| Topic Name: |
Please give advice to incoming 1L |
| Message Name: |
not that Atticus |
| Date Posted: |
07/12/2001 |
| In Reply To: |
Take everything, EVERYTHING, that anyone tells you with a grain of salt (yes, even this post).
Atticus is right on a few point, but the bit of not showing up for class is the dumbest thing in the world, and the number of study guides he suggests you buy will break most banks.
Make firends with 2Ls and 3Ls and borrow their study guides, see which ones you like and then buy them. I personally liked the "Examples & Explanations" Series by Aspen.
Remember IRAC when you take exams: Issue, Rule, Analysis, Conclusion.
Get used to having no life.
Do not, under any circumstances, care about your section mates' opinions of you more than you do about your grades. |
| Message: |
"get used to having no life"?
- give me a break!
Posts like that are why you have prospective law students asking for advice starting in middle school. It's not that fucking hard!
1) read your cases - and learn how to read the cases before you start hitting the study aids - the first month or two will be slow reading, but you need to learn it.
2) figure out which classes are helpful and which aren't and don;t waste your time going to the ones where you feel like all you are doing is listening to your classmates speak for the sake of hearing their own voice (that's most of them). You'll find that you feel guilty skippin even the useless ones so you'll show up again, and then you remember why you've been skipping.
3) get your hands on a good outline mid way thru the semester - your school will probably have lots of ways to find them - maybe online like my school. try to make time to go thru the outline a few weeks b/f finals to make sure it makes sense (it's just the work of another student - often it's wrong) and put things in your own words if you don't get it.
4) hold off on practice tests until close to the end - make sure you know the material before taking them, then take 2 or 3 - not necessarily the whole thing - for each class.
5) Above all - don;t let other students stress you out - everyone, everyone is competitive in law school no matter where you go or how laid back they seem. This is going to be the first time probably that your friends are in all your classes - try not to talk about substantive stuff with friends, and don;t listen to people talk about their own or other's ability - and don;t let anyone pull the "we're in the same boat - both gonna fail" act on you either. Respect your classmates but assume you're just as smart as they are.
5) go out - at least 3 times a week. You're young - this isn't rocket science - it all comes down to the outlines - have fun during the semester, work hard during the last 3-4 weeks. and that's it.
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