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

[romothesavior]

Not drink, never go out, stop TLSing, deactivate FB.

Don't be that guy. I feel like you're being sucked in by the dark side of law school. Fight the urge.

I might go this route somewhat . . . even without grades back. So far my only hard commitment is to try and miss 40+ less classes than last semester, and take much much better class notes.

I think there will be some tapering off of my partying, mostly because I don't feel the need to go out and meet people and socialize like I did last semester. But I think part of the reason I had a good first semester was because I didn't lose sight of who I am and why I'm here, and I refuse to let law school ruin my fun. Last semester (save the last 4-5 weeks) was a blast.

[09042014]

If my Tort comes back good, I'm never making an outline again.

[Mickey Quicknumbers]

If my Tort comes back good, I'm never making an outline again.

I vowed to make all of my own outlines this semester.

Then I downloaded an outline that is literally quoting every significant point the professor is making.

Part of me wants to take good notes and make my own outline anyways. But all of me is just following along with it in class and adding/editing it as need be.

[09042014]

If my Tort comes back good, I'm never making an outline again.

I vowed to make all of my own outlines this semester.

Then I downloaded an outline that is literally quoting every significant point the professor is making.

Part of me wants to take good notes and make my own outline anyways. But all of me is just following along with it in class and adding/editing it as need be.

My best grade came in a class wehre I just used someones outline for, and crammed three days before the test. I didn't take notes in class, and barely read.

The classes I worked ahead in, I did worse.

I think for me, I need a good outline (I might not be able to make one myself), and I need to memorize it.

[Mickey Quicknumbers]

If my Tort comes back good, I'm never making an outline again.

I vowed to make all of my own outlines this semester.

Then I downloaded an outline that is literally quoting every significant point the professor is making.

Part of me wants to take good notes and make my own outline anyways. But all of me is just following along with it in class and adding/editing it as need be.

My best grade came in a class wehre I just used someones outline for, and crammed three days before the test. I didn't take notes in class, and barely read.

The classes I worked ahead in, I did worse.

I think for me, I need a good outline (I might not be able to make one myself), and I need to memorize it.

I think I'm the same way. My brain just isn't wired in an organized fashion where I can make effective outlines myself. But if I can find a good one, my forte is raw memorization of mass information.

+1 the slacking as the preferred method

[HarlandBassett]

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.

What is an "attack outline"

[marija]

[mbusch22]

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.

What is an "attack outline"

I'd say he/she's talking about a much shorter outline/list of points/issues to quickly reference while taking the exam, as opposed to lugging in the long cumbersome outline used for studying purposes.

I do this too: outline all semester, then make "mini" or "attack" outlines around exams. Worked great for me.

[beach_terror]

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.

What is an "attack outline"

I'd say he/she's talking about a much shorter outline/list of points/issues to quickly reference while taking the exam, as opposed to lugging in the long cumbersome outline used for studying purposes.

I do this too: outline all semester, then make "mini" or "attack" outlines around exams. Worked great for me.

+1 the class I did this for resulted in my best grade. I'm definitely going to repeat this for all of my classes this semester.

[BarbellDreams]

I planned on not kicking it into high gear until like late March but we have a writing assignment in Con Law to go along with the appellate brief in a month and I am finding myself in the library till 9 almost everyday. Burnout here I come.

[traehekat]

+1 for "attack" outlines.

[Grizz]

+1 for "attack" outlines.

Whelp, looks like I need to do this.

[Stanford4Me]

Minimizing the partying. Only because it's too expensive. Also gonna start outlining a lot earlier than I did last semester, and I'm not going to be afraid to look at previous exams earlier during the semester to try and gauge what I should be focusing on in class.

[keg411]

+1 for "attack" outlines.

I do this too. But I got pretty obsessive on outlining/organization towards the end.

Also, the best thing I did last semester was talking to profs about a PT prior the start of reading period. The one class I skimped on this in was my worst final exam grade.

[romothesavior]

+1 for "attack" outlines.

Yeah, I think they're especially helpful in classes where you learn very specific causes of action, tests, and rules (like in torts or Civ Pro). My torts one was pretty good.

[Sogui]

+1 for "attack" outlines.

Seriously, this is on my "must do" checklist for this semester. The only thing I'm still not settled on is the exact style/format I want to use for mine.

I have yet to hear the suggestion of "make an attack outline like I did" come from someone who isn't in the top 25% of the class. It also fits with the experience I had. I would have killed for a short, concise guide for to respond to the major class topics that inevitably show up on exams.

[Borhas]

I was very happy w/ my results, but there are still some minor tweeks to be made

goals:
spend less time reading, more time being up to date on outlines by the end of the second month, take practice tests regularly and stay up to date the month before exams, and memorize outlines the days before the exam.

Pass moot court, do not try to excel at the cost of other classes

less focus on study groups, relegate them to practice test time

stop giving a shit about supplements

things to keep the same:
keep taking notes by hand
go to class every day
read all the assignments carefully

quoted for what I actually do now

I'm basically just keeping up so that I can study a shit ton right before exams. I do my readings immediately before class. Take notes, but read the news and surf the internet during class. I rely heavily on supplements in at least one class, and probably two in a little while.

It's awesome. I feel so much more efficient. I don't think my grades will improve, but I don't think they will be that bad, and with a little luck I think I can probably keep them the same.

[kswiss]

+1 for "attack" outlines.

Seriously, this is on my "must do" checklist for this semester. The only thing I'm still not settled on is the exact style/format I want to use for mine.

I have yet to hear the suggestion of "make an attack outline like I did" come from someone who isn't in the top 25% of the class. It also fits with the experience I had. I would have killed for a short, concise guide for to respond to the major class topics that inevitably show up on exams.

Attack outlines are the best test taking efficiency tool there is, but they are a product of good studying, not a replacement. Basically, you have like a 20-30 page concise outline of the course, and you distill it down to a page.

Mine was set up in outline format by discrete issue. For example in torts if there was a battery, it would list the elements, and then under each element anything that I wanted to talk about no matter what, or different paths of analysis that I could go down. I would bold or star things that would allow for the most analysis since they are ambiguous, such as "apprehension" in assault. I'd put case sites in parenthesis to earn brownie points by dropping them in when there were analogous facts.

Then, come test time, I had my big outline sitting there and I didn't touch it once for any of my tests. But the point of the attack outline is that you basically have your big one memorized, so the small one just triggers all of the information that you already have at your fingertips. It won't work if you don't have your big one memorized.

As an aside, I think a lot of people miss the point of studying. Yes, you have to know the elements, cases, etc. But really you have to be so comfortable with the material that you know what a question is asking. I think this is what sets test takers apart; it is about finding the obscure issues that no one else does. For example (to continue with the torts examples), my torts prof set up this perfect res ipsa loquitur fact pattern within a larger med malp question, where 2 nurses were employed by the hospital and the doctor was a independent contractor. All of them had a duty toward the patient and all of them could have prevented the harm if they had acted, but alone there was only a 1/3 chance that any of them could have done it.

No one I talked to after figured out that the prof was setting it up perfectly, since the hospital could be sued based on the conduct of the two nurses under respondeat superior, so if you sued the hospital you could use the res ipsa loquitor doctrine even if there was no direct evidence of who did it.

To get that answer, you have to know med malp, negligence in general, respondeat superior, and res ipsa loquitor.

tl;dr: the procedural aspects of studying don't matter as much. You have to know the course so well substantively that the issues should seriously jump out at you as you read the fact pattern. At that point analysis is easy.

[Holly Golightly]

I'm going to start being a good student...next week.

[HarlandBassett]

tl;dr: the procedural aspects of studying don't matter as much. You have to know the course so well substantively that the issues should seriously jump out at you as you read the fact pattern. At that point analysis is easy.

--ImageRemoved--

[mbusch22]

+1 for "attack" outlines.

Seriously, this is on my "must do" checklist for this semester. The only thing I'm still not settled on is the exact style/format I want to use for mine.

I have yet to hear the suggestion of "make an attack outline like I did" come from someone who isn't in the top 25% of the class. It also fits with the experience I had. I would have killed for a short, concise guide for to respond to the major class topics that inevitably show up on exams.

Attack outlines are the best test taking efficiency tool there is, but they are a product of good studying, not a replacement. Basically, you have like a 20-30 page concise outline of the course, and you distill it down to a page.

Mine was set up in outline format by discrete issue. For example in torts if there was a battery, it would list the elements, and then under each element anything that I wanted to talk about no matter what, or different paths of analysis that I could go down. I would bold or star things that would allow for the most analysis since they are ambiguous, such as "apprehension" in assault. I'd put case sites in parenthesis to earn brownie points by dropping them in when there were analogous facts.

Then, come test time, I had my big outline sitting there and I didn't touch it once for any of my tests. But the point of the attack outline is that you basically have your big one memorized, so the small one just triggers all of the information that you already have at your fingertips. It won't work if you don't have your big one memorized.

As an aside, I think a lot of people miss the point of studying. Yes, you have to know the elements, cases, etc. But really you have to be so comfortable with the material that you know what a question is asking. I think this is what sets test takers apart; it is about finding the obscure issues that no one else does. For example (to continue with the torts examples), my torts prof set up this perfect res ipsa loquitur fact pattern within a larger med malp question, where 2 nurses were employed by the hospital and the doctor was a independent contractor. All of them had a duty toward the patient and all of them could have prevented the harm if they had acted, but alone there was only a 1/3 chance that any of them could have done it.

No one I talked to after figured out that the prof was setting it up perfectly, since the hospital could be sued based on the conduct of the two nurses under respondeat superior, so if you sued the hospital you could use the res ipsa loquitor doctrine even if there was no direct evidence of who did it.

To get that answer, you have to know med malp, negligence in general, respondeat superior, and res ipsa loquitor.

tl;dr: the procedural aspects of studying don't matter as much. You have to know the course so well substantively that the issues should seriously jump out at you as you read the fact pattern. At that point analysis is easy.

+1
I couldn't agree with this more.