job during 1l? Forum

[uhwrestler]

hey guys i saw a cool online internship (its partially law related) unpaid that requires 10 hours a week of work.

would that be too much to handle during 1l year?

[RedPurpleBlue]

Don't worry about internships during 1L. Focus on your grades. You ending in the top 1/2 of your class at Cornell is going to be a lot more beneficial when looking for jobs than some unpaid 10hr/wk. internship. Plus, 1L is notoriously stressful anyway, so there's no real reason to tie up any more free time than you need to.

[eck456]

Don't worry about internships during 1L. Focus on your grades. You ending in the top 1/2 of your class at Cornell is going to be a lot more beneficial when looking for jobs than some unpaid 10hr/wk. internship. Plus, 1L is notoriously stressful anyway, so there's no real reason to tie up any more free time than you need to.

Just to follow this up, though, when people talk about no jobs during 1L are they including research for professors and stuff? Or is the thought more typical, office roles?

[cavalier1138]

Don't worry about internships during 1L. Focus on your grades. You ending in the top 1/2 of your class at Cornell is going to be a lot more beneficial when looking for jobs than some unpaid 10hr/wk. internship. Plus, 1L is notoriously stressful anyway, so there's no real reason to tie up any more free time than you need to.

Just to follow this up, though, when people talk about no jobs during 1L are they including research for professors and stuff? Or is the thought more typical, office roles?

The thought is that you shouldn't add anything to your schedule without knowing how much time class and class prep is going to take. At least give yourself the first semester to figure things out. Also, I can't imagine a professor who would want a 1L doing substantive work for them.

OP: your option is doubly bad. You won't even get paid, so there's literally no benefit to losing 10 hours a week of study time.

[eck456]

Don't worry about internships during 1L. Focus on your grades. You ending in the top 1/2 of your class at Cornell is going to be a lot more beneficial when looking for jobs than some unpaid 10hr/wk. internship. Plus, 1L is notoriously stressful anyway, so there's no real reason to tie up any more free time than you need to.

Just to follow this up, though, when people talk about no jobs during 1L are they including research for professors and stuff? Or is the thought more typical, office roles?

The thought is that you shouldn't add anything to your schedule without knowing how much time class and class prep is going to take. At least give yourself the first semester to figure things out. Also, I can't imagine a professor who would want a 1L doing substantive work for them.

OP: your option is doubly bad. You won't even get paid, so there's literally no benefit to losing 10 hours a week of study time.

Yeah, I'm a dual degree so I've already been at the university for a year and have connections w research centers/ professors I'd be working with, so I'm in a slightly different position than most 1Ls who are just rolling onto campus. But definitely the seeing-how-classes go, settling in, etc makes sense to me. Is it really that uncommon for 1Ls to do research tho, even if they are just starting out? I just can't think of a another grad program except maybe med school where first years really just do nothing but study and class work. But could be just betraying my ignorance about 1L schedules/ challenges...

[cavalier1138]

Is it really that uncommon for 1Ls to do research tho, even if they are just starting out? I just can't think of a another grad program except maybe med school where first years really just do nothing but study and class work. But could be just betraying my ignorance about 1L schedules/ challenges...

Law school and medical school are both professional training programs, not just graduate schools. But yes, it would be weird for a law professor to enlist a 1L for research, mainly because it would be like hiring a puppy. The student would probably be cute and earnest, but they'd spend most of their time running in to walls and chewing on the furniture.

[A. Nony Mouse]

I know of profs hiring 1Ls for research if they have some kind of relevant experience (like a related advanced degree). Most don't. Also, a lot of schools forbid students from working 1L (whether you want to obey that is up to you, but it's one reason 1Ls often don't). 1L grades are the most important for many law students (i.e. those who want a biglaw job through OCI), plus there is a learning curve for 1L, so no outside work makes sense if you can swing it (at least the first semester).

[fiercegoldfish]

Don't worry about internships during 1L. Focus on your grades. You ending in the top 1/2 of your class at Cornell is going to be a lot more beneficial when looking for jobs than some unpaid 10hr/wk. internship. Plus, 1L is notoriously stressful anyway, so there's no real reason to tie up any more free time than you need to.

Just to follow this up, though, when people talk about no jobs during 1L are they including research for professors and stuff? Or is the thought more typical, office roles?

The thought is that you shouldn't add anything to your schedule without knowing how much time class and class prep is going to take. At least give yourself the first semester to figure things out. Also, I can't imagine a professor who would want a 1L doing substantive work for them.

OP: your option is doubly bad. You won't even get paid, so there's literally no benefit to losing 10 hours a week of study time.

Just one data point, but I (and a good number of friends) did research for professors during second semester 1L. It definitely would have been harder to fit in first semester though, and the research most of us did was also only about 5 hours a week.

[flashdril]

Don't worry about internships during 1L. Focus on your grades. You ending in the top 1/2 of your class at Cornell is going to be a lot more beneficial when looking for jobs than some unpaid 10hr/wk. internship. Plus, 1L is notoriously stressful anyway, so there's no real reason to tie up any more free time than you need to.

Just to follow this up, though, when people talk about no jobs during 1L are they including research for professors and stuff? Or is the thought more typical, office roles?

A lot of schools won't even let 1Ls do this without permission from the Dean.