Pre-Law Student Picking an Undergraduate Major-Pertain to LSAT

[Julie Fern]

too bad poli sci majors never read.

guess they too busy fingerpainting.

[treefity350]

Whatever major you end with, take every formal logic class that your school offers. Logic class=class credit for LSAT prep.

[EarlCat]

Whatever major you end with, take every formal logic class that your school offers. Logic class=class credit for LSAT prep.

Completely unnecessary.  Worse, most students I taught who had taken formal logic tended to overthink everything.

[treefity350]

Whatever major you end with, take every formal logic class that your school offers. Logic class=class credit for LSAT prep.

Completely unnecessary.  Worse, most students I taught who had taken formal logic tended to overthink everything.

I should note that I disagree vehemently. Both LR and LG are based on formal logic. Taking formal logic forces you to think in terms of closed systems, which is exactly what you will be faced with on the LSAT. I'm not even sure what you mean by "overthink." I suppose you mean those students who have a hard time recognizing that two different words or expressions refer to the "same" concept, but this is not a problem that would be induced by taking formal logic, in fact it is sort of prelogical, in that you have to recognize the terms before you can start thinking about how premises connect to conclusions.

Honestly, I don't understand how anyone who has spent any time with the LSAT could suggest that taking formal logic is a bad idea.

[EarlCat]

I didn't say it was a bad idea, I said it was unnecessary, and I gave my experience dealing with students who took or were taking it.

By overthink, I mean they approach the problems as if they're harder than they actually are.  They get in formal logic, and they see all kinds of symbols and formulas and other such jibberish and they want to use all of it on the LSAT.  They tie themselves in knots trying to find implications and inconsistencies and whatever else because they think the LSAT supposed to resemble the messes they had to untangle in class.



All the "formal logic" you need for the LSAT are conditionals and contrapositives, which can be learned in like 30 minutes from any LSAT book or just browsing this forum.  Anything beyond that is completely unnecessary.

[Doodsmack]

I still say that gearing your college courses towards the LSAT in any respect is not a good idea, and that you should take courses based on where your intellectual interests lie. Your preparation for the LSAT is going to be focused in the months before you take the test, and that's all you need really.