Grade Change to Pass/Fail

I'm curious to hear how you all have been affected by the grade change to credit/no-credit. How has it altered your stress/anxiety levels? Your approach to school work? Etc.

Personally (and perhaps obviously), I'm really relieved and feel an enormous weight lighted off my shoulders. However, I definitely feel less motivated and I'm finding it harder to pay attention in class--although that may be because I'm sitting in my parent's house and surrounded by my family (and a myriad of other distractions) as opposed to sitting in a classroom surrounded by students and professors.

-- JasonL - 24 Mar 2020

I haven’t figured out how I feel about my stress levels re: Pass/Fail.

I think I’m in the same boat as you are: there are many distractions due to being “back home” (speaking of law school being like high school…), and it’s definitely harder to remain disciplined. Being “in” law school definitely made it easier for me to avoid TV/movies/family dynamics/etc.

On the other hand, although I know that I have less to worry about (if only in terms of grades), part of me feels like I should be working even harder, out of fear of forgetting what it feels like to be a law student. I don’t want to come away from this semester and feel like I achieved less because I was allowed to perform to a blurrier standard. (Will I be able to say that I've "improved" at law school / taking law school exams?)

-- GershamJ - 24 Mar 2020

I never really worried much about grades save as a factor in getting the job upon which the endeavor was predicated - or at least the debt. Given everything that has happened in the last week and a half - or that has been forced into my personal experience - I feel as though I have yet to process what the grade change means. Larger in my field of view is the global pandemic, it's burning through the fabric of our society and others; the ravaging of an economy already stacked against the masses which I have no reason to believe will be less so after this passes. Indeed I feel certain it may very well be worse.

I agree with both your observations about being distracted, being in transition, and in my case at least struggling to find a new routine sitting in an apartment with new, additional responsibilities to immuno-compromised family, to partner, and cats (!) in addition to those of "merely law school."

I suppose the grades, in the end, don't really make much of a difference at all. But removing the barometer of success - even after only a semester of acclimating to it - does feel destabilizing. In short and in agreement with you: I don't know yet. What it has done is cast my eye to the fall semester and how I should structure that to the maximum desired effect of effective learning (trial advocacy and litigations and being a "good lawyer") and the aforementioned job... but then I wonder if there will be a fall semester.

It's a lethal curveball but in my experience sudden shifts like this, for all their fear and destabilization, may present opportunities for speedy changes in society one way or the other. The massive toll of human suffering, the devastation of a global economy for all but the insiders and the ultra-wealthy; national aid for small business and individuals will be too little too late for many; erosion of faith in the federal government. I've been asking myself more about how we can thrive in the post corona world as law students and then lawyers. Will society and politics be receptive to change after this? Tangential, but it's all part of my processing the immense changes - one of which is the grades.

Good luck to all of us.

-- LeslieRidings - 25 Mar 2020