1st semester reflections, what are we changing for 2nd sem? Forum

[kswiss]

I have no idea how well I did, so as far a substantive studying goes I'm not thinking about changing yet.

BUT: I do plan on doing some things different.

1. Actually go to office hours. I emailed profs a lot, but I need to get to know professors a little more. Not necessarily for studying, but just for comfort I guess. I never went to office hours in UG, and I feel like it something I should change.

2. Read some popular book about my subjects in the first weeks of class. I feel like I didn't really get the big picture of my classes until the last several weeks. I think it will be easier and less stressful to have a broad view of a topic area. I feel like classes are kind of like one of those old invisible pen kits, where you wrote a message and colored over it with marker...you don't get the full perspective until the very end.

3. Run. I ran like 4 times a week before law school, and it slowly tapered until I mostly quit during finals. I miss it.

4. Find some new position to study in so that my back doesn't hurt! I took my last exam a week ago and my back is still tensed up.

5. I think I'm going to shift a lot of my case reading to the weekends. This semester I usually read the day before class, which helped because I was always prepared without spending a lot of time on briefs. But I think I'd rather have my reading done and work on refining notes/outlines and test prep during the week while its still fresh from class.

6. I will not change: outlining throughout the semester. I know people say not to do it, but I don't understand. I outlined after every topic, and at the end of the semester, I went back through the classes to create attack outlines. My early outlining sucked, but it only took me a few hours to go back, so I usually had a really solid working outline the day that class finished. All my friends were outlining all the way up until the day before each test, and I was working on sleeping as much as possible and taking practice exams. Even if my grades aren't what I want them to be, its definitely a result of improper application, since my outlines reflected the tested material really well.

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Play basketball more. Do a better job of keeping ahead in the reading. Outline sooner. Take practice tests sooner.

[as stars burn]

I worked my ass off this semester, so I really don't feel like I could change a lot. But the things I will change/continue to do....

- Run more. Like PP said, I ran like 3 days a week and then it stopped completely. It's such a great stress outlet, and I'm surprised I didn't die from lack of exercise
- Start outlining the month before finals, which is what I did this semester. I felt prepared and ready for finals. I didn't feel like I outlined too early, but it gave me time to fill in gaps.
- Keep my study partner. I'm not a big study group kind of girl, but I made a really great friend in law school and we work incredibly well together. I got together with a few more people the week before exams to talk about/do practice exams and it worked out really well.

Yeah, that's about all I can say right now before grades come out. I will say that I love my school, my classmates, and I loved my TAs this semester. My Torts TA especially was beyond amazing. :D

[Sogui]

I'm not changing jack shit until I see my grades.

This is the credited response. Well that and "start outlining sooner".

In terms of strategy however, spending time on one thing always means not spending time on another. My strategy this semester was:

"screw hornbooks, screw obsessive reading with a paragraph of notes in the margins of every page and rainbow highlighting, screw commercial outlines, screw briefing, screw all that. The professor told us everything he/she wants us to know in class and those notes and the practice exams are all anyone ever really needs to ace any exam".

In hindsight I kind of liked it. I don't think anyone's 5-highlighter approach meant anything at the end of the semester, nor did anyone dumb enough to brief every case for every class, nor did writing notes about that class... before class. Every understanding I've been tested on was something discussed in class and those notes applied to new facts gave me more than enough ammunition for 2 exams thus far. My only regret was not spending more time practicing with it on old exams.

[chango]

I'm not changing jack shit until I see my grades.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

[sethc]

Sogui, that's pretty spot on. I NEVER got the 5-color highlighting thing.. it seemed like complete nonsense and just another thing to try to keep track of in law school "shit, wait.. green? green was analysis right? or yellow? fuck!" etc. I also (for now) am kind of dismissive of all of the commercial/hornbook shit.. I didn't miss a single class and I feel like my notes were really good. I could tell they obviously got better and more concise over the semester.. there's room for improvement, sure, but that was my #1 source for study material along with old exams, of course. #2 was old student outlines because sometimes shit like fatigue and stress get in the way and seeing how a previous student worded something can be a breath of fresh air it seems like. That was basically where I drew everything to prepare.. I didn't get near many supplements. Occasionally, I'd jump in a Nutshell if something was really baffling or confusing me. But, that's about it (well and the Future Interests "bible"). I feel like leaning on supplements more than you should is running the risk of getting overburdened but that's just me. If my prof didn't go in depth on, say, Title Insurance.. then I probably won't be seeing much of it on the exam.


Oh, anyone wanna toss their thoughts on podcasts or playbacks of recordings? A few of my profs posted some lectures for students to playback/listen but I just really don't have the patience to (a) listen to hours of lecture I already sat through and/or (b) trying to REW/FF to the right spots to figure out what I'm looking for.

[beach_terror]

I'm not changing jack shit until I see my grades.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

I don't speak douchebag. Care to translate?

[npe]

I'm not changing jack shit until I see my grades.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

I don't speak douchebag. Care to translate?

It means "after this, therefore because of this." It's the name of a logical fallacy that Chango seems to think applies here (though for the life of me, I can't see how).

[keg411]

If my prof didn't go in depth on, say, Title Insurance.. then I probably won't be seeing much of it on the exam.

I thought that too... then we had an entire question on our CivPro exam about something we never talked about in class or read in our casebook reading. There was also a second part to a question that was similar, but I happened to have read it and made a note of it in my outline, even though it also wasn't really something we had focused on in class. Neither of these were on past PT's either.

Maybe you were just lucky that you didn't have this happen.

[zeth006]

Things I'm not changing.


1. My work schedule. Keeping it as is. Play when I know I have time to play.

2. Following old outlines. This is probably what prevented me from being completely lost in contracts.


Things I am changing

1. Taking tests earlier. This was probably my biggest mistake, but one I couldn't avoid easily without extra effort. I was just really slow at picking up things in the beginning, so I didn't have the time to look at practice tests. My reading skills have improved a lot, which also means my time management is better. I'll most definitely have more time to look at practice tests earlier in the semester.

2. Using supplements earlier in the semester. This is what tripped me up the most for Civ Pro. I didn't discover the miracles of E&E until way later into the semester. Until then, I was completely lost in class. Plus let's not forget that when your prof doesn't hand out too many practice tests for this class, a bit of early short answer/multiple choice practice from supplements would've been helpful. But this doesn't necessarily contradict what Sogui said as I didn't really touch my Dressler crim law supplements much as my prof had practice tests aplenty for us to use.

3. Going to more workshop events. Even though I now have another core class and moot court to worry about, I figured I might as well check out more events throughout the semester as they come.

[sethc]

keg411, Yeah, that's true I mean to a certain extent that's more or less a big roll of the dice.. but a lot of that depends on both the professor and whatever course it's in. Like of course you'll see a breach of contract situation in Contracts - tons of times.. so you know that and can prepare, whereas in property it's not something the class hinges on, but you should know how it pertains to land contracts etc. I know that's kind of a broad/easy example but hopefully you know what I mean lol

And when the prof isn't that great and doesn't do a good job of giving some kind of clue as to what to expect going into the final, then sometimes it makes it easier to study to eliminate the "least likely" in terms of essays.. Iunno that's the approach I took and felt like I nailed most of my essays.

[keg411]

I did the same thing. Trust me. Some of the stuff was expected and the same as it always is, but there were a few things that were really just out of thin air, and I wonder if anyone got it (although I won't be shocked if some people did get it and/or read it outside of class reading... they'll be the A's and I won't be).

Then again, it's only one class. In Torts, I only bought a supplement for the practice questions since the way my professor taught it was very straightforward. Doesn't mean I did well, but he didn't throw anything out on the exam that we never touched on or stuff that wasn't in the casebook.

[chango]

I'm not changing jack shit until I see my grades.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

I don't speak douchebag. Care to translate?

It means "after this, therefore because of this." It's the name of a logical fallacy that Chango seems to think applies here (though for the life of me, I can't see how).

"I got good grades because I did X, Y and Z. Therefore, I will get continue to get good grades if I continue to do X, Y and Z."

[Stanford4Me]

"I got good grades because I did X, Y and Z. Therefore, I will get continue to get good grades if I continue to do X, Y and Z."

LSAT was a while ago, dude. I also think it only minimally applies here.

[beach_terror]

"I got good grades because I did X, Y and Z. Therefore, I will get continue to get good grades if I continue to do X, Y and Z."

I understood what you mean, I just wanted you to repeat it to reaffirm that you are a tool.

[zeth006]

"I got good grades because I did X, Y and Z. Therefore, I will get continue to get good grades if I continue to do X, Y and Z."

I understood what you mean, I just wanted you to repeat it to reaffirm that you are a tool.

[chango]

"I got good grades because I did X, Y and Z. Therefore, I will get continue to get good grades if I continue to do X, Y and Z."

I understood what you mean, I just wanted you to repeat it to reaffirm that you are a tool.

Despite your previous denial, you seem to speak douchebag just fine.

[beach_terror]

"I got good grades because I did X, Y and Z. Therefore, I will get continue to get good grades if I continue to do X, Y and Z."

I understood what you mean, I just wanted you to repeat it to reaffirm that you are a tool.

Despite your previous denial, you seem to speak douchebag just fine.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Post+hoc+ergo+propter+hoc

[missinglink]

I have no idea how well I did, so as far a substantive studying goes I'm not thinking about changing yet.

BUT: I do plan on doing some things different.

1. Actually go to office hours. I emailed profs a lot, but I need to get to know professors a little more. Not necessarily for studying, but just for comfort I guess. I never went to office hours in UG, and I feel like it something I should change.

2. Read some popular book about my subjects in the first weeks of class. I feel like I didn't really get the big picture of my classes until the last several weeks. I think it will be easier and less stressful to have a broad view of a topic area. I feel like classes are kind of like one of those old invisible pen kits, where you wrote a message and colored over it with marker...you don't get the full perspective until the very end.

3. Run. I ran like 4 times a week before law school, and it slowly tapered until I mostly quit during finals. I miss it.

4. Find some new position to study in so that my back doesn't hurt! I took my last exam a week ago and my back is still tensed up.

5. I think I'm going to shift a lot of my case reading to the weekends. This semester I usually read the day before class, which helped because I was always prepared without spending a lot of time on briefs. But I think I'd rather have my reading done and work on refining notes/outlines and test prep during the week while its still fresh from class.

6. I will not change: outlining throughout the semester. I know people say not to do it, but I don't understand. I outlined after every topic, and at the end of the semester, I went back through the classes to create attack outlines. My early outlining sucked, but it only took me a few hours to go back, so I usually had a really solid working outline the day that class finished. All my friends were outlining all the way up until the day before each test, and I was working on sleeping as much as possible and taking practice exams. Even if my grades aren't what I want them to be, its definitely a result of improper application, since my outlines reflected the tested material really well.

Pretty much exactly my thoughts.

Except I didn't outline throughout the semester, and I will be outlining throughout. I got mine done with plenty of time before the exam, but would have liked more time to practice questions.

I also did my case reading on the weekend, and thought that made the week a lot easier.

I know that prepping before the semester is frowned upon too, but I plan to read some overviews of constitutional law, property, and crim law before the semester starts. I want to get a sense of the forest before delving into the trees. My courses made a lot more sense after the general overview clicked, and if I can get that earlier, I might have a better semester.

[swc65]

until grades come back I am not sure of what all I am going to change. The only thing I am certain of is not taking as many practice tests. I am so sick of studying from taking every practice exam available in all of my classes. I have done almost nothing in the past two days but play StarCraft because I just cannot look at a book or outline!

[goosey]

I actually created a memo like this as I studied, because I didnt want to forget, heres what I have without grades:

1. outlining as you go=best decision ever, but this time I will add to that: after each section, I'm going to just practice writing about it in word to teach it to myself and get comfortable writing it out.
Also, for open book exams I will pre-write answers as we go (after looking at a few model answers to see the format)--I'll go through them at the end of the semester and edit as I see fit to make connections with topics that were covered later.
2. I will finish all my reading a few weeks before the end of the term and start practice tests
3. I will re-read the casebooks before finals
4. work out every day--I absolutely have to..getting married in June, must lose 40 pounds
5. ignore what other people say, they're usually wrong
6. in the beginning of the semester, I paid more attention to cases and would take notes on post-its as I read, especially regarding application of the rule. I stopped doing that mid-way through and wish I hadn't. I feel like I learned a lot more when I did that. of course, if I do well, there is no reason to do this.

things I found myself being glad I did when finals prep rolled around:
1. this seems like a small thing, but I was glad I did it: I had separate sections for case briefs and one for class notes, on the top of the cases, I just typed what topic the case dealt with, or the rule that came out of it..I don't know why, but that just helped infinite amounts

2. outlining throughout

3. doing cali lessons/using the study smart software as we finished topics


3. if a professor offers feedback on something, take it. if a legal writing professor says you have the option of a re-write just for feedback but it wont be graded, do it! Im glad I did.

4. figuring out exactly [and I mean exactlyyyy] what the professor wants...I dont know how I did yet, but it made taking exams infinitely less stressful


Lastly: I think that on exams, if you dont know how something would play out, its much better for your mindset overall to just write "I'm not really sure how this would work, but.." and then reason it out with what you know. I found that I get much more freaked out to the point that it effects the rest of my performance if I am too focused on sounding liking I know it all to a T and that there is a right answer. One thing I learned this semester [and through looking at model answers] is that two A's can say totally opposite things, and there is no right answer, as long as you make sense and speak about the topic intelligently. Theres no reason to freak out because you dont remember a rule..just talk it through. I think if you go to class all semester and do what you're supposed to do, you know much more than you think you do

[Sogui]

I'm not changing jack shit until I see my grades.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Objection!

Quidquid latine dictum, altum videtur

Furthermore, since study habits are all we can change, and general indicators of intelligence show that we are all capable of scoring above median, study habits are thus the only controllable cause for how we might shape future consequences in grades and how we can interpret our past failures.

[Stanford4Me]

Quidquid latine dictum, altum videtur

I had to google that. I guess that's why you go to CLS and I go to NYU.

[stayway]

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

--ImageRemoved--

[chango]

I'm not changing jack shit until I see my grades.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Objection!

Quidquid latine dictum, altum videtur

Furthermore, since study habits are all we can change, and general indicators of intelligence show that we are all capable of scoring above median, study habits are thus the only controllable cause for how we might shape future consequences in grades and how we can interpret our past failures.

Yeah, I get that. But I was interpreting beach_terror's statement, "i'm not changing jack shit until I see my grades" as not so much about past failure, as about past success. If grades are good; no change necessary?

I intend to make adjustments no matter how good/bad my grades end up.