Does taking time off before law school lead to better grades Forum

[TLSModBot]

feel free to tweak 'academic mode' to y'all's personal definitions but the fact is that an exam that you have to self-study for decides your outcome- so you probably should be in academic mode not 'i need to work and pay the bills ' mode.

how the fuck does working for a year improve your grades? some of you are just trying to justify your choice of taking off

False dichotomy - it's not 'work for one year' vs. 'no work.'

More accurately, the best answer is 'go to law school when you are at your peak ability and are sure you want to go down this road.'

For some, that's right out of college. Others, after a year. Still more, many more years after that. Can't say categorically one way or the other whether it affects your grades, but I'd be very surprised if it hurt in any situation, and in most it probably helps even just a little.

my sister has been out of school for 7 years, worked, and is noticeably dumber now. completely unhelpful anecdote but working for longer than a year seems like it would make you even rustier.

the only argument that can be made for it improving your grades is if you were burnt out by school, took a year break, realize work sucks, then got back interested in school

Or not, if you read upthread. You make a couple assumptions:

1. That people are hard workers in undergrad and not total drunken slackers who treat it like kindergarten
2. The working provides no positive experience related to good school habits
3. outside work experience is in no way relevant to law school subject material ever.

Regarding number 2 - If you develop a healthy work habit in your time out, you may be more focused to do things like doing the reading, going to class, outlining material, etc. It did that for me (fighting anecdata with anecdata! woo!). If you work at McDonald's and do nothing else with your life at all ever, you may indeed 'get rusty,' but no one seriously does that who is also interested in law school. Instead you may get better at a lot of peripheral skills that positively contribute like multi-tasking, professional writing, etc.

Number 3 is admittedly more rare - but in my case discovery consulting helped considerably with Civ Pro, and my personal interest in the case law beforehand helped me with reading comprehension efficiency later on.

[starry eyed]

feel free to tweak 'academic mode' to y'all's personal definitions but the fact is that an exam that you have to self-study for decides your outcome- so you probably should be in academic mode not 'i need to work and pay the bills ' mode.

how the fuck does working for a year improve your grades? some of you are just trying to justify your choice of taking off

False dichotomy - it's not 'work for one year' vs. 'no work.'

More accurately, the best answer is 'go to law school when you are at your peak ability and are sure you want to go down this road.'

For some, that's right out of college. Others, after a year. Still more, many more years after that. Can't say categorically one way or the other whether it affects your grades, but I'd be very surprised if it hurt in any situation, and in most it probably helps even just a little.

my sister has been out of school for 7 years, worked, and is noticeably dumber now. completely unhelpful anecdote but working for longer than a year seems like it would make you even rustier.

the only argument that can be made for it improving your grades is if you were burnt out by school, took a year break, realize work sucks, then got back interested in school

Or not, if you read upthread. You make a couple assumptions:

1. That people are hard workers in undergrad and not total drunken slackers who treat it like kindergarten
2. The working provides no positive experience related to good school habits
3. outside work experience is in no way relevant to law school subject material ever.

Regarding number 2 - If you develop a healthy work habit in your time out, you may be more focused to do things like doing the reading, going to class, outlining material, etc. It did that for me (fighting anecdata with anecdata! woo!). If you work at McDonald's and do nothing else with your life at all ever, you may indeed 'get rusty,' but no one seriously does that who is also interested in law school. Instead you may get better at a lot of peripheral skills that positively contribute like multi-tasking, professional writing, etc.

Number 3 is admittedly more rare - but in my case discovery consulting helped considerably with Civ Pro, and my personal interest in the case law beforehand helped me with reading comprehension efficiency later on.

appreciate the implication that my sister works at mcdonalds, she a phelps paralegal. i guess i just like school more than work unless it's a position of real responsibility.

i can google how to study for law school exams, your study habits you developed give you very little 'edge'

[TLSModBot]

appreciate the implication that my sister works at mcdonalds, she a phelps paralegal. i guess i just like school more than work unless it's a position of real responsibility.

i can google how to study for law school exams, your study habits you developed mean nothing

That was unintended re: your sister - sorry for poor phrasing.

Are you K-JD? No one is saying W/E people are necessarily better than K-JDs. No one's attacking any particular person's choices or abilities.

You do understand, though, that a blanket assertion that work experience can never be helpful for anyone in any context ever is just ridiculous, right? Still focusing just on the grades and not on external things like getting hired or really understanding what you're getting into re: law school, just fucking lol @ 'google replaces maturity gained through life experience.' I simply don't have the words.

[starry eyed]

i am k-jd and i realize that 80% or so of law students have w/e and that translates to almost 80% on tls having w/e and it gets overrepresented i feel.

It is a good way to see if you want to be a lawyer or not; let's not go much further than that.

and possibly helps a little at OCI i concede- by being able to sell that you want to be a lawyer

[Effingham]

the generally accepted advice re getting good grades in law school is to treat it like a 9-5ish job, shockingly, having a 9-5ish job for a few years prior to law school helps you to adapt to this type of life style - as opposed to college where most lib arts majors could screw around for 85% of the year and then write a paper.

this thread should have ended after this:

lol @ being in 'academic mode' at undergrad. Essentially, if you're already a hard worker and accomplished student, I don't think W/E is going to help you. If, like me, you were a shiftless slacker, work experience gives you time to prioritize shit and get some focus.

So it doesn't PER SE lead to improved performance, nor does it guarantee it, but to say it NECESSARILY does nothing for you is disingenuous.

[starry eyed]

ljl at starry eyed in this thread. the generally accepted advice re getting good grades in law school is to treat it like a 9-5ish job, shockingly, having a 9-5ish job for a few years prior to law school helps you to adapt to this type of life style - as opposed to college where most lib arts majors could screw around for 85% of the year and then write a paper. "academic mode" and anecdotes about your sister, why do you think you're contributing to this conversation?

this thread should have ended after this:

lol @ being in 'academic mode' at undergrad. Essentially, if you're already a hard worker and accomplished student, I don't think W/E is going to help you. If, like me, you were a shiftless slacker, work experience gives you time to prioritize shit and get some focus.

So it doesn't PER SE lead to improved performance, nor does it guarantee it, but to say it NECESSARILY does nothing for you is disingenuous.

solid take down bro- you're assuming that people can't adjust very well... jesus how many baby steps do you need?

[Effingham]

I tried to edit it to avoid getting stuck in a meaningless fight, but whatever, it's there now.

dude, you're not even in LS. How could you possibly have an idea about this question?

[TLSModBot]

I think this thread is over now; the positions are clear and future readers, if any, can see how it all plays out. Let starry-eyed have his last word and let's be done with it.

[starry eyed]

fair edit...

how can you know that it was good thing that you worked prior?

how do you know you're not just looking back trying to justify working but really you would have done the same all along, or even better... and be 4-6 years younger.

[chuckbass]

There's no data, and anecdotally, there is no correlation.

/thread

[TLSModBot]

There's no data, and anecdotally, there is no correlation.

/thread

#ScottiWasRight

[hdunlop]

fair edit...

how can you know that it was good thing that you worked prior?

how do you know you're not just looking back trying to justify working but really you would have done the same all along, or even better... and be 4-6 years younger.

P. self-evident that it's much easier to look backward than forward