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| Monday, June 19, 2006 |
| Preparing for Law School |
My friend and fellow momma-law student (although her kids are REALLY old) Frequent Citations has a post up about pre-law school reading.
I thought I would share my strategy for preparing for law school.
1) Tag/Garage Sale. Sell all your personal belongings. This is a great pre-school purging process. It also helps earn some dollars, which is useful if you are needing to move in order to attend.
2) Pick up some temporary work. Any $$ you can earn is useful during moving, book-buying, etc.
3) Complete any assignments from your destination school. I waited until the weekend [i.e., night] before school started, but some may choose to do so earlier.
4) Spend time with your loved ones. It will be difficult (although not impossible) once school starts.
5) Enjoy some of the tourist attractions in your destination city, b/c that you almost *definitely* won't have time to do once school starts. Even go beyond tourist ... look for those little hole-in-the-wall restaurants that are actually treasures. Figure out which is the best grocery store. Perhaps even meet some non-law-school PEOPLE that you can talk to during the year.
6) Read novels. (not John Grisham, please.)
As you can tell -- I didn't really *prepare* for law school. I don't fully understand the concept, actually. I have done well, despite that fact. I have done well while putting in relatively little time during the year/semester. I have done well regardless of not reading a single hornbook during 1L, not briefing more than 1/4th a case.
I think that the time before law school should be spent doing non-law school things. Law school will consume the next 3 years of your life. I do not think that preparation before you're in the environment will make you do better. I think either the style/methods/reality of law school works for your way of thinking --- or it does not.
There's my 2 cents. |
posted by Zuska @ 8:22 PM   |
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| 3 Comments: |
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Isn't it amazing how different people study and learn differently? And so much depends on the school, too, I think. I should edit my post to warn people to be careful not to burn out -- but in the long run, my experience was that the better prepared I was, the less stressed (freaked) out I was.
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Finally linked to you.
Random thought: i think the 'word verification' random computer is a bit of a pop culture junkie. My word verification is ojfat
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Yeah, I never fell for the Planet Law Schoolesque hype either.
Law school rewards creative and logical thought- those who enter the fray already possessing those qualities are at a great advantage over the general law school population.
One can prepare for law school, granted, but one cannot become a fully emergent and thinking human being by reading four books in six weeks. Even law school cannot create this- it can only encourage, poke, and prod.
If anything, I have learned that law is applying old rules to new and changing situations. Since the situations always change, memorization of the specific applications is futile. It's better to have an open and facile mind than it is to memorize the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
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Isn't it amazing how different people study and learn differently? And so much depends on the school, too, I think. I should edit my post to warn people to be careful not to burn out -- but in the long run, my experience was that the better prepared I was, the less stressed (freaked) out I was.