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I honestly don't even know where to begin. My intention was to keep up with blogging as I tackled the first semester of my 1L year but it quickly proved that I barely have time to remember if I ate breakfast or not. But I just finished midterms last week and I think there are a lot of lessons learned that should be shared and some great insights that I can give.
We are now at starting week 8 in the fall semester and so far law school has been
Different
Challenging
Rewarding
Stressful
Exciting
Frustrating
Different in the sense that it is nothing like undergrad.... those nights of cramming all that information in your head about the material or starting your paper a day or two before it is due are longggggggg gone. Organization is key so make a schedule and stick to it. This has been one of my weaknesses and something I am trying to tackle.. the beginning of my week starts out strong but by Thursday night I am drained and my focus starts to fade. I think it is important to take a day off from all the law school madness and just do something that I enjoy doing whether it be going out with friends or staying in and binge watching netflix... me time is important. It keeps me sane and lets me refocus.
Law school is hard... its supposed to be or else everyone and their mother would join in on the law school train and pass with flying colors. But the challenge is rewarding when things start to click in place. Its week 8 and things are JUST starting to click.. some things - like contracts - are taking a bit longer than I was hoping and for me that is beyond frustrating. Im the typically one that forces myself to learn it until I know it because I cannot deal with not understanding things.. it makes me feel dumb. These first 8 weeks have really changed my view on learning in the sense that I've had to accept that its not going to click right away. Its going to take time and practice in order for that light bulb to light up and when it does, or even when it starts to flicker, its such a good feeling to be able to say "okay, I'm starting to get it" or "I KNOW THAT".
Law school is exciting yet the most frustrating thing. Time management is key and I have definitely been slacking in that area. I plan ahead and fall behind and that becomes extremely stressful. Sometimes its simply because we don't get to things in class other times its because one class is pulling for my attention more than another so things get slightly pushed to the back burner until the weekend. BUT MAKE SURE YOU CATCH UP. For example, I had a midterm this week for one of my classes but it was my strongest class. Unfortunately on top of the stress to take our first law school midterms we all still had classes to attend and readings to do.. some of my professors actually included material from this week on their exams. I focused my attention on the two classes that I have been struggling with the most, did the readings, looked over my outlines, completed hypos. Although for the class I am doing well in, the class readings for the week were not my priority unfortunately.. but this was ONLY because
A) class was canceled one day this week so that took out a good chunk of class prep work AND more importantly
B) the material from this week was NOT going to be on the exam.
The downside to me doing this was having to do the reading over the weekend on top of all my assignments for next week but that is the price I chose to pay.
MIDTERMS - one word that brings out too many emotions.
I don't think I have ever been so overwhelmed in my 19 years of schooling. In undergrad 80% of the time I had other assignments or mini quizzes that lead up to the midterm so I knew what to expect. I had absolutely no idea what I was to expect when walking into any of my midterms last week other than that
Contracts was a 3 hour exam & not graded
Torts - 1hour and 45 min. & 20% of overall grade
Civ Pro - 2 hours, 20% of overall grade
Contracts
My first midterm was for contracts. I thought to myself there is absolutely no way I will be here for that full 3 hours because thats just insane. WRONG. SOOOOOOO WRONG. The time started ticking and the next thing you know the proctor was informing us that we had 15 minutes left. Thankfully I was almost done with my last question but I couldn't believe that I had been there for the full three hours.
Torts
If contracts had been graded that would have been the test I was concerned for the most, but because it wasn't my entire focus was on this exam.... It was an hour and 45 minute exam with two fact patterns - one was 4 pages long the other was 3 so by the time I was done reading the dang fact patterns I could barely plan out my answers. I was flustered but I got through it... hopefully I didn't miss too many points but I believe that I did hit the main ones.
Civ Pro
Okay so I love love love civ pro and I think that is mainly because my professor is absolutely wonderful. I was the least nervous about this exam until I read over the fact pattern and saw the question. The question had us take what we had been doing and rather than arguing for the topic, we had to argue against it. I pounded out the first 4 pieces with no issue proving as to why the court couldn't show personal jurisdiction.... then it came to the last option and I got beyond flustered. In my head all I kept thinking was "BUT THIS ISSSSSSSSSSSS SPECIFIC JURISDICTION.. HOW THE HECK AM I SUPPOSED TO FLIP THE ARGUMENT?!" but the point of the question was to say how it wasn't... I walked out of the exam more flustered than ever because I would have never thought to prepare by arguing the opposite side.
One huge piece of advice that I think is perfect to give right this second is when you walk out of an exam either tune out what every one else chose to write about or take what they did for answers with a grain of salt. The first two exams I took it with a grain of salt but after civ pro I had a total freak out after listening to one of my classmates talking about how they included something that I did not. At the end of the day, you can do anything about it at that point. People are going to have different answers and you really won't know what you did right or wrong until you get the exam back so DONT LET YOURSELF GET WORKED UP. All it will do is cause you a minor panic attack and you've got enough on your plate to worry about.
If theres one thing to remember when it comes to midterms, if you have the, is to just give it your all. For most, they won't count as a huge piece of your grade so it is a great way to see where you are at, how you can improve, what is working for you and what it is not. Its also the only way you are going to know what your professor's exam will be like so TAKE IT SERIOUSLY. Breathe, study and put in your best effort and it will be okay.
