Friday, August 17, 2007

So This is the First Week

The first week featured a little bit of everything for me. After orientation on Friday, the law school held a reception with free beer and wine. I only had a couple, but it was funny to see a few idiots have a bit too much.
Maybe I'm just too much of a stiff after undergrad, but from looking around, most of these aren't the people I would want to see me completely hammered. Still, it was free so I enjoyed some Heineken and had a good laugh at a couple girls that were slurring their words by the end of the night.

The professors gave us all pep talks that I took to heart. I woke up early on Saturday and ended up studying all day and all night. I was worried I would get behind and classes haven't even started yet.

Why was I so worried? Well, all the horror stories of law school made me feel like if I didn't studied hours upon hours I would end up a failure. I was freaking out as to why torts alone took me 8 hours to finish. Then on Monday, I realized that I misread the syllabus and did Torts for M W and Friday. Phew....I was ahead.


On Sunday I spent all day on Contracts, Civil Pro and Property.

As a 1-week veteran my advice is this. Study all you can on the weekends and it will make the week much less stressful (even though there is still plenty to do on the week). To me this is the only way to go. If you can't go out so-be-it.

Anyways on to the first week of actual class. At orientation they told us, the first day of class isn't like undergrad. There are no introductory classes on the first two days, but instead you just go right into the cases. So of course, three of my first four classes were introductory classes (what the teacher expects ect), the other class we went over one case. This was odd, because we received the syllabuses (syllabi-whatever) in advance and had stuff we were supposed to read. Actually, my section was the only one like this (which is weird, because every 2 and 3L unanimously agreed that my section has the most demanding professors). I guess they are just trying to lull us to sleep before they bring down the hammer the first week.

Professor Contracts did spend his introductory class telling us that the study of law requires 16-18 hours a day. I'm not shitting you, he really said 16-18 hours a day. Assuming 16 is possible I am probably on campus four hours a day, and assuming I don't shower, shave, eat or use the bathroom, I should have 4 hours to sleep under this theory.

In my property class some one got thrown out. Some teachers will give you a ton of cases to read, but this teacher prefers to only assign one or two cases and to go into further detail (really not a time consuming class). Still, she managed to spot probably the one kid not ready. That's instincts that teachers get with time. He didn't even get mad, just pointed at the door and said go.

The students were nice to him about it. No one was judgmental on the poor kid because everyone kind of felt like it could happen to anyone. I agree in perhaps another class, but when there is only two cases, you've got to get those done. To get kicked out, you have to show the teacher that you know absolutely nothing about the case.

Finally today, I got called on in torts. I have extremely bad anxiety problems talking in class. I think I weathered the storm as I was prepeared, but this is a problem I'm going to have to learn to deal with.

In all, I just feel relieved to have a week done.

5 comments:

AllofaSudden said...

WOW! It sounds like you have some intense professors. I've been to two classes so far, so I have four left to see, but the professors at orientation really stressed that they don't send people crying or puking from the room... LOL I was a bit worried too though, that they could just be "lulling us to sleep" kind of like you said. :) Good luck in your second week.

HippieLawyer said...

Have you given up on the blog already?

Scott said...

yeah for reals...it's been over a month...slacker...

The Camel said...

Come to Columbia readers!!

I was worried that my profs would be like that - throwing people out - but they aren't. And thank goodness, because its disrespectful and rude. We all need to strive to be prepared, and we have a duty to prepare as best as we can in order to meet the goals of the class BUT we're also paying right at 100% of the national average annual salary to be there for 9 months a year. It's not right to kick someone out of a class that they paid roughly $95 an hour to be in - sure, brow beat 'em a bit so that they do whats best FOR THEM and prepare, but this master/slave treatment is not necessary, professional, or acceptable.

Good luck!

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