the weekends you can maybe cut down your evening studying a little.

ultimately, plan to spend at least a two - three hours a day studying. 

[eyarsee]

i plan to spend around 4 hrs a night studying. that's pretty close to what f/t students spend. i'll try to adjust my study habits around that. but i think 4 hrs is a pretty reasonable.

[eyarsee]

also, i'll be moving to a new city and as of the moment, haven't received any word from my boss or human resources as to whether the company will extend me a job over there. i'm beginning to wonder whether it would be a good idea to look for a totally new job or just not work at all. i opted to go p/t so that i could have some income but looking/finding a new job is going to one more thing to get stressed out about.

[Sassy]

Hi - I'm pasting in below a post I placed on another thread that I think will be helpful to you.  I'm also a PT evening student who works fulltime.
_____________________________ _____________________________ _

Good point about the 3Ls being more efficient with their time.  By that time, they definitely know the drill so it takes them less time to brief and outline.

Funny thing is that as a 2L and 3L I actually spent more time studying than I did as a 1L.  I did really well my first year so I felt an intense need to preserve my top standing.  Sad thing is that even with all the extra effort, my grades remained consistent with my first year performance.   So I'm not sure if the classes were harder in my second and third year so I needed to spend more time on them or whether I had reached a point of deminishing returns and didn't realize it. 

I actually kept track of the time I spent studying all through law school so I can tell you exactly how much time I spent each semester.  I'm an evening student so I work full time (40+ hours) and take 3 classes so the numbers would have been a bit different had I been a full time student with 5 classes.  The numbers below are just the hours I spent preparing for class, outlining, etc -- they're averages for the week so some weeks were more or less but it averaged out to these numbers.  On top of this time I also spent about 11 hours attending class each week and 40 hours working.  The hours for my second and third year do include the hours I spent doing law review work - that may account for some of the differences in time spent each year.

1L: 1st semester:  25 hrs/wk
1L: 2nd semester:  34 hrs/wk
2L: 1st semester:  35 hrs/wk
2L: 2nd semester:  41 hrs/wk
3L: 1st semester:  27 hrs/wk
3L: 2nd semester:  32 hrs/wk

Bottomline is that law school is a lot of work.  Some people claim to skate by and do well, but I wasn't willing to risk it.  If I performed poorly I didn't want it to be for lack of preparation or anything else that I felt I could have controlled.

Good luck to you all.