Why does everyone hate a gunner?

[dashrashi]

Treat it like a fact, and then when you slip up it'll be occasional and brief, and therefore people won't hate you. I myself have been known to ask a follow-up question (although I seriously think it has only been one since I started law school). But if your default is to limit yourself to one question as a general rule, and only when you really need to, then you're probably 70% of the way toward not being a gunner (a further 10% is implicated in how tightly you define "when you really need to") (the last 20% is mostly attitude).

Common wisdom: also, if you've got this great point or really key question, saving it for office hours makes it more likely that others in the class miss it, thereby helping you do better (read: the curve). Also, office hours are good for making connections with prof and a lot of people don't go because they don't feel like they have anything to talk about. Ergo, saving it for office hours deals nicely with that problem. I make a note in my notes (usually I italicize it so I can find it more easily later) of whatever my question or thought it, and then I can come into office hours with something to actually talk about.

[,.,.,.;.,.,.]

Wow, that is actually a really good idea.

[dashrashi]

Aw, thanks, Walls. I really do try to be helpful. I just have a shorter fuse than A) I used to; and B) most.

[sheltron5000]

Treat it like a fact, and then when you slip up it'll be occasional and brief, and therefore people won't hate you. I myself have been known to ask a follow-up question (although I seriously think it has only been one since I started law school). But if your default is to limit yourself to one question as a general rule, and only when you really need to, then you're probably 70% of the way toward not being a gunner (a further 10% is implicated in how tightly you define "when you really need to") (the last 20% is mostly attitude).

Common wisdom: also, if you've got this great point or really key question, saving it for office hours makes it more likely that others in the class miss it, thereby helping you do better (read: the curve). Also, office hours are good for making connections with prof and a lot of people don't go because they don't feel like they have anything to talk about. Ergo, saving it for office hours deals nicely with that problem. I make a note in my notes (usually I italicize it so I can find it more easily later) of whatever my question or thought it, and then I can come into office hours with something to actually talk about.

That's a great way to get into doing the whole office hours thing more regularly too! Thanks Dash!

[dashrashi]

Aw, thanks, Walls. I really do try to be helpful. I just have a shorter fuse than A) I used to; and B) most.

i've known you for a while and i don't remember you EVER having a longer fuse.

so there. 

Alzheimers?

[Pardon Johnny Cash.]

This is a good observation.  In the law school classes that I've observed, I think follow up questions is the easiest mark of a gunner.  Dumb hypotheticals being a close second.

[dashrashi]

I don't have to talk *&^% or gossip about people to hate them. I don't find the law school environment to be like high school at all, but I still get f-ing irritated by gunners.

People's ideas about "how to act like a human being" vary, as a rule, and the law school classroom is emphatically not the undergrad classroom (see, e.g., the Socratic method). Things that would be less obnoxious in undergrad can be significantly more obnoxious in law school. One of those things is asking follow-up questions during lecture.

I don't know why you would assume that the class would be interested in your questions. I think that if you err, rather, on the side of "this is interesting solely or at least primarily to me," you probably are on the right track. And if that's your default position, then you're much less likely to talk-to-hear-yourself-talk, which is the true mark of gunnerdom (the gunner presumably doesn't see it that way--at least, one would hope--but that's inevitably how it comes across).

[Diet Yomajesty]

It all begin at Admitted Students Weekend last spring, when this particular individual had to be shushed and told to "STOP TALK-ING" by a professor running a mock class. [redacted] This was after he interrupted another admitted student and said, "Well, he gave  a BAD example, but what he was clearly trying to say was..." There was other bizarre admitted students weekend behavior, but that should give you an idea.

Then, we arrived at school in August and there he was...ready to embark on a semester full of interrupting other students and professors, sharing awkward personal stories, and even telling professors that material they assigned from casebooks was "irrelevant."

For finals, he decided that typing on his laptop keyboard would not allow him to type quickly enough to get all of his thoughts down in EBB, so he got special permission from the Registrar to use an external keyboard and a stand for his laptop. The whole [redacted] contraption takes up lots of desk space and looks like he is sitting at the controls of a spaceship. From what I hear, he also used it for the last week of classes to "practice" for the exams.

He also once asked a particularly well-known professor to autograph his casebook...

And, finally, the event that precipitated my message to you. During a lunchtime speaker event, this individual pulled out a set of nail clippers and started clipping and then filing his fingernails! The entire room heard and was staring at him--naturally this got around the law school pretty quickly. Did I mention this individual is older and should know better (not that a 22 year old straight from undergrad shouldn't...but he's significantly older)?

WTF is going on here?

[Burning Sands, Esq.]

It all begin at Admitted Students Weekend last spring, when this particular individual had to be shushed and told to "STOP TALK-ING" by a professor running a mock class. This was after he interrupted another admitted student and said, "Well, he gave [e, but what he was clearly trying to say was..." There was other bizarre admitted students weekend behavior, but that should give you an idea.

Then, we arrived at school in August and there he was...ready to embark on a semester full of interrupting other students and professors, sharing awkward personal stories, and even telling professors that material they assigned from casebooks was "irrelevant."

For finals, he decided that typing on his laptop keyboard would not allow him to type quickly enough to get all of his thoughts down in EBB, so he got special permission from the Registrar to use an external keyboard and a stand for his laptop. The wholeontraption takes up lots of desk space and looks like he is sitting at the controls of a spaceship. From what I hear, he also used it for the last week of classes to "practice" for the exams.

He also once asked a particularly well-known professor to autograph his casebook...

And, finally, the event that precipitated my message to you. During a lunchtime speaker event, this individual pulled out a set of nail clippers and started clipping and then filing his fingernails! The entire room heard and was staring at him--naturally this got around the law school pretty quickly. Did I mention this individual is older and should know better (not that a 22 year old straight from undergrad shouldn't...but he's significantly older)?

banned for spam

[Diet Yomajesty]

That was some ingenious spamming. I mean, sort of.