2L losing complete hope Forum

[ResolutePear]

Just FYI? If this thread goes an entire page without an on-topic post, I'll have to release my inner "power-tripping high school security guard" and shut this thing down.
Have a super afternoon!

hahahahaha

anyways,
no pear. Not trusting police is not the issue, it seemed to me that you were like anti police but I may have jumped the gun.

I'm of the school of thought that government cannot be given trust without reason (hence, I'm totally okay with valid warrants issued by the courts for instance), and to think that there are no police officers among us who would trample all over our liberties, and also "sub-par" to push his own agenda is just naive.

Inversely, there aren't any liberties online other than protection versus very specific crimes.. and this board doesn't apply to it. Therefore, mods here obviously have a lower standard which they need to adhere to.

[Anonymous User]

OP: I definitely will hit up the NY Bar Association for contacts and advice. That sounds like a good idea, even if did have a firm job. I wish things were on a more regular schedule. Just heard that JAG hasn't even met to decide 2L applications, even though have done so for 1Ls and 3Ls (congrats to those who got commissions, including a good friend of mine). It feels like playing some major gambles, and don't want to deal with my peers saying should be happy w/ what I got. Interviews seem to be picking up if anything and hoping for a spring internship at a cool place that I applied to. The summer thing just has a host of complex issues that I am not sure when I am over thinking or being correct.

[A'nold]

Like someone said above, it usually comes down to the resume if you don't have the grades. People with a few years of work experience had pretty good OCI performance this year even with median grades.

Telling OP he must be a bad interviewer if he hasn't landed a job from CLS/NYU shows a lack of understanding of the situation here and how the process works generally. It's not binary between great interviewee and poor one. There's a passing interview too, one that gets you the job if you have other qualifications. Probably 90% of the people at my school fall into that category, but not all of them have the other qualifications.

This should be stickied. The personality/interviewing skills babble is the most tiring feature of the employment forum as a whole.

I'm not surprised to see you saying this.....

[sperry]

Penn Law 2L, a little below median. I have completely given up hope. I graduated with a liberal arts degree from a mediocre state school prior to law school, so I don't really have any employment prospects outside of the law. Really just kind of cruising til I graduate at this point, and then I'll reevaluate what I'm gonna do with myself. One thing I know, is that going to law school was the worst decision I have ever made. Going straight to law school out of undergrad without any relevant work experience is just irresponsible. It's gambling way too much on 1L grades, which can be really arbitrary. My 1L year I had at least one of all 5 grades, and aside from my only B-, which I knew I had screwed up pretty badly, I can't tell you why I made an A in this class, or a B in that one. Without work experience and other things to build a strong resume, being on the wrong side of law school curve variance can put you in the position of having no job prospects whatsoever.

[Younger Abstention]

Penn Law 2L, a little below median. I have completely given up hope. I graduated with a liberal arts degree from a mediocre state school prior to law school, so I don't really have any employment prospects outside of the law. Really just kind of cruising til I graduate at this point, and then I'll reevaluate what I'm gonna do with myself. One thing I know, is that going to law school was the worst decision I have ever made. Going straight to law school out of undergrad without any relevant work experience is just irresponsible. It's gambling way too much on 1L grades, which can be really arbitrary. My 1L year I had at least one of all 5 grades, and aside from my only B-, which I knew I had screwed up pretty badly, I can't tell you why I made an A in this class, or a B in that one. Without work experience and other things to build a strong resume, being on the wrong side of law school curve variance can put you in the position of having no job prospects whatsoever.

You go to PENN and your grades aren't abysmal. You'll get something, hang in there. You still have 1.5 years to find a job -- relax.

[Anonymous User]

Penn Law 2L, a little below median. I have completely given up hope. I graduated with a liberal arts degree from a mediocre state school prior to law school, so I don't really have any employment prospects outside of the law. Really just kind of cruising til I graduate at this point, and then I'll reevaluate what I'm gonna do with myself. One thing I know, is that going to law school was the worst decision I have ever made. Going straight to law school out of undergrad without any relevant work experience is just irresponsible. It's gambling way too much on 1L grades, which can be really arbitrary. My 1L year I had at least one of all 5 grades, and aside from my only B-, which I knew I had screwed up pretty badly, I can't tell you why I made an A in this class, or a B in that one. Without work experience and other things to build a strong resume, being on the wrong side of law school curve variance can put you in the position of having no job prospects whatsoever.

2L here. The most haunting part of law school was that I got an A- and a B in the same semester using similar analysis and study habits. Arbitrary grading is arbitrary.

[A&O]

Arbitrary grading is arbitrary.

I guess this is a convenient crutch for explaining the disparity, but grading isn't that arbitrary.

[dresden doll]

Like someone said above, it usually comes down to the resume if you don't have the grades. People with a few years of work experience had pretty good OCI performance this year even with median grades.

Telling OP he must be a bad interviewer if he hasn't landed a job from CLS/NYU shows a lack of understanding of the situation here and how the process works generally. It's not binary between great interviewee and poor one. There's a passing interview too, one that gets you the job if you have other qualifications. Probably 90% of the people at my school fall into that category, but not all of them have the other qualifications.

This should be stickied. The personality/interviewing skills babble is the most tiring feature of the employment forum as a whole.

I'm not surprised to see you saying this.....

And I'm not surprised that you'd say that.

Anyway, A and O is correct. Grading isn't all that arbitrary. Apart from exactly one grade, I can pretty much say I deserved all of my 1L grades.

Really, if grading were so arbitrary, same people wouldn't continuously score well on all types of exams administered by all types of professors. Certain students just know how to do well in LS, period.

[HarlandBassett]

Penn Law 2L, a little below median. I have completely given up hope. I graduated with a liberal arts degree from a mediocre state school prior to law school, so I don't really have any employment prospects outside of the law. Really just kind of cruising til I graduate at this point, and then I'll reevaluate what I'm gonna do with myself. One thing I know, is that going to law school was the worst decision I have ever made. Going straight to law school out of undergrad without any relevant work experience is just irresponsible. It's gambling way too much on 1L grades, which can be really arbitrary. My 1L year I had at least one of all 5 grades, and aside from my only B-, which I knew I had screwed up pretty badly, I can't tell you why I made an A in this class, or a B in that one. Without work experience and other things to build a strong resume, being on the wrong side of law school curve variance can put you in the position of having no job prospects whatsoever.

is that what you did?

[A'nold]

This should be stickied. The personality/interviewing skills babble is the most tiring feature of the employment forum as a whole.

I'm not surprised to see you saying this.....

And I'm not surprised that you'd say that.

Anyway, A and O is correct. Grading isn't all that arbitrary. Apart from exactly one grade, I can pretty much say I deserved all of my 1L grades.

Really, if grading were so arbitrary, same people wouldn't continuously score well on all types of exams administered by all types of professors. Certain students just know how to do well in LS, period.

You're right, you've always been so nice to people on TLS. *cough A'nold's congrats thread in the transfer forum, cough*

[sperry]

Like someone said above, it usually comes down to the resume if you don't have the grades. People with a few years of work experience had pretty good OCI performance this year even with median grades.

Telling OP he must be a bad interviewer if he hasn't landed a job from CLS/NYU shows a lack of understanding of the situation here and how the process works generally. It's not binary between great interviewee and poor one. There's a passing interview too, one that gets you the job if you have other qualifications. Probably 90% of the people at my school fall into that category, but not all of them have the other qualifications.

This should be stickied. The personality/interviewing skills babble is the most tiring feature of the employment forum as a whole.

I'm not surprised to see you saying this.....

And I'm not surprised that you'd say that.

Anyway, A and O is correct. Grading isn't all that arbitrary. Apart from exactly one grade, I can pretty much say I deserved all of my 1L grades.

Really, if grading were so arbitrary, same people wouldn't continuously score well on all types of exams administered by all types of professors. Certain students just know how to do well in LS, period.

I don't think the professors grade unfairly or that the exams are unfair or anything like that. It's just the nature of the law school curve that there have to be relatively arbitrary cutoffs, because certain amounts of people have to earn certain grades.


There's other things you can't account for as well. For an exam I took last semester, I was studying and on the last day realized that I missed a particular day of class, so the last thing I did the night before the exam was listen to the recording of that day's lecture. On the exam was a hypothetical that the professor had gone over in depth on that particular day, and I remember exactly how they had gone through the problem. I ended up making an A on that exam, and I'm positive I wouldn't have if I hadn't randomly listened to that recording. On the flip side, it's certainly possible to not pay much attention to a particular topic, and then have that represent an inordinately large portion of the final exam. That's just the way things are going to be when you're given a 3 hour exam that determines 100% of your grade in a particular class.



Again, I'm not complaining and saying that I was graded lower than I deserved. I didn't work very hard 1L year, and I'm just kicking myself for that. I worked harder last semester and from the grades I've gotten back so far I did better than 1L year, which is clearly a case of shutting the barn door after the horse is gone.

[A'nold]

This should be stickied. The personality/interviewing skills babble is the most tiring feature of the employment forum as a whole.

I'm not surprised to see you saying this.....

And I'm not surprised that you'd say that.

Anyway, A and O is correct. Grading isn't all that arbitrary. Apart from exactly one grade, I can pretty much say I deserved all of my 1L grades.

Really, if grading were so arbitrary, same people wouldn't continuously score well on all types of exams administered by all types of professors. Certain students just know how to do well in LS, period.

I don't think the professors grade unfairly or that the exams are unfair or anything like that. It's just the nature of the law school curve that there have to be relatively arbitrary cutoffs, because certain amounts of people have to earn certain grades.


There's other things you can't account for as well. For an exam I took last semester, I was studying and on the last day realized that I missed a particular day of class, so the last thing I did the night before the exam was listen to the recording of that day's lecture. On the exam was a hypothetical that the professor had gone over in depth on that particular day, and I remember exactly how they had gone through the problem. I ended up making an A on that exam, and I'm positive I wouldn't have if I hadn't randomly listened to that recording. On the flip side, it's certainly possible to not pay much attention to a particular topic, and then have that represent an inordinately large portion of the final exam. That's just the way things are going to be when you're given a 3 hour exam that determines 100% of your grade in a particular class.



Again, I'm not complaining and saying that I was graded lower than I deserved. I didn't work very hard 1L year, and I'm just kicking myself for that. I worked harder last semester and from the grades I've gotten back so far I did better than 1L year, which is clearly a case of shutting the barn door after the horse is gone.

1. You need to treat every piece of possibly relevant info that your professor gives you like it is going to be the main event on exam day.
2. I would say that in 90%+ of the cases, there is no "arbitrary cutoff" as you said above. Just because someone did well and the next guy did fantastically does not mean that the gap b/w them is arbitrary. In fact, every single person in the class could have performed well, however, that just means that someone who did well did not do as well as the top well-doer. I don't see the big debate here. Note that in my estimated approximate 10% of the time where it truly is arbitrary, the professor made the exam WAY too easy and way too objective. When the top 5% of the class got, say, a 195 and the next top 25% got like a 192, your arbitrary argument might carry some weight.

[megaTTTron]

1. You need to treat every piece of possibly relevant info that your professor gives you like it is going to be the main event on exam day.
2. I would say that in 90%+ of the cases, there is no "arbitrary cutoff" as you said above. Just because someone did well and the next guy did fantastically does not mean that the gap b/w them is arbitrary. In fact, every single person in the class could have performed well, however, that just means that someone who did well did not do as well as the top well-doer. I don't see the big debate here. Note that in my estimated approximate 10% of the time where it truly is arbitrary, the professor made the exam WAY too easy and way too objective. When the top 5% of the class got, say, a 195 and the next top 25% got like a 192, your arbitrary argument might carry some weight.

which is why it's bad if you feel good about an exam, or, rather, if you felt like it was easy, because that means it was probably easy for a lot of people.

[98234872348]

which is why it's bad if you feel good about an exam, or, rather, if you felt like it was easy, because that means it was probably easy for a lot of people.

I hate easy exams...

[A'nold]

which is why it's bad if you feel good about an exam, or, rather, if you felt like it was easy, because that means it was probably easy for a lot of people.

I hate easy exams...

+1. One of the lowest grades I ever received was on an exam where anybody with half a brain could have just answered all of the questions off of an outline since the exam required little to no analysis and it was completely open book. Sucked.

[General Tso]

This should be stickied. The personality/interviewing skills babble is the most tiring feature of the employment forum as a whole.

I'm not surprised to see you saying this.....

And I'm not surprised that you'd say that.

Anyway, A and O is correct. Grading isn't all that arbitrary. Apart from exactly one grade, I can pretty much say I deserved all of my 1L grades.

Really, if grading were so arbitrary, same people wouldn't continuously score well on all types of exams administered by all types of professors. Certain students just know how to do well in LS, period.

You're right, you've always been so nice to people on TLS. *cough A'nold's congrats thread in the transfer forum, cough*

don't let Double-D get you done, buddy...nobody likes her anyway

[A'nold]

I'm not surprised to see you saying this.....

And I'm not surprised that you'd say that.

Anyway, A and O is correct. Grading isn't all that arbitrary. Apart from exactly one grade, I can pretty much say I deserved all of my 1L grades.

Really, if grading were so arbitrary, same people wouldn't continuously score well on all types of exams administered by all types of professors. Certain students just know how to do well in LS, period.

You're right, you've always been so nice to people on TLS. *cough A'nold's congrats thread in the transfer forum, cough*

don't let Double-D get you done, buddy...nobody likes her anyway

Yeah, it's not like I care what she thinks of me. That reference to that thread was just because that was the first thing that came to mind thinking about some of her messed up comments to people for no apparent reason. There are many more examples having nothing to do with me.

[vanwinkle]

And I'm not surprised that you'd say that.

Anyway, A and O is correct. Grading isn't all that arbitrary. Apart from exactly one grade, I can pretty much say I deserved all of my 1L grades.

Really, if grading were so arbitrary, same people wouldn't continuously score well on all types of exams administered by all types of professors. Certain students just know how to do well in LS, period.

You're right, you've always been so nice to people on TLS. *cough A'nold's congrats thread in the transfer forum, cough*

don't let Double-D get you done, buddy...nobody likes her anyway

Yeah, it's not like I care what she thinks of me. That reference to that thread was just because that was the first thing that came to mind thinking about some of her messed up comments to people for no apparent reason. There are many more examples having nothing to do with me.

Okay, let's drop the personal attacks... They should've never started in this thread in the first place.

This is a warning, to all sides involved.

[A'nold]

don't let Double-D get you done, buddy...nobody likes her anyway

Yeah, it's not like I care what she thinks of me. That reference to that thread was just because that was the first thing that came to mind thinking about some of her messed up comments to people for no apparent reason. There are many more examples having nothing to do with me.

Okay, let's drop the personal attacks... They should've never started in this thread in the first place.

This is a warning, to all sides involved.

I'm sorry. I actually went back to erase my initial comment b/c it was out of line but then it was quoted. I also should not have kept it going. Please disregard my comments peeps and get back to the topic.

[dresden doll]

Anyway, sperry, I understand what you're saying. I also concur with the hatred towards easy exams: that one exam I referred to was in fact an easy exam. Crim Law (fairly intuitive in itself), 8 hours, 1500 words, BLL. Easy mistakes cost a ton.

[A'nold]

It is in these "easy" exam situations that it is SO important to use the professor's words on your exam instead of supplements or your own words. One extra check mark might make the difference b/w an A and a B+.

[dresden doll]

It is in these "easy" exam situations that it is SO important to use the professor's words on your exam instead of supplements or your own words. One extra check mark might make the difference b/w an A and a B+.

Generally correct, and that goes double for idiosyncratic schools like UChi. With that said, my professor was pretty straightforward and little beholden to particular policy views (unlike just about any other professor at my school). The few attitudes he did have (i.e. hatred for tenuous connections between cause and effect) were easy to pick up on and unlikely to break anyone's grade (unless, I suppose, you just never ever came to class - which doesn't happen around here).

I knew quite a bit of otherwise stellar students who screwed up that exam and several others who wound up very pleasantly surprised with theirs. That's not saying it was necessarily arbitrary (anyone can have a bad day) but it certainly tended to be the grade that deviated from the rest on my classmates' transcripts.