Nothing Changes If Nothing Changes: Fall Grades & Spring Semester.

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Well as you can see I completely suck at keeping up with posts. My winter break was all that I wanted it to be.... A BREAK. I caught up on sleep, started Gossip Girl, and was happy to be nothing but a bum considering how drained I was after my first semester of school. 

Once again I had planned to catch up on posts but I just didn't have it in me to go back through all that happened in the Fall. In all honest,y after finals, I was completely distraught. I didn't know how I did on my exams but I can tell you how I felt about them... disappointed. anxious. frustrated. To say the least. The last thing that I wanted to do was sit down and write do's and dont's for law school when I didn't even know where I fell on that spectrum.

How could I give advice on how to succeed if I ended up doing poorly?  That would be too hypocritical for me liking. So I've waited until now to go at it.

Fall semester I did decent - I ended up with a 3.2 overall which, while I am not completely okay with, my goal was to get a 3.0 my first semester and work myself up from there.

So why do I not sound so thrilled about this 3.2 GPA? 

I just don't feel like I put my best foot forward my first semester. I got distracted easily - it was much easier to push work to the side to go out to Law Society Socials or hang out with friends during the week than it was to put my head in a book and get shit done. But I think this in part had to do with the fact that my 4 years of undergrad consisted of papers and thats about it. I never had to sit down and outline an entire semesters worth of material for a cumulative exam.. I was lucky if I even had an exam. So it was one of those things where I constantly found myself thinking "I've got time, I can do it later" WRONG. SO UNBELIEVABLY WRONG. You have to keep up with outlining, reviewing and talking about the material in order for you to understand the material and apply it to new fact patterns.. its how you learn the law. 

 I got that "THIS ISNT UNDERGRAD" wake up call towards the end of the semester when preparing for finals kicked my butt to say the least. I didn't even feel prepared for my contracts exam... I actually almost started a full on break down during the exam. But by some good graces of god I did okay. 

Lessons learned?

I got lucky and ended up with a decent GPA for what feels like a total lack of effort on my part. But I'm turning that into a positive and letting it fuel me for this spring semester. I've already made some changes that have been working out so far... 

1. SET GOALS
2. Read for the week on F - Sun.
3. Review HW Notes for each class during day
4. Print out Class Notes and HW Notes at the end of the week
5. Outline at the end of each chapter
6. Organization! 
7. SLEEP

If you don't have an end goal in mind, then what are you working to achieve? A little blunt but it's true. I set myself a goal... gpa of at least a 3.0 and I worked towards it. I may not have felt as accomplished as it may "appear" but I still accomplished that goal. Goal setting is basically setting a threshold... I don't want to fall below XYZ, I want to do XYZ. Just writing them down and putting them in  place where you can see them often is a good way to constantly remind yourself what it is your working for. Every time I see my current goals, I get excited. Its the reminder I need to push harder. 

Last semester I read day by day and for the most part it worked but this was only because my professors got behind on material easily and reading to far ahead would hinder rather than benefit. But i decided this semester I was going to read the weeks worth of material over the weekend and see how it went. So far it has worked out.

F - Criminal Law and Negotiations

Sa - LCR and Con Law

Su - Property (I seriously need a whole day, sometimes two)

Obviously, this schedule doesn't always work out but I have been trying really hard to getting at least two class' worth of reading done on Friday and Saturday. I still believe in giving yourself a day off, or at least a night, from law school because you need to re-charge and prepare for the week ahead. 

Like I said last semester reading ahead just wasn't worth it to me. I would read for each class the night before and take notes. I wasn't reviewing what the day's readings were about and it really showed considering how half the time I felt lost or zoned out. By reading over the weekend, I have time before each class to sit down and go through my HW notes to prepare me for class. The other day I was talking to a friend of mine, she asked how the work load for the semester was and I told her "insane... I literately have to prepare for each class as if I'm walking in to take a test" but its true. This semester a few of my professors have a thing for pop quizzes - its wonderful... -  and their style of cold calling is more in depth than it was the first semester. But I don't mind it because it forces me to really hone in on what in the world is going on.

Organization is KEY. Last semester I was not organized. The whole first semester of law school, and even the second, is a trial and error period for most. You're figuring out what works and what doesn't for YOU as a student.. what your peers do doesn't matter.. you can try it but if it doesn't work don't be afraid to get creative and try new things.

One of the goals I had set for this semester was staying organized and on top of the material. To do that I purchased two 2" binders to keep all class related materials in. Two classes per binder, divided up in sections for Class Notes, HW Notes, Outlines, Additional reading materials or any class specific sections. So far I have been consistently printing out all of the previous weeks notes, for both class and hw, and organizing them. It really has helped with outlining - even though I have only had the chance to outline for Property at this point. 

SLEEP. I cannot stress how important it is to sleep yet alone to take care of yourself. It seems so obvious but its easily forgotten. Perfect example... its only the end of week 4 and I am just getting over a cold... yes the weather here has been bipolar BUT its nothing new so the chances of me having a cold that is related to the weather is slim to none. But the chances that it is related to my body hitting its breaking point is highly likely. I have been getting maybe 5 hours of sleep each night.. going to bed around midnight to have my lovely alarm go off at 4:45am. But sleep is not enough... you need to eat good portioned meals and drink water which I suck at doing.. I just forget to eat and I know that it doesn't help with the whole taking care of yourself in the mind, body, soul kind of way. Im working on it though... in fact I had to invest in melatonin for those nights when I just cannot pass out. so far so good.