License and Registration: Planning for Year Two
Posted by Aaron on Sep 4, 2007
Unlike the totalitarian control the school has over your schedule during you first year, the second year sees some real progress in the personal freedoms department. But, while progress has been made to lessen the control of the State, it still has far to go before it reaches the free society threshold. Think modern day Russia.
Now, getting away from my undergrad thesis, you are given a lot more control over your registration destiny as you enter the second year. While you still don’t have control over which courses you take, except for your two electives, you do get control over which semester you take them and which professor you take them with. To be honest though, this is the kind of personal choice I could live without. It was kind of nice those first two semesters being given my schedule with a pat on the back and a “go forth and prosper.” In those days, I didn’t have to worry about which classes I should take, or with whom, or during which semester. Besides, I could always complain about my schedule because, after all, it was some “horrible” person in the registrar’s office that did this to me and not my own shortcomings in judgment.
To be honest, the date for class registration snuck up on me like a bear in the woods. I found myself sitting at my desk with a course schedule, calendar, and course descriptions trying to figure out what the expletive I was supposed to be doing. I was lost. Why hadn’t they told me what courses I was required to take? Why hadn’t they given me some advisement on what I should be doing?
Well, in looking back, I realize that it wasn’t a bear tracking an alert hiker in the woods; it was a herd of elephants rampaging towards a headphone donned teenager too consumed by the sound waves vibrating off his ear drums to foresee his imminent trampling. There were lots of sources that had the information I wasn’t looking for. Namely, page 58 of the student handbook, which reads: “A second year regular division student must take the following: Administrative Law, Federal Income Tax, Business Organizations, Evidence, Criminal Procedure, Constitutional Law II, Professional Responsibility and Legal Methods III, and Sales and Leases.”
In my defense, the timing of course registration could have been better. They scheduled it the day after the first years had to turn in the product of two months of research and writing, the Legal Methods II Appellate Brief. Needless to say, a rapidly approaching deadline for an assignment that comprises the vast majority of one’s course grade can become a quite effective pair of headphones capable of drowning out even the most deafening of elephant herds.
I was lucky to have a professor that took it upon herself to offer her services to lost first years who had failed to see the flashing neon signs. My advice would be to find such a professor for your own registration needs. But, once you figure out the gist of things, you still have to formulate a workable schedule.
A lot of people, when making their schedule, would focus on certain professors or on a goal of having a certain day off each week. I did things a little backwards, as is my way with most things. My first criterion was my finals schedule. I took each class I was thinking about taking and mapped its exam date on a calendar. If a certain combination grouped exams too close together, then it was tossed out. My second criterion was the weekly schedule. I didn’t focus on a goal of having Fridays or Mondays off, but whether there was an even distribution of classes throughout the week. I didn’t want to have one day off but then have another day with four classes. If there were any combinations that had a particularly long day, it was tossed. My last criterion was the professor. Professor choice was my last factor because I donÔøΩt really buy into all the hype over this professor is great and this one is horrible. In my experiences, professor ratings come from very unreliable and often biased sources. Anyone who gets an A is going to say that that professor was fair and the class was good, and anyone who gets a C- is going to say the opposite. Besides, with all the professors being of very similar caliber, whatever small differences between them was not enough to compensate for a crappy weekly and finals schedule.
So, after the charting, calculating, and all of the other processes that go into schedule formation, I had a Fall 2007 schedule I was happy with. Since they stagger the times that different groups register, all I had to do was wait until 5:00 pm, log in, and enter in my schedule. Well, when five o’clock came, I logged on, entered in my schedule, pressed enter, and made preparations for a victory dance. Well, it turned out that three of my five classes were full and the best I could do was waitlist. I sat there and looked at the screen feeling utterly helpless and so frustrated that the image of my laptop hurdling out of my third story window was not too far from being a reality. I mean, what was I supposed to do? I had just spent the past two hours trying to figure out a schedule that would work and then this piece of expletive website tells me “better luck next time.”
Well, had it been any other week, I might have sat there for another two hours and worked out another schedule, but this was the last day of a week filled with nights spent writing, re-writing, proofreading, and crying in a corner about a legal methods paper. I was exhausted, frustrated, and I gave up. I just submitted what I had and left the outcome to the waitlist gods.
Actually, as it turns out, that was the best thing I could have done. Apparently, the waitlist for getting into classes is common, and by the next week a spot for me had opened up in every one of my classes. The waitlist gods had smiled upon me, and course registration became an exception to the maxim that quitters never prosper.
Seconds, Please!: Spring Semester
Posted by Aaron on Sep 2, 2007
The second semester starts out much like the first semester. Textbooks? Check. Pens? Check. Trapper Keeper with 3D geometric shapes cover? Check. First Assignments? Check? Anxiety, fear, and the unknown? Uhmm. It seems to be missing.
The second semester is your chance to apply all of the lessons you learned during the first semester to a clean slate. So, everything you would have done differently during the first semester, you actually get to do differently in the second semester. Plus, you’re an old pro by the time the bell for round two rings. You know what to look for in cases. You can better anticipate what a professor is expecting when a question is posed. Also, you have a huge bank of legal concepts, some universal, which you acquired during the first semester. For example, before the first semester, I spent almost an entire weekend working on first assignments, and only an afternoon preparing first assignments for second semester. That isn’t to say that second semester is a breeze. I still had my freak out and want to quit moments just like first semester. It’s just that you are better able to deal with them.
My second semester I took Criminal Law, Constitutional Law I, Property II, Legal Methods II, and Contracts. It is the same amount of credits (15) but with 5 classes, which means one more final exam to be taken.
Criminal Law was probably one of my favorite classes spring semester, which surprised me because I had never really thought of it as an option prior to law school. But with success, comes fondness. As my professor noted, you’re never going to be bored studying Criminal Law. The stuff is “juicy” (his words). I have to agree. Every week was a case that involved somebody getting stabbed, selling drugs, or planning to rob a bank. It’s all great fun until you realize that these things really happened. Somebody really did get stabbed. Somebody really did sell drugs to a ten year-old. Those realizations tend to take the fun out of the reading, but not the interest.
Contract Law was also a good course. I had a very entertaining professor who liked to make jokes, except on the final. Contract Law is all about how a person’s promises become binding upon them. There is a lot of material covered in this class and studying for the final was less than easy. In two days, I felt that I had an impossible amount of information to master.
Constitutional Law I was a little different than other classes. In other classes, you read cases that illustrate a legal concept. It’s not necessarily that the case is groundbreaking or the judge is a legal genius, but that the case illustrates the legal concept well. Thus, the thing you study and remember is the concept and not the author or the case name. Constitutional Law is all about important authors and the important opinions they write for cases. So, in studying for the final, you have to not only memorize the legal concept but the case it was from, the author whose opinion it was, and the names of cases and authors whose opinion differs. Once again, it is a lot of information. Being a history buff, the thing I liked the most was when we would get into the historical context and how the current events of that time shaped opinions of the Court.
In Property Law II, you dig further into the world of property law. We spent a good half of this class covering the real estate contract. During that first half, there was actually some overlap with contracts in that we were covering similar concepts in two different classes. It’s always nice when classes work off of each other. Most of the concepts were completely new to me, though. I have never bought a house and had no idea all the steps that were involved. Learning those steps in Property Law II just reinforces my thought that law school makes you good at life, or at least skeptical of it.
Legal Methods II was the class that provided me with the most freak out moments. In the spring, the assignment for legal methods was writing an appellate brief. The toughest thing about the assignment was the massive amount of cases you have to sort through. I started out with a 2″ binder full of cases, which I had to read and reread and then read again. The second toughest thing about the assignment is the process of extracting what the cases are actually trying to tell you and how that applies to your fact pattern. You end up with a billion ideas that you want to incorporate into your brief, no idea how to organize them, and a word count that makes it inevitable that all but a few of your amazing ideas will be left on the editing room floor. This assignment devoured my spring break and bunch of my weekends. So, don’t let this two credit class fool you because it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
With the exception of the legal methods assignment, the second semester wasn’t all that action packed. It felt like the whole semester was building towards finals. Like marathon with a sprint at the end, I just kept chugging along the whole time preparing for the next day’s classes, and then Bam! it was off to the races for finals.
Eye of the Storm: Winter Break
Posted by Aaron on Sep 2, 2007
My winter break was atypical. On December 14, 2006, the day after finals were over, I wasn’t at home. I wasn’t sweater laden, sipping hot cocoa, and thumbing through department store catalogs. Nay, I was on a plane headed for 21¬∞18‚Ä≤32‚Ä≥N 157¬∞49‚Ä≤34‚Ä≥W (or Honolulu, Hawaii).
I am lucky enough to have had an adventurous college friend who could do nothing but answer the call of our 50th state. So, my last final ended at 5:00 p.m. and by 7:00 a.m. the next day I was on my way, via Denver, to Hawaii. It was the best idea I have ever had. But this blog entry isn’t going to be about pineapples, SPF, and the challenges of maintaining composure on three squares of airline food. Rather, there is something about being tightly packed into a metal tube for 12 hours that induces reflection, and there was a lot to reflect upon.
While sitting there at 30,000 feet, I thought about all the events of the past semester. I thought about my professors. For the past four months, I had had an almost adversarial relationship with them. In a fit of militarization, I had been arming myself with the knowledge I would need to defend myself. Then, when diplomatic talks ended without a consensus, war broke out in the form of a final exam. “Remember your training, put some angles between you and your pursuers. Evade and survive, and we will bring you home.” – Admiral Reigert (played by Gene Hackman), Behind Enemy Lines (2001). Okay, it wasn’t quite that bad.
In any case, whatever animosity I had towards my professors, for putting me through that ordeal, evaporated the moment my pen formed the last punctuation mark on the last line of my last essay for my last exam. It was the moment when anxiety turned into blissful ignorance. Sitting on the plane, I realized that the first semester isn’t a war, but a crucible. I wasn’t fighting the professors for the upper hand; I was fighting myself and the preconceived limits to my own abilities. That being realized, I felt a sense of gratitude for all of my professors. They had pushed me to study longer and harder, and think more critically than ever before. Better than I was before. “Better,stronger, faster. [They] have the technology.” – Six Million Dollar Man (Opening Narration).
Oh, and Hawaii was good, too.
Ready! Set! Go!: Training for Final Exams
Posted by Aaron on Aug 21, 2007
Preparing for final exams is like training for an athletic competition. Both require long hours of preparation, detailed knowledge of oneself, and a strategy. It can be summed up with where, when, with whom, how, and how long.
Where you study is all a matter of personal taste. For finals, I decided to get the heck out of dodge, move home, and commute back for each final. While I studied exclusively in my dorm room during the semester, I moved home so that I could raid the refrigerator and so that my mom could read me bedtime stories (don’t judge). And, while I slept at home, I decided to do my studying at my alma mater, the University of Delaware. I did this because the last thing I wanted to be surrounded by was a bunch of people, like me, freaking out. At UD, I was mostly anonymous and being there meant I was about 20 minutes away from a television.
When and how long you study is also very subjective. I do my best studying starting in the afternoon and into the night. I would show up at the library anywhere between noon and 4:00 p.m. and stay until the library closed at midnight. The exams were spread out with three days between each. So, the day farthest from an exam would be a shorter day and the days would get longer as the exam approached. I basically lived at the library, but it wasn’t all that bad. I just treated it like a full time job. Unlike midterms, where you’re trying to study and prepare for your classes, the only thing you’re focused on during finals is finals.
Who you study with can make or break your preparation. Generally, I don’t like studying with other people. Things usually end up off track and what would take an hour alone turns up devouring an afternoon. The only time I value working with others is after I have had enough time to see what I can figure out on my own. So, usually two days before an exam, I meet with a few trusted friends and only go over the material that is unclear. Also, these group study sessions can end up confusing things even more. It’s like getting driving directions from four people who have no idea where they are going.
How you study can also determine a lot. What you spend your time doing and how long you spend doing it is all a matter of strategy. With three days to prepare for an exam, I would spend one day reading an examples and explanations book (prepare to drop about $100 each semester on study aids), the second day I would read over my outline and possibly meet for a brief study session, on the third day I would take practice exams and write and re-write rule statements.On the fourth day I would say, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth. And it was so. I would make two great lights, the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. I also would make the stars. I would set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And I would see that it was good.” (See Genesis 1:14-19, for a similar story)
Strategy is a big part of finals. What I did on each day was part of my strategy. Getting a lot of sleep and eating well was another part. I made sure I ate a big breakfast before each exam and made sure I took water and snacks to eat during the exam. Some of the exams can last as long as four hours, so some food around the half way mark isn’t a bad idea. My food of choice was craisins and cheese n’ peanut butter crackers. Keeping hydrated is also important, but be careful because taking three bathroom breaks can eat up valuable test taking time. And, while four hours seems like a long time, you will be amazed at how fast an entire morning or afternoon can just fly by.
Just as important is keeping motivated for that big push for your last final. I always proscribed to the thinking that the last exam was the one I should push hardest for; like a sprint before the finish line. My thinking was that everyone else would be getting burnt out. So, because of the curve, the extra work I did for the last final could potentially have the most benefit. I don’t know if that is actually true but it kept me chugging along so I guess it served a purpose.
In a nutshell, you know what works best for you. Have the guts to refuse studying with other people or at places that aren’t compatible with your studying style. Make every effort to create your ideal studying conditions and you’ll be fine.
Feel free to ask questions by emailing aaronsblog@mail.widener.edu or clicking the discuss link.
A Shrink and Law Student Walk into a Bar: Keeping Sane Despite Everything
Posted by Aaron on Aug 21, 2007
Law school can be overwhelming. Actually, overwhelming doesn’t really encapsulate it all. Perhaps a better word is “lklddhalksdfobvvsnlk,” which is a keyboard smash representation for “I am expletive-ing frustrated and I kind of want sit in the fetal position and cry.” To use an analogy, undergraduate is like summer camp and law school is like juvie. There were a lot of times last year when I just wanted to quit. There were times when the simple stress free life of a fast-food employee was appealing; after all, money isn’t everything.
There were some pretty low points to my first year. Perhaps the one that sticks out most in my mind occurred in the fall. It was a Friday night, and I was in the frozen foods section of a grocery store. As I stood there, trying to decide which frozen entree I would sentence to a steamy death in my microwave, I realized that the quality of my evening was solely dependent upon the selection I made. That was the first time I had ever been psychologically dependent on food, and the frozen food section had never felt so cold and empty (well, maybe it had felt that cold but definitely never so empty). In case you were wondering, I think I ended up getting some kind alfredo pasta thing, and my night ended up being so-so.
One of my problems is that when I get stressed, I get reclusive. Living in a single dorm made being reclusive very easy. So, stress plus being alone can lead to some pretty low moments. To combat this, I forced myself to take trips to see friends. A change of scene and being around friends that have no interest in talking about the law beyond the obligatory “hey, how’s school going,” can be a godsend. I also got a hobby. I decided to build a road bicycle. The beauty of building a road bike was that I had absolutely no idea how to do it. So, for four months I researched, accumulated parts, and built it. In the spring, I took it out for my first ride and subsequently my first and second crashes. Having a hobby allowed me to be productive and keep my mind off of school. It was also nice to see real tangible progress, in that each part I got produced a visible result; something that law school cannot always provide. This year I plan on riding the bicycle as my hobby, or maybe clog dancing.
Having a good friend to talk things out with is also amazing. With law school being competitive, it can sometimes be hard to spill your guts to your “adversary.” So if you find that person who knows what you’re dealing with and won’t judge, then keep a hold of them because sometimes there is nothing better than just knowing that someone else is freaking out too.
I guess the one thing to remember is that it gets better. So, just stick it out and wait for the wisdom of hindsight to show you how foolish you were being.
Feel free to ask questions by emailing aaronsblog@mail.widener.edu or clicking the discuss link.
Sprinting in the Dark: Midterm Exams and Assignments
Posted by Aaron on Aug 21, 2007
Midterm Exams come in early October and will occur in at least one of your classes. The six, or so, weeks from day one to exam day seem like forever in August, but the night before your exam you’ll be thinking “Holy expletive, that was fast.” I had what I consider to be three midterms; the one mandatory midterm in my Property class, one professor elected midterm in my Torts class, and a paper due in my Legal Methods class which came at the same time as midterms and was just as hard.
Midterms are your first real challenge in law school. If orientation is riding with training wheels and if the first five weeks of the semester is the wobbly post-training wheels period, then the midterms are like riding a bike race without using your hands. It’s tough because during the time leading up to midterms you are sprinting in the dark. You know you are moving, but you can’t tell whether you are heading in the right direction or where the finish line is. You fumble in the darkness, desperate for guidance, hoping the hours you are spending will bear fruit. You’ve never studied for a law exam, you’ve never taken a law school exam and, for that matter, you’ve never even seen a law exam.
Rather than go through the experience chronologically freak out moment by freak out moment, I’ll just tell you what I learned worked and didn’t work and some other useful-ish information.
The legal methods paper that is due around midterms is the closed memo. It is called a closed memo because the research is provided for you; thus, research is closed. You’ll spend a lot of time in class talking about this paper so for me to hash out all of its requirements would be a waste. As for the tips, first, start early. This seems pretty obvious but writing in a new format can eat up time and there will be little hiccups that slow you down. Second, there is a word limit and I guarantee you that when you finish your first draft you’ll be about 300 words over that limit. So, start writing efficiently from the beginning. This is where that vocab book and phrase thesaurus I recommended for summer reading will come in handy. Chances are you’ll still probably spend more time taking words off the page than you did putting them on it. Third, go to office hours often. The only person that you can really trust to tell if you’re heading in the right direction is the person who will be grading it and, besides, you’re not allowed to work with anyone else. So, go see your professor, ask a lot of questions, and make sure you understand what they want. When I was writing my paper, I kept a piece of paper close and wrote down the questions as they came up, then took that paper during office hours. Fourth, edit, edit, edit, and make sure you know where a comma and semicolon go (see The Elements of Style by Strunk and White).
As for studying for the doctrinal course midterms, first, the core of exam studying in law school is the course outline. The outline is a condensed version of your notes. My outlines consisted of information from my notes, the textbook, and whatever source I found helpful. As with everything in law school there is a strategy to outline making. Some people start their outline very early and add little by little as the course progresses and others wait until the last minute. I take the middle road. I feel that starting super late may put you in a time crunch where you aren’t left enough time to actually learn what you’ve put into the outline. Conversely, I feel that starting super early causes me to forget all the information from the beginning of the year. I have a habit of leaving out information that seems very obvious at the time but when reviewed two months later makes absolutely no sense. So, a month, or so, before exams I work on my outlines. When exams come around, the info is still pretty fresh and I also have enough time to memorize it all.
While outlines are great at helping to memorize all of the rules and exceptions to those rules, a huge part of law school exams are recognition of fact patterns and the application of the rules to those facts. So, tip number two is get a hold of some of your professor’s old exams and practice taking them. However, there is probably only going to be two or so exams on file for you to practice on. So, get a hold of some kind of study aid. I was/am a big fan of the examples and explanations books. They give an easy to read narrative type review of the material and then give practice questions with answers. For tip number three, I would say write and rewrite your rule statements. It’s great that you know what the rule is but, if you just try to free ball it during the exams, your perfectly memorized rules will devolve somewhere between the brain and your pen into incomplete sentences. Also, having the rules already written leaves you more time to discuss its application to the exam facts, which is where you get most of your points. Finally, do not stay up all night. I made this mistake as part of my no regrets policy with myself. My thinking was that, rather than have regrets about whether I spent enough time studying, I would just spend the maximum amount of time. And, while cramming all night may work perfectly well for a binge and purge undergrad essay on the three Punic wars, being fatigued while writing a very analytical exam is another story.
It really all boils down to practice and more practice. My results for midterms weren’t too bad, but I was middle of the pack. At the time I was very disappointed. I remember thinking that I had worked the hardest I had ever worked before and I still hadn’t excelled. But you can’t let little disappointments shape the rest of your law school career. Midterms are all trial and error, and after some errors, you figure it out and you end up being right where you want to be.
Feel free to ask questions by emailing aaronsblog@mail.widener.edu or clicking the discuss link.
Life Beyond the Books, Part 2: Broken Social Scene?
Posted by Aaron on Aug 21, 2007
It is sometimes easy to forget how many changes actually occur when you show up at law school. Sure, your class schedule and living situation change, but unless you had a large contingency of law aspiring undergraduate friends, you’re also going to have to start from scratch on the friend front. And while your professors and class schedule will affect your experience, a group of good friends can mitigate any misfortune your school work may bring.
The first week of law school is a super meet and greet where everybody is friends with everybody. You latch onto the few faces you know. Suddenly, the guy who sat next to you in orientation is your best friend and the girl that lives down the hall from you is your other best friend. As time passes and you meet other people, you realize that friend selection based on spatial proximity may not be the best criteria. It’s an evolving time where you grow closer to some people and further away from others much like any other social situation. Law school doesn’t change how you make friends or what you look for in friends; it just makes you do it again.
Last winter, I went out to lunch with my old rowing coach, who is also a lawyer, and he asked me if there were a lot of cliques. I replied something to the effect of no, and that I just hang out with a few people and don’t really interact all that much with everyone else. Well, I had pretty much given the definition of a clique and feeling very silly, I conceded the point. But looking back, I’ve come up with a better defense. Yes, I did really only have a few people that I was very close to, but I wasn’t close to them at the exclusion of everybody else. It is just a matter of convenience that a large group will break into smaller ones and, while everyone had their groups of close friends, there is a sense of “we’re all in it together” that bonds the whole 1L class. And while there will always be that guy who annoys the crap out of you, there will also be those two guys that make you laugh so hard at lunch that your face hurts, that console you as you walk to your car after a seemingly horrible exam, or even take that late night phone call to listen to you whine about the amount of material we have to learn.
Your friends you make at law school will save your sanity because, after all, they are the only ones that know what you’re going through. Your mom will tell you everything is fine and your other friends will tell you that you’ll be ok but, in the end, they have no idea what they are talking about. The only voice that will bring any sort of comfort will be that of someone who knows what you’re going through, who is suffering right beside you, and who will be there next to you at the finish line.
Feel free to ask questions by emailing aaronsblog@mail.widener.edu or clicking the discuss link.
Life Beyond the Books, Part 1: Extracurricular Activities
Posted by Aaron on Jun 21, 2007
Despite what law school fearmongers purport, you actually will have some free time during your first year. It might not be a lot and you might feel guilty during it but it will exist. Luckily, there are a number of student organizations that would love to help you occupy it. In addition to occupying that bothersome free time, getting involved allows you to put something in that ìLaw School Activitiesî column of your resume, which is good because your undergrad activities donít really carry a lot of weight once in law school.
During undergrad, I wasnít that involved in student organizations. I attribute my lack of invovlement to working part-time and rowing on the University of Delaware Menís Crew Team. Despite my student organization-less past, I desired to seize upon the new beginning that law school provided. Starting law school, I promised myself that I would have no regrets about law school. This ìno regretsî mantra applied to everything from how hard I studied to who I met and how involved I got in extracurricular activities. ìNo regretsî was my Marshall Plan, but instead of preventing the spread of Communism to Western Europe, I was trying to stave off any lack of motivation and the effects of burn out.
Fortunate for me and my Marshall Plan, Widener has a superabundance of student organizations. Also fortunate is that the school makes efforts to expose the new students to what groups are out there. During the first week or two of classes, the law school has what they call Table Day. During Table Day, all of the student organizations set up tables along the main corridor of the law building. If you love brochures and pamphlets, then be sure not to miss table day. Along with allowing a person to add to their brochure collection, Table Day gives you a chance to talk to the people in the organizations and see what they are all about. During Table Day I got information for the Alternative Dispute Resolution Society, signed up to play flag football, and signed up to be a Student Ambassador.
The Alternative Dispute Resolution Society (ADR) was the student organization I enjoyed the most. Using a quote from the ADR website: ìthe Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Society aims to promote the study of negotiation techniques, client counseling, mediation, and arbitration.î The ADR isnít an everybody who wants in, gets in kind of student organization. In the Fall, they hold a negotiation competition and decide based on the results of that competition who gains admittance. The negotiation competition was fun and the first time I felt like a lawyer in training and not just a victim of the Socratic method. Also, being selected as a member of ADR makes you feel like you really accomplished something. In fact, I enjoyed being in ADR so much that I am the Competition Chair for next year. So, I will be planning the competitions that I got to participate in last year.
The flag football league was organized by the Sports & Entertainment Law Society (SELS). While I did participate in their flag football league, I was not a member of the SELS. Flag football started in September some time, and lasted nine weeks, I think. I signed up with a few friends thinking that law school kids wouldnít take it seriously and it would be a friendly, non-physical, backyard football game. My logic was flawed. Our team ended up 0-9. I attribute our winless season to our team selection. You see, our team was chosen based on location. Bacically, if you sat within five seats of our team captain on sign-up day, you were on the team. However, we havenít forgotten the lessons learned and plan on holding try outs for next year which, combined with our excellent position in next yearís flag football draft, should make for a comeback 2007 season.
I also mentioned that I signed up to be a Student Ambassador. Student Ambassadors give tours of the campus, and are required to take a blood oath to always love Widener University School of Law. Of course, I am kidding, sort of. Despite the oath, being a Student Ambassador isnít that involved. In fact, I only gave one tour last year, and that was voluntary.
In addition to the student organizations I joined on Table Day, I also got involved in the Student Bar Association (SBA). The SBA is the student government of the law school, replete with president, vice-president, secretary, etc. First-year students can become involved with the SBA by being elected as a First-Year Representative. Basically, somebody from the SBA came into our room during the first week of class, told us we should run for the position, and left us to engage in a heated election battle. I ended up making the cut and became one of two First-Year Representatives for Section C. I was lucky enough that the election occurred early enough in the semester that nobody had time to see how annoying I was. My job was to air grievances of my classmates and help during the many student activities the SBA plans. Not a bad gig.
In ending, these are only my experiences and involvements, which constitute just a fraction of the organizations that are out there. In fact, there are so many organizations that it can be easy to become too involved with extracurricular activities.
Feel free to ask questions by emailing aaronsblog@mail.widener.edu or clicking the discuss link.
A Roof to Sleep Under: Housing
Posted by Aaron on Jun 18, 2007
Just like where you go to law school, your choices of living situations while in law school can be just as varied. The choice ultimately boils down to your own personal situation and what works best for you. The best choice for me was living on-campus in the dorms.
Not only was the dorm the best choice for me, it was the only choice. Well, it being the only choice isnÔøΩt exactly true. I had the option of living at home and commuting to school but for many reasons I chose not to. The main reason was simple economics. I didn’t have the money to get an apartment on my own and not to mention furnish it. Also, I am a special breed of dorm dwelling student who enjoys living in concrete boxes and moving every nine months. As you can imagine, the dorms have their pluses and minuses.
The rooms aren’t anything special. As you would expect from a dorm, the dorms look like dorms. They come with the standard dorm painted cinderblock walls, community bathrooms, and come absent a kitchen. This can be somewhat of a problem if you like to eat.
The rooms, however, aren’t really that bad. For one, they are big. I don’t really know the exact dimensions but they are plenty big enough to fit all of the furniture, and then some. Which brings me to number two, the dorms are furnished. They come with a twin bed, a huge desk, two book shelves, a dresser, a wardrobe, a mini-fridge, and a microwave, which was great for me because I had none of those things. Despite the concrete walls, the rooms seem less bleak when you get all of your things moved in and hang up some pictures. Likewise, the lack of a kitchen is made less of a problem with the addition of some appliances and creativity.
The dorms also have the great benefit of being affordable. You pay one payment at the beginning of each semester and you don’t have to worry about rent payment, utilities, internet service, or cable for the remainder. I definitely got my money’s worth as I ran the A/C non-stop, which is something I will miss greatly as I face having to pay an electric bill in the near future. Bummer. The dorms are also very convenient. My commute to class consisted of about a minute walk, which is amazing for a snooze button lover like myself. It was great on those days when I forgot something in my room or those nights when I needed to make a quick trip to the library.
The dorms were the best move for me during my first year, but I’ve decided to break my ties with the concrete box world and find myself a dry wall covered apartment with a proper kitchen for year two. The dorms were a great stepping stone for me until I met some friends I could con into being my roommate. Suckers.
Feel free to ask questions by emailing aaronsblog@mail.widener.edu or clicking the discuss link.
The Four Food Groups: A Review of First Semester Classes.
Posted by Aaron on Apr 18, 2007
The knowledge you gain in your first semester classes is the core upon which you build and compare the rest of your law school experiences. The material covered in those first few months transforms the tabula rasa of a student by impressing upon it knowledge of the law. (I only wrote this paragraph so that I could use tabula rasa in a sentence.)
Now, that I’ve gotten that need to be dramatic out of my system, I can tell you what you really want to know. You probably want to know what classes you are going to take. You probably want to know what you actually learn in those classes. You probably want to know what a law school class is like. You may even want to know what the professors are like. So, let’s talk about it.
The four classes I took my first semester were Civil Procedure, Torts, Property, and Legal Methods I. I remember getting my schedule and being very impressed just by their names, and also scared by the fact I had no idea what they meant. While I took these classes my first semester, I’ve picked up from professors that the first semester schedule changes from year to year. In any case, you’ll take those classes at some point in your first year. For a description of the content of these classes, try reading these: Civil Procedure, Torts, Property, and Legal Methods. Rather than make a list of everything covered in these courses, I am just going to tell you about the interesting bits.
Civil Procedure is typically described as one of the hardest classes you’ll take during your first year, and I won’t tell you any differently. There were some bright spots though. For example, beyond all the wordiness and strategically placed commas, there is an instruction book on how to get your lawsuit to a decision. Civil Procedure tells you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and to whom you should do it to.
In Torts, you get to learn all about how people cause harm to other people, and then how the courts make them pay for it. I found the medical malpractice and other negligence claims pretty interesting. The class has an everyday experience feel to it. We’ve all driven too fast in the rain or pulled the chair out from someone as a kid, and these are just the kind of situations that Tort law covers.
Property Law also had an everyday experience feel. For example, there is a whole chapter on gifts. You may not have known it but every time you’ve given someone a gift, you met a number of criteria (elements) that the law requires. Another example is lost or found property. This class finally settles the dispute over “finders keepers, losers weepers.” You also cover landlord/tenant law, and other everyday, and some not everyday, type things that you would never think would get so much attention.
Legal Methods is not an everyday type experience type class. Legal Methods teaches you how to write in the very technical legal way. If you are a flowery writer like myself, who hates repetition and loves a good thesaurus, then you may find the rigid and uncreative legal style of writing a little hard to get used to. Over time, though, you will learn to leave those unnecessary adjectives in the tool box. You will get to use them a bit when you start writing persuasively your second semester (see future post on Legal Methods II).
The classroom experience in law school is a bit more interactive than undergrad. IÔøΩm sure some of you have read about Socratic Method and have heard horror stories, etc. While the basic format of teacher ask and student tell is in place, it is far more diluted and tame than most horror stories make it out to be. My professors would ask questions, and sometimes tough questions, but would never be hostile or condescending to a student who didnÔøΩt have the answer they were looking for. This approach instills a fear of coming to class unprepared, and not a fear of coming to class.
In conclusion, I have nothing more to say.
Feel free to ask questions by emailing aaronsblog@mail.widener.edu or clicking the discuss link.