CLS 2L Taking Questions

[JayCLS]

Advice:
#1. Don't worry about your grades until you get them...or at least until you are done with exams.
#2. Trust the curve. Plenty of people will screw up questions. I didn't write much on my Civ Pro policy question last year and did fine.
#3. You are a 1L...don't worry about the 2L job search yet. You'll get a job.
#4. Your 1L job doesn't matter. Just do something legal so you can reference it in your 2L interviews. Especially this year, most firms wont be hiring 1Ls (most likely) so you are probably going to be headed for something unpaid no matter how well you do. Sign up for summer funding.

[AceKlub]

Thanks for the information Jay...I have a couple more questions to add

1. How often do you go out?


2. How exactly does a firm know one's GPA with the current CLS OCI Process. If the school doesn't inform employers about GPA (and doesn't even inform students of their class rank), is that burden then placed on you as a student? Also, would the employers every see your transcript (AKA is one able to take interesting seminars and still go into BIGLAW?)


3. When you say CLS has a campus feel what exactly do you mean?

Thanks in advance

[JayCLS]

Thanks for the information Jay...I have a couple more questions to add

1. How often do you go out?


2. How exactly does a firm know one's GPA with the current CLS OCI Process. If the school doesn't inform employers about GPA (and doesn't even inform students of their class rank), is that burden then placed on you as a student? Also, would the employers every see your transcript (AKA is one able to take interesting seminars and still go into BIGLAW?)


3. When you say CLS has a campus feel what exactly do you mean?

Thanks in advance

1. Haha I'm a terrible example. Lets see. During the semester (not around exams). Probably 3-4 nights a week. Definitely Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Sometimes Wednesdays.  Great thing about NY is that you can study till 11 and go out and the bars don't close until 4AM.

2. Firm's don't know your GPA. They get your transcript when you hand it to them in your first interview.  They all want to see your grades.  No worries about seminars though, you only take one elective the whole 1L year (pretty standard for law school). 2L year you can take seminars, but by then you should already have your 2L summer job.

3. This is more of a commentary on NYC, but I mean that most people live in Columbia housing around campus. Columbia owns all of the apartment buildings in the neighborhood so instead of paying rent to a random landlord, you pay it to Columbia. I would say that compared to say NYU which is in the Village, we have more of a community feel.  NYU students live in the NYU dorms for a year (sometimes 2) and then they move off campus to Brooklyn or somewhere in the Village (if they are rich and can afford the non-subsidized rents down there). If NYU students want to stay on campus, they have to enter the housing lottery every year. Not so at Columbia - You get an apartment and you can decide how long you want to stay there. You never have to enter a housing lottery again if you want to keep the apartment you lived in 1L year. Also instead of a lottery, if you want to move it's more like you call someone up and they tell you if they have something open that is more your style (of course if Hells Kitchen is more your style they won't have that). Part of this behavior by Columbia students is that no one wants to commute to school every day (we are lazy). Part of it is also that the Columbia apartments are pretty nice by NY standards and with roommates they can cost as low as 750-800 a month. I've heard (I could be wrong) that NYU apartments start closer to 1500. Granted Morningside Heights is a cheaper neighborhood than the Village, but it is definitely a safe university environment up here.

I'm picking on NYU, but I think Brooklyn, Cardozo and Fordham would all be similar in terms of most students living off-campus...it's more of a New York City thing.  At Columbia a very large percentage of even the 3Ls live on campus. Makes a big difference if your friends are a subway ride away versus the next block down.

Also don't forget, Columbia has most of their grad student campuses (other than the Med School) here in Morningside Heights. So you have access to all of those buildings/libraries/students. Most of the other schools in NY are spread out.

[cherries]

As far as cost of living, how easy/difficult is it to stick to the school's financial aid budget?  Do people live on Easy Mac or is there enough to eat out every once in a while?  Are cheap restaurants available?

Above the Law mentioned something about bed bugs in Lenfest a while ago.  What's the deal with that?

Is there anything in particular you would recommend checking out (both at the school and in Morningside Heights) during a visit?

[JayCLS]

As far as cost of living, how easy/difficult is it to stick to the school's financial aid budget?  Do people live on Easy Mac or is there enough to eat out every once in a while?  Are cheap restaurants available?

Above the Law mentioned something about bed bugs in Lenfest a while ago.  What's the deal with that?

Is there anything in particular you would recommend checking out (both at the school and in Morningside Heights) during a visit?

Lenfest is bug free. That was like a one week thing over the summer that they cracked down on immediately. Cravath has bed bugs (so the story goes) and someone brought them home from work. I assure you the school's reaction was swift and bugs are very non-existent now.

Cost of living is high, but lower than at other schools in NYC. I don't eat Easy Mac (actually I do..but that is by choice) but I spend a lot. That being said, I go out a lot so most of my expenses are restaurants and bars. If you didn't rack up those charges all the time then you'd be fine. You can budget it.

Hmm things to check out. Well obviously I'd check out the entire campus. Walk around the neighborhood and the Columbia undergrad/main campus quad. Get a feel for it all. You'll be studying in buildings all over campus. Morningside Heights is best on Saturdays in the spring/summer/fall. They regularly close off Broadway and have a farmers market. That's pretty cool. There are some good bars/restaurants I could recommend. The best thing to do would be to go up into Harlem around 135th street and go to Dinosaur BBQ. That is an experience everyone should have in their life. It's amazing. But you need to make a reservation as it gets packed. That's one thing my friends from NYU always want to do.  Other good restaurants in the neighborhood include, Havana Central (cuban...also this restaurant is the old/West End...sort of historic), The Heights (food is ehh, but order a marg), Community (sort of a health food type joint), Tomo sushi is fantastic...Those would be some highlights. There are a lot of places though. I'd also highly highly recommend Sezz Medi and Max Soha for Italian. Up across from Lenfest. VERY VERY good but bring cash if you go to Max Soha.

Late night, if you are stumbling home after a night at the bars go to Koronet's for a huge slice of the most amazing drunk pizza you've ever had.

Also during the day I'd recommend walking around Riverside Park. It is really nice (obviously like all parks in New York...don't go at night).

If I think of anything else I'll post it up.

[Big Boy Pants]

In your estimation, how NY-centered is your class?  E.g., does it seem like everyone stays in NY for summers or is it fairly balanced in terms of where people go?

[JayCLS]

Lot of Texas people. Lots of Cali people. Lots of people go to DC.  Toss in NYC and those would be the four main places people seem to work.

I mean for better or worse, NY is sort of the hub of the legal universe when it comes to firm jobs...so many people do stay over the summer. 2L summer I think more people will be in NYC. 1L summer people were more spread out.

People who do government go to DC.  People from Texas/Cali go home for the summer.  I stayed in NYC last summer, but am working elsewhere this summer. I thought about working in DC but was too lazy to do the subletting thing.

I guess I would say we are more NYC centered than other places....just like any school we are tied to our region. It just happens that NYC is a very desirable region for legal work, so it is hard to say if our numbers working in NYC are more or less by % than a school like...say Harvard. I really am not sure. What we don't have is a chunk of regional kids working in some non-NYC region.  What I mean is Harvard probably has a fair % stay in Boston rather than go to NYC. Obviously our region is NYC, so it is harder for me to separate it out.

Not sure if any of this makes sense but I just got out of an exam a couple hours ago haha.

[mathlete]

Best sandwich from Subsconscious?

[JayCLS]

Spice is nice. In my opinion. But the Twice is nice sandwich that they frequently give me by mistake is good too. In terms of breakfast sandwiches clearly #8. 

[JayCLS]

The credited response would be a sandwich from Subsconcious. Any other response is non-responsive. 

However, if you want to know the best sandwich place, that would be Milano.