Slackers unite?

[wesclark]

OK first, doing all the reading, highlighting and tabbing and outlining removes you from the ranks of slacker.

If you do all the reading I can't imagine needing to study that hard at the end. I slack all semester and then work like crazy for three weeks.

Haven't you learned to ignore what all your classmates tell you? They all lie. Don't listen.

[Jhuen_the_bird]

OK first, doing all the reading, highlighting and tabbing and outlining removes you from the ranks of slacker.

If you do all the reading I can't imagine needing to study that hard at the end. I slack all semester and then work like crazy for three weeks.

Haven't you learned to ignore what all your classmates tell you? They all lie. Don't listen.

Haha - points well taken.  I guess I was also looking for people who are content to work at a comfortable rate (as oppossed to a "kill yourself" rate) and who aren't going to throw themselves out a 10 story window if they aren't in the top 10% of the class. lol

[chaseguy17]

Everyone is different.  I will admit, if you need to study 8 hours a day, for two weeks prior to your finals, then you probably don't have the greatest memory, or good study skills. 

My philosophy has always been to study to the point where I know that any additional studying will not help me too much.  Basically I study until I feel like I know the material.  This philosophy has always worked for me.  You get the people who study 2 months prior for the CPA, and they still fail.  Then you get people like myself and some of my friends, who can study five days before the exam and just cram it all in and pass. 

With the law school exams I would basically outline through the semester, but never review anything.  When it came to two days before the final, I would just study my outline and cram any additional information.  I probably studied 15 hours for each exam, divided into two days.  I never felt compelled to study anymore than that.  After studying for 15 hours, and cramming each of my outlines, I felt ready to take on anything.  Maybe I can just memorize things really well, but I've never felt that I was slacking.  I just feel like the extra weeks other people spend on their exams are unneccesary.  I'm not incredibly smart either, but I'm pretty good at taking exams that require memory.  I'm a 160 LSAT scorer, but I was able to achieve A's in undergrad.  I won't gurantee that I will receive A's on my law exams, but I feel reasonable confident that I will receive at least B's on all the exams I took.  I guess I'll find out when the day comes. 

[plex]

Hey, been away from the site since the term started, finals finished six days ago. I also tend to "slack" but only when there is nothing important that needs to get done soon. Average 4-5 hours a day, and would do nothing one or two days on a slow week. On the other hand, there were weeks where I did 9-11 hours, all week, usually the week a memo was due or the week before and the week during finals.

4-5 hours was more than enough to get the reading done, I took a large amount of notes as I read, usually 6-7 pages between the classes I read each day. The typing helped me solidify my understanding of what I was reading. I also took a large amount of notes in class, especially on anything the professor repeated. For my outline, I threw out the notes I had been taking while reading, it didn't take me much more time to do the writing while reading, and it had served it's purpose. I used most of what my professor had said to form my outline, especially the bolded repeated statements. I only did a small amount of outlining until thanksgiving break. This would have been way to late to start, except there was a study session for torts provided by 3L A students, which essentially gave you an almost complete outline of our teacher's style of torts. Additionally, our contracts professor taught from slides, rather than socratic method speaking, and provided the slides, so I mostly had to outline that (this actually made outlining for him a LOT harder, he would jump all over the place on subject matter on his slides). Thanksgiving break was ALL outlining contracts, and it was hell, it took me 3-4 times longer than my other classes to outline it, especially since it was our only open book exam, so it had to have everything relevant in it and be well structured.

As for the tests, they were exactly what I had predicted, I had made sure to ask upper classmen how the tests were structured, and it was exactly as they had said for each test. Torts was hard, and I was expecting that, while the subject itself was easy, during our study sessions, the 3Ls would give us multiple choice questions, it was extremely rare when over the half the class would get the right answer, sometimes, it would be as low as 2-3%. Seeing that, I knew our test, which was 2/3 multiple choice, was going to be hell. The essay portion, thankfully was pretty straightforward. The other tests were more normal, though the contracts professor was extremely evil, he made us do a huge time consuming essay first, forbidding us to look at the 2nd section until we were done. Then when I go to look at the short answer second session, theyre ALL easy points!, he had also told us he does not expect most of us to finish the test, and to take our time on the essay...

Anyways, looking forward to how I did, while I could have perhaps gone nuts and done tons of supplementals on top of the reading/outlining and questions I did, I don't think my grades would have gotten significantly better. So what I get, is what I get, and I will depend on the marginal stupidity factor to take care of the rest.

[KingGeorge]

Im glad that I saw a board topic on slackers because im probably one of the biggest slackers at my school. For example, I just finished my 3rd semester and took con law I, evidence, PR, criminal procedure, and property II.
Honest to God, i read at most 6 cases in con law and pulled a B. In evidence, i read 8 cases at most and got in the top 15% of the class. Crim pro i didnt even touch the text book after the 6th week of school and got a 2.5 which is median grade at TJSL.

So basically: reading cases is a waste of f'ing time. Make outlines during class and go on google earth while people ask stupid questions. Law school is easy, much easier than medical or dental school. Even engineering and accounting is more difficult as we are dealing with words while they have to learn numbers and letters combined.

Conclusion: to the 1 L's coming in, dont be scared cus this law stuff is cake.


G

[brewha]

Honest to God, i read at most 6 cases in con law and pulled a B. In evidence, i read 8 cases at most and got in the top 15% of the class. Crim pro i didnt even touch the text book after the 6th week of school and got a 2.5 which is median grade at TJSL.



G

2.5 is pretty damn bad... and there is no need to read a single case in Evidence - it's all about the rules.  HTH.

[Nimmy]

I think I'm the ultimate law school slacker.  I did not outline.  I read most of my cases, but immediately forgot about them after class.  I did not brief the cases.  I printed off outlines from 3 years ago a few days before the finals, and studied almost exclusively from that.  I read the E&E's for my classes and Dressler (for Crim Law) the night before the exam.

Just found out I got the high grade in my Crim Law class of about 50-60 people.  Now, I don't know where I'll be in the other classes, and its conceivable that I'll get all B's in the other classes, but come on man!  Being a slacker and getting good grades is not impossible.

EDIT:  It was a closed book/closed note exam by the way.

[Jhuen_the_bird]

Still no grades for us yet ... so I don't know how my "slacker" ways are paying off ... although apparently I'm not REALLY a slacker, lol.

[Mina]

you can still excel without over-work, people who over-study may lead to burn-out & stress, what you know is usu. not your enemy on the exam- (as long as you attended class, took notes, & daily reviewed them + outlined)-it's the ability to stay calm & focused under pressure that I've found is the key to excel.

[DaubertsDaughter]

The people I know who claim to study 12+ hours a day really don't get anywhere near that.  Checking email and facebook for an hour, while your casebook is open on the desk does NOT equal studying.  Neither does chatting with your study group for 2 hours in the student lounge.  If you don't focus, you can easily put in 12+ hour days and still not get anything accomplished. 

I call the opposite approach "study smarter, not harder." I don't think it's slacking at all.  I don't put in the same outrageous hours that some of my classmates do, but when I'm working, I'm working (obviously, right now I am NOT working).  Then when I'm done, I can really feel like I accomplished something. 

Of course, I'm still waiting for grades too, so in another week or so, I might be deleting this post, and crying that I should have been putting in those 16-hour days!!

Best of luck!!!