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.

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Just One DUI? C'mon!

There was one good moment on day 2 at orientation. A guy from the bar came to scare the shit out of everyone. If you have a lot of felonies or bad credit than watch out. I'm guessing the anxiety of starting law school plus this guy's warning created the perfect storm for some people.

In the moot court room which filled the entire incoming 1L class a guy who was part nervous, part anxious and entirely an idiot raised his hand. "What if you have one DUI? Can you still take the bar?" he asked with anger and confusion in his voice. It almost sounded like he was trying to play it off as a hypothetical at first but it was obvious who he was asking for.

The entire room broke out into laughter and the bar guy responded by saying "One shouldn't be a problem, but two..."

Funny moment in an otherwise boring day.

Day 2 of Orientation...not much.

Day two of orientation was just a boring as day one. We spent about five hours listening to speakers from faculty members to current students that all had advice that could be summed up very easily. Do the reading and brief the cases. There I just saved us all three days of unnecessary BS.

Maybe one guy was inspired, but I still feel that the people who were gonna bust their ass still are, the people who are gonna just get-by still are and the fools who think they can treat it like undergrad are still going to party hard and not be here next semester.

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Welcome

Today I started law school. Sort of...it was the first day of a three day orientation. Everyone was tense and stress filled the air. There was a continental breakfast which sucked and then about three hours of speakers. We took lunch, then had another three hours of speakers.

Most of this stuff I could have done with out. We went over everything from the thousands of dollars of debt we are about to incur to what happens if you aren't prepared for class (you basically get kicked out, humiliated then put on suicide watch). Seriously, that's what a professor told us (not the suicide watch though). Actually the professor who said this was a young hip nice-guy professor giving us a motivational talk. He wasn't threatening us at all, more just warning us of our fate should we be unprepared.

He said something along these lines will happen..."Leave...just leave. What are you even here for? Just go."

The student will stutter, turn red, pick up his books, lap top and what's left of his confidence and leave the class wondering what the hell just happened. I'll try and keep this mental image in my head everytime I don't feel like reading.

If I wasn't so exhausted from being there from 9am til 6pm I would be cracking a book right now and preparing for Monday. I'm not though. Cut me some slack, I got a lot done today. I got my books and straightened out a lot of house keeping work that needed to be done. Tomorrow is only Thursday and I will crack the books throughout the weekend then and be ready for next week of class.

I just spent over 900 bucks on books, but at least it is for both semesters. To go with the books I bought 32 dollars worth of Red Bull from a Sam's Club which is all the studying gear I should need.

When we broke up into sections I sized everyone up....idiot....idiot...smart guy...hot chick in the front row...and so on.

Anyways, welcome to this blog where I hope to share many stories of my 1L and post other entertaining stories from around the nation of 1L's. I really hope I am a witness to the horror stories and not in one myself but either way the experience will be posted.