Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions Forum

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roranoa

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by roranoa » Mon Aug 12, 2013 1:05 am

Mista Bojangles wrote:yeesh. can we please once and for all halt this nonsense about suk being "gorgeous" or for that matter even attractive? i don't understand people's gushing over her.

she has a harmless, matronly kind of look to her, but only when judged among a bunch of other law professors could she possibly be found sexually attractive.


judge for yourself, 0Ls, before you get dem law school goggles:


Image
LOL. I went through a few pages back to see how many ppl brought this up and only like a couple of ppl did. I think you're overreacting :)
BTW, she does look pretty good for her age. She's like what, 40?

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by Mista Bojangles » Mon Aug 12, 2013 5:59 am

roranoa wrote:
Mista Bojangles wrote:yeesh. can we please once and for all halt this nonsense about suk being "gorgeous" or for that matter even attractive? i don't understand people's gushing over her.

she has a harmless, matronly kind of look to her, but only when judged among a bunch of other law professors could she possibly be found sexually attractive.


judge for yourself, 0Ls, before you get dem law school goggles:


Image
LOL. I went through a few pages back to see how many ppl brought this up and only like a couple of ppl did. I think you're overreacting :)
BTW, she does look pretty good for her age. She's like what, 40?
lol. Believe me, it's hardly confined to this thread. There exists at HLS a whole sub-culture of Suk worship (which was parodied quite well in the annual spring play). It's constituted primarily by males who, I suspect, get off to her savage cold-calling style like S&M slaves

roranoa

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by roranoa » Mon Aug 12, 2013 6:17 am

Mista Bojangles wrote: lol. Believe me, it's hardly confined to this thread. There exists at HLS a whole sub-culture of Suk worship (which was parodied quite well in the annual spring play). It's constituted primarily by males who, I suspect, get off to her savage cold-calling style like S&M slaves
How do you pronounce her name btw? Is it "SUCK" or "SOOK"?

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by Searchparty » Mon Aug 12, 2013 7:29 am

pillowcase33 wrote:
Lovely Ludwig Van wrote:Kinda late to ask this, but are lockers recommended for people living in North?

Thanks to everybody who's answered questions!
I may be wrong, but I had the impression that people who lived in dorms couldn't sign up for lockers.
North is an exception

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by 094320 » Mon Aug 12, 2013 12:40 pm

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edgeofthenight

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by edgeofthenight » Mon Aug 12, 2013 5:38 pm

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Last edited by edgeofthenight on Thu Sep 05, 2013 8:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by Searchparty » Mon Aug 12, 2013 6:28 pm

edgeofthenight wrote:I've been skimming through the last few pages and am starting to get a touch nervous about academics... please forgive me if these have already been answered:

1) Where does one go about acquiring outlines/old exams? I've seen some references to looking online, student organizations, and HLS keeping records - where/how do you get them? And at what point is it socially acceptable to start asking around for one? (my horribly-anxiety-prone-self wants them now, but I imagine that's probably not a good idea...)

2) What do 1L exams typically look like? I'm Section 4 (Ferrell, Robertson, Stephenson, Rubenstein, Mack, Suk) if that matters. I've been operating under the assumption it's an essay/short answer type deal.

Sorry for how basic and probably already answered these are - I completely coasted through undergrad and the reality of how much that is not going to happen at HLS is catching up with me.

ETA: Just something I'm curious about - does your section assignment have anything to do with your career/academic interests? Suk seems to have a really strong background in what I want to do professionally and I'm just wondering if I was placed with her on purpose or if it's just a really awesome coincidence.
I know that if you go to the page where they have the exam schedules (google "hls exam") they have exam questions from previous exams.

Here's the most recent year.

https://www.law.harvard.edu/academics/r ... opies.html

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pupshaw

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by pupshaw » Mon Aug 12, 2013 6:46 pm

edgeofthenight wrote:I've been skimming through the last few pages and am starting to get a touch nervous about academics... please forgive me if these have already been answered:

1) Where does one go about acquiring outlines/old exams? I've seen some references to looking online, student organizations, and HLS keeping records - where/how do you get them? And at what point is it socially acceptable to start asking around for one? (my horribly-anxiety-prone-self wants them now, but I imagine that's probably not a good idea...)

2) What do 1L exams typically look like? I'm Section 4 (Ferrell, Robertson, Stephenson, Rubenstein, Mack, Suk) if that matters. I've been operating under the assumption it's an essay/short answer type deal.

Sorry for how basic and probably already answered these are - I completely coasted through undergrad and the reality of how much that is not going to happen at HLS is catching up with me.

ETA: Just something I'm curious about - does your section assignment have anything to do with your career/academic interests? Suk seems to have a really strong background in what I want to do professionally and I'm just wondering if I was placed with her on purpose or if it's just a really awesome coincidence.
It was a coincidence that you were placed with Suk.

As far as getting outlines, as you mentioned a lot of student organizations have large exam/outline banks that you can get access to if you join. In particular, ACS and Fed Soc have pretty substantial databases, so depending on which way you lean you might think about one of those. That said, someone in your section will have access to these, and in my experience people have no problem sharing the outlines.

Don't know about those professors in particular, but exams are generally either 3 hour in class exams, or word-count limited 8 hour take home exams. Both will be largely essay based, with some variation depending on the professor.

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edgeofthenight

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by edgeofthenight » Mon Aug 12, 2013 7:04 pm

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polareagle

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by polareagle » Mon Aug 12, 2013 7:31 pm

edgeofthenight wrote:Thanks to both of you! Looking at the exams was definitely a stress reducer.
Really?!? Did you see this gem? https://www.law.harvard.edu/academics/r ... onahue.pdf

Granted, not one of our professors, and also I found it pretty funny, but I have a feeling I would not have if I had to get graded on it... :?

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edgeofthenight

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by edgeofthenight » Mon Aug 12, 2013 7:49 pm

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by tomwatts » Mon Aug 12, 2013 8:02 pm

I suppose I should repeat this from last year: if you have anyone who taught section 1 two years ago (Manning, Mann, Lanni) and want all my materials (notes, outlines, etc.), PM me. You certainly don't need it yet, but if you have Mann or Lanni in the fall, you may want it around the time that classes start.

EDIT: Include an email address so that I can send attachments.
Last edited by tomwatts on Tue Aug 13, 2013 1:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

MAHamlin

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by MAHamlin » Mon Aug 12, 2013 9:35 pm

For those planning on using public transit regularly, the deadline to purchase a discounted pass through HLS is September 1:

--LinkRemoved--

Also, does anyone with experience with Boston's mass transit have any advice? I'll be living in Belmont and commuting to Cambridge by bus. It doesn't appear that the bus would be an inner or outer express bus, but I'm not certain about that. Will a local bus pass be sufficient for my needs? Will I regret not getting the Inner/Outer Express pass? Should I expect to use the commuter rails often enough to justify adding them to my monthly pass? The step up from local bus pass to Zone 1 commuter rail pass is pretty big (~$95/mo). Any advice would be tremendously appreciated as I'm entirely new to public transit.

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by justinp » Mon Aug 12, 2013 11:16 pm

edgeofthenight wrote:
polareagle wrote:
edgeofthenight wrote:Thanks to both of you! Looking at the exams was definitely a stress reducer.
Really?!? Did you see this gem? https://www.law.harvard.edu/academics/r ... onahue.pdf

Granted, not one of our professors, and also I found it pretty funny, but I have a feeling I would not have if I had to get graded on it... :?
Bahaha, oh my god, I did not see that one. Professors must have a blast writing these.

I don't know, even that one strikes me as decently straight-forward in what the professor is looking for (even if the thought of picking through all of those details gives me a headache). I've never been a fan of anything too open-ended.
Oh honey...

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by GertrudeR » Tue Aug 13, 2013 11:58 am

I'm having trouble finding textbooks on any of the various sites for used books that are cheaper than buying used from the coop. It would seem the better option to buy from them and have the convenience of not getting them shipped, but I'm wondering how often the used books are not available from the Coop?

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MyNameIsFlynn!

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by MyNameIsFlynn! » Tue Aug 13, 2013 2:07 pm

GertrudeR wrote:I'm having trouble finding textbooks on any of the various sites for used books that are cheaper than buying used from the coop. It would seem the better option to buy from them and have the convenience of not getting them shipped, but I'm wondering how often the used books are not available from the Coop?
Tip: Textbook Spyder.

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by despina » Tue Aug 13, 2013 2:30 pm

Random stuff...

1. I was under the impression that "Suk" rhymes with "book" but I could be wrong.

2. Donahue's exams are anything but straightforward... but remember, they're graded on a curve just like anybody else's, so Rubenstein's truly straightforward exams are actually much "harder" to do well on since everybody actually knows CivPro by the end of the class and can figure out all the key issues, whereas nobody knows wtf is going on in Property and it's anybody's guess who will get the H. Also, supposedly R always gives a bunch of LP's while D doesn't necessarily give any.

3. Everybody calm right on down about exams and outlines. Some people do like to look at outlines during the course -- I never looked at any until I started studying a few weeks before exams and I did just fine. Looking at exams and outlines right now, before class even starts, is just going to stress you out unnecessarily and make you feel like you "should" be doing something to prepare or that you're behind if you're just relaxing now. You shouldn't and you're not. You should be enjoying the rest of your summer and figuring out real logistical issues like public transit and buying textbooks online. Probably one of the worst thing I did to stress myself out 1L year was opening the exam bank in September -- it just made me panic and feel like I was already behind, while it didn't give me any insight into how to prepare for class or ace exams.

4. For the bus pass question, this page explains each one: http://www.mbta.com/fares_and_passes/passes/
You will NOT use the commuter rail regularly (unless you like to go to, say, Providence every weekend?) so that definitely doesn't make sense. I'm pretty sure all you want is the local bus pass one.

5. Section assignments are supposedly random.

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tomwatts

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by tomwatts » Tue Aug 13, 2013 9:17 pm

despina wrote:3. Everybody calm right on down about exams and outlines. Some people do like to look at outlines during the course -- I never looked at any until I started studying a few weeks before exams and I did just fine. Looking at exams and outlines right now, before class even starts, is just going to stress you out unnecessarily and make you feel like you "should" be doing something to prepare or that you're behind if you're just relaxing now. You shouldn't and you're not. You should be enjoying the rest of your summer and figuring out real logistical issues like public transit and buying textbooks online. Probably one of the worst thing I did to stress myself out 1L year was opening the exam bank in September -- it just made me panic and feel like I was already behind, while it didn't give me any insight into how to prepare for class or ace exams.
On this point, I want to say something that is not directly in contradiction to this, but runs sort of the opposite direction. I bring this up only because I wanted to do a little bit of reading up on things in August, but I felt inhibited because people said that it was a terrible idea and I shouldn't and it would be really bad and so on.

No one needs to be looking at exams and outlines and such now. Classes don't start for three weeks. But if you feel like it, it wouldn't be harmful to look at an exam or an outline or someone's class notes from a previous year right around the time classes are starting, as long as you're not neurotic about it. Law school is not some mystical experience in which knowledge must be withheld from the uninitiated. You just have to bear in mind that early in the semester you're not going to know anywhere near enough to answer exam questions, and you probably aren't going to be able to do anything like a proper outline yet. (I started outlining really early, and I didn't start until October.)

Even in September, though, you can still get a general sense as to what the exam will look like, and you can see how someone else has approached the problem of outlining for the course. Take everything with a grain of salt, of course, because everyone does these things a little differently, and someone's outline may not be very good even if that person got an H (or even a DS), so you may have to adjust what that person did. But you can still get a sense as to what's going on, and you can get a more global picture of how what you're doing from day to day is going to fit into what you're going to have to do at the end of the course. For some people, not knowing is more stressful than knowing.

Also, apparently most people don't take real class notes, but I do, and if you can get ahold of those for someone who had the same professor as you, those tell you what class discussion is going to focus on for pretty much every day and every case. That can be useful from the first day of class, even if you have no thought in your head about exam prep yet.

Finally, if you're curious, there's no harm in poking around even now (in mid-August), but do it because you're interested and want to, not because you feel like you need to. You don't need to. There's nothing that you can do now that will put you ahead of the curve in any meaningful way. But if you feel like learning what it means to brief a case for class, you could read general descriptions about that now. (Google will pop up answers to that for you.) If you want to go as far as reading Getting to Maybe now, there's no harm in it, though you'll probably understand about 25% of what the authors are saying and have to read it again in November. It doesn't give you any advantage, but if you want to, don't hold yourself back because you're worried about something or other.

In other words, don't let judgmental people, especially on TLS, tell you what to do or what not to do. What you do or don't do in August will not help you or hurt you for the exam in December, so do whatever you feel like. And there are things you can do in late August (like learning how to prepare for class) that will make early September less awkward and confusing, though it will still be somewhat awkward and confusing.

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zdamico

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by zdamico » Wed Aug 14, 2013 2:22 am

People have posted thoughts on Section 1 professors for the Fall (Singer, Sargentich, Cohen). Any thoughts on Spring professors (Weinreb, Manning)?

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by despina » Wed Aug 14, 2013 9:44 am

tomwatts wrote:
despina wrote:3. Everybody calm right on down about exams and outlines. Some people do like to look at outlines during the course -- I never looked at any until I started studying a few weeks before exams and I did just fine. Looking at exams and outlines right now, before class even starts, is just going to stress you out unnecessarily and make you feel like you "should" be doing something to prepare or that you're behind if you're just relaxing now. You shouldn't and you're not. You should be enjoying the rest of your summer and figuring out real logistical issues like public transit and buying textbooks online. Probably one of the worst thing I did to stress myself out 1L year was opening the exam bank in September -- it just made me panic and feel like I was already behind, while it didn't give me any insight into how to prepare for class or ace exams.
On this point, I want to say something that is not directly in contradiction to this, but runs sort of the opposite direction. I bring this up only because I wanted to do a little bit of reading up on things in August, but I felt inhibited because people said that it was a terrible idea and I shouldn't and it would be really bad and so on.
In other words, don't let judgmental people, especially on TLS, tell you what to do or what not to do.
This is a really good point -- maybe in an effort to counteract what I saw as "oh my gosh I must figure out everything about exams right this second" I overreacted and went to the old "everyone must do what I did since it worked for me." Apologies for that. I 100% agree that there are a lot of ways to approach law school, and what worked for one person isn't necessarily right for everyone.

I also totally agree to take outlines with a grain of salt -- just because it's well-formatted or super-detailed doesn't mean it's great, and doesn't mean it puts the concepts in the way you personally would best understand them. And if you don't find something you like through outline banks, ask 2Ls and 3Ls -- most people will be happy to hook you up with somebody who knows somebody who had the prof last year.

One more small point... just that it's totally ok for the first few weeks to be awkward and confusing and overwhelming even if you did spend some time stressing / prepping in August. The earlier you have a terrible cold-call and get high-fives from your classmates afterwards (or puzzled looks because nobody besides you even remembers it), the earlier you get to exhale. :)

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by roranoa » Wed Aug 14, 2013 10:43 am

acrossthelake wrote:
roranoa wrote:
Mista Bojangles wrote: lol. Believe me, it's hardly confined to this thread. There exists at HLS a whole sub-culture of Suk worship (which was parodied quite well in the annual spring play). It's constituted primarily by males who, I suspect, get off to her savage cold-calling style like S&M slaves
How do you pronounce her name btw? Is it "SUCK" or "SOOK"?
Sook.
Hmmm.....doesn't sound like it.

Here's a link
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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by 094320 » Wed Aug 14, 2013 10:57 am

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Searchparty

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by Searchparty » Wed Aug 14, 2013 1:53 pm

acrossthelake wrote:
roranoa wrote:
acrossthelake wrote:
roranoa wrote:
Sook.
Hmmm.....doesn't sound like it.

Here's a link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cWjhESAxC4
Weird. That's how I heard people in her section pronounce it.
Honestly, it barely even sounds like "genie" when they say her first name. That video, I think, is a poor example of how to pronounce her name, especially because the narrator has an accent. I watched another youtube video where Dean Minow definitely pronounced it "Sook." Let's not forget that the name is Korean to begin with.. so the proper way to say it is probably somewhere in between with a Korean accent (joke).

Edit: see (really more like sock)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEYZkHmfEek

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by dcg2120 » Wed Aug 14, 2013 5:23 pm

What do people think about bike locks on and around campus (especially Somerville area)? Should I spring for a big U-lock or will a cable lock be enough?

And thanks again for all your help and advice!

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Re: Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions

Post by 4for44 » Wed Aug 14, 2013 5:29 pm

dcg2120 wrote:What do people think about bike locks on and around campus (especially Somerville area)? Should I spring for a big U-lock or will a cable lock be enough?

And thanks again for all your help and advice!
Definitely a U lock- I would be so annoyed if my bike got stolen, not even worth the risk.

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