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LawSchoolAdvice 11 - 19 Feb 2010 - Main.JiadaiLin
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| | Before coming to law school, I received two pieces of advice from coworkers about how to "succeed" at Columbia Law School. I found both of these to be really troubling and upsetting. I also think that they demonstrate attitudes that are indicative of some of the problems with the current law school set up and the reasons that people feel the need/desire to pawn their degrees. I figured this would be a good place to discuss them, hear what other people think about them and hear advice that others received before coming to law school.
The first piece of advice that I got was to go into each of my first year classes on the first day with one thing in mind - the exam. All of my work should be geared to "acing" the exam. I should read prior exams/outlines before coming to class to get an idea of what the professor covered on exams (black letter law, policy, etc.) and focus only on learning these things. | | | I don't want this to come across as an attack, but I take great issue with your statement, Aerin. At best it's a meaningless tautology and at worst it's a recipe for exactly the type of "fear and anxiety" that plagues us. Grades are not some quantitative indicator of effort expended. In fact, Moglen seems to be the only professor here who claims to base some of the grade on "effort" rather than strictly on end product. True, to a certain extent some people with less than stellar grades could improve those grades by putting in more work, but this is certainly not axiomatically true. As a tautology, if a student isn't trying, then trying will likely increase his grade - so long as other students don't "work harder" and keep him at the same point on the curve. And the curve is where the real danger of this statement comes in. Does the A- student "work harder" than the B+ student? It would be absurd to say yes. I know plenty of students who worked like dogs and got lower grades than students who, relatively speaking, coasted. If a student took this statement to heart, I could only see it leading to self-destruction. At some point, extra study hours have a negative value. Our brains, like our muscles or pretty much anything, can break down if pushed too hard. The B student doesn't just need to "work harder" any more than the man with the underwater mortgage needed to "be smarter".
-- StephenSevero - 18 Feb 2010 | |
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It’s interesting, Aerin, because the advice that I got coming into law school (from my parents and friends – definitely not from most law students) is the flip side of the advice you received: If you know you’ve worked hard, the grade doesn’t matter.
This advice presupposes that there will probably be a time when I have worked my hardest and still did not receive a “good” grade. This is supposed to be okay, and to me, it is.
I find that the older I get the less I take a bad grade personally. In a way this is odd since my enthusiasm for school actually has only increased over the years. I think that my changing attitudes are due in part to the fact that I realize and accept that the playing field is leveling as I move up the ranks of school. I went to a large public high school where there was every combination of work ethic and so-called intelligence. Call it snobbery, but back in those days I worked semi-hard and expected to get a good grade because, well, that’s just the way things were. In college, many of my classmates had been just like myself in high school. I worked harder and felt a bit less entitled to an “A.” And now in law school, I feel the least entitled to a good grade as I ever have. One may ask that if I hold this attitude, why work hard at all? I think that like most law students, I enjoy school and I do enjoy working hard and pushing myself. That is why many of us have gotten to this point. And, of course, if working hard can earn me a good grade I will take that chance with no complaints. It certainly won’t hurt me.
What I had been told before coming here – essentially that I could work hard all I wanted but was guaranteed nothing – seems to place me in some kind of scary frantic crapshoot. When I think about it, though, it is actually so liberating. Obviously, there will always be people who are just “smart” (in the sense that they do well in school), but honestly, that is just a part of life. There is always a higher playing field, a bigger pie, a greater goal that correlates to whatever values you set for yourself. In the end, as Professor Moglen said, we are luckier than most of the people in the world. In the grander scheme of things, we are lucky to have this chance even if right now it just seems like a chance to worry more.
-- JiadaiLin - 19 Feb 2010 | | | |
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