dilemma - advice needed Forum

[Danger Zone]

Go to the wedding. But budget your studying time wisely. If you don't fuck about, you have plenty of time to study for finals.

Missing your friend's wedding after she asked you to be a bridesmaid would be extremely shitty.

[BigZuck]

Lol@ the notion that missing one day is going to screw you. If it was like a 5 day cruise or something I could see it. But it's one day.

If you were going to start grindmode on the day after Thanksgiving then just start griding the day before Thanksgiving. Problem solved.

This whole "1L is an all-consuming soul-sucking suckfest" is pure flame perpetuated for God knows what reason. You're going to have tons of free time outside of class time/studying and I would venture to say that if your classmates really are burning the candle on both ends you might actually be better off taking a day off before finals then if the alternative is to burn yourself out just like them.

Of course if you can't go without getting smashed or you think you will be miserable or whatever that's another story. But one day of not studying wont kill you or your grades as long as you plan accordingly.

[Danger Zone]

Lol@ the notion that missing one day is going to screw you. If it was like a 5 day cruise or something I could see it. But it's one day.

If you were going to start grindmode on the day after Thanksgiving then just start griding the day before Thanksgiving. Problem solved.

This whole "1L is an all-consuming soul-sucking suckfest" is pure flame perpetuated for God knows what reason. You're going to have tons of free time outside of class time/studying and I would venture to say that if your classmates really are burning the candle on both ends you might actually be better off taking a day off before finals then if the alternative is to burn yourself out just like them.

Of course if you can't go without getting smashed or you think you will be miserable or whatever that's another story. But one day of not studying wont kill you or your grades as long as you plan accordingly.

Yes. All of this.

[Puttanesca]

If your first final is not until Tuesday, and you want to go to the wedding, you should go. Maybe there is some kind of audio tape/CD/smartphone lecture you can listen to during your drive that is on the subject you have your first final on. That way, you get a good 4-6 hours of review.

I agree with everyone who said that 1L grades are important to what kind of job you can get right after law school, but at the same time, I think that the significance of 1L grades is overblown. 1L exams are not a life or death situation. 1L grades are not the biggest deal in the world, nor should they be the most significant thing over the course of your life. There is a life outside of law school. While 1L grades might seem super important now, 20 years down the road, no one is going to care what you got on your contracts exam.

[worldtraveler]

Go to the wedding. But budget your studying time wisely. If you don't fuck about, you have plenty of time to study for finals.

Missing your friend's wedding after she asked you to be a bridesmaid would be extremely shitty.

I agree with all of this.

I was a bridesmaid the day I took the LSAT. Stuff like this can be done.


Just tell your friend you really want to be there for her and will be there that day, but you can't do any other bridesmaid related tasks. Study while getting hair and make up done if you really need to.

If she's a close enough friend to ask you, then make it happen. Just head home early and get a good night's sleep.

And you can skip one day. People claiming you can't are insane.

[BigZuck]

Go to the wedding. But budget your studying time wisely. If you don't fuck about, you have plenty of time to study for finals.

Missing your friend's wedding after she asked you to be a bridesmaid would be extremely shitty.

I agree with all of this.

I was a bridesmaid the day I took the LSAT. Stuff like this can be done.


Just tell your friend you really want to be there for her and will be there that day, but you can't do any other bridesmaid related tasks. Study while getting hair and make up done if you really need to.

If she's a close enough friend to ask you, then make it happen. Just head home early and get a good night's sleep.

And you can skip one day. People claiming you can't are insane.

I don't know if its insanity so much as simply further evidence that law students literally are the worst.

[DELG]

I would sooner Skype into my own wedding than try to fit it in what is potentially the day before your first law school exam. No, I don't think it will make or break your 1L grades, but most people are cracked out messes around that time.

[spleenworship]

I'd go, but I wouldn't do bridesmaid so that I could skip out early if I got stressed or needed the sleep. Of course, I found the less I studied the better my grades were, and not everyone had that experience, so YMMV.

[beepboopbeep]

Chiming in again to summarize the thread:

-Responsible, intense people: your life will be literally ruined if you don't spend that day studying
-Responsible, relaxed people: eh, you should be far enough along by then that missing a day is no big deal
-Irresponsible, (semi) intense people: you can probably miss a day early in the quarter, but I wouldn't want to do it that close to finals
-Irresponsible, relaxed people: fuck it, yolo

Ask yourself which of these people you're most like, and you'll know how you'll feel about this once the wedding comes around.

[Nebby]

First semester 1L grades are the single most important set of grades you will earn up to that point in your life (unless you somehow have some other graduate degree already). It's not an over statement to say your entire career trajectory can depend on acing that first semester.

This.

Skip the wedding.

[Danger Zone]

No one can deny the importance of 1L grades. But one day isn't going to make or break them.

[mountaintime]

Go to the wedding. It's only a couple hours' drive. If you plan appropriately, this won't affect your finals. Friends are more important than school.

Edit: also, and I say this as a recent graduate, chances are one 1L grade will not have any meaningful effect on your legal career. It is extremely unlikely that one grade making or breaking your shot at biglaw. You should probably tell us your school range. You are much more likely to regret skipping the wedding than regretting not spending one extra day grinding. Either you go to a school with a good shot at biglaw or you're already fucked. It's harsh, but true. If you're the sort of person who can be successful at your school, one day won't make a difference. You'll feel like a real idiot if you skip the wedding but still get median pwnd or shitlaw pwnd. You'll look like a fool if you skip a wedding for law school and then graduate without a job in 3 years.

[qwertypie]

thanks again, all. really appreciative that so many people have weighed in on what might be considered to most a fairly trivial matter. your advice has been great.

mountaintime, i'm going to penn (and again, as previously mentioned, if i'm violating some sort of forum rule by posting info about myself, please let me know and i'll delete). not sure if this changes your opinion, but everything mentioned in your post certainly makes sense.

[of coase]

Everyone up top has raised lots of good points. For my 2 cents, I'd vote to skip the wedding and send a VERY nice gift.<--TL;DR.

The problem with law school is that you don't know what you're in for until you're deep in the trenches of the semester. Even if you read TLS guides, LSC, GTM, and every hornbook under the sun, you will still be at square 1 when you embark on that academic journey come August. BTW this is general law school advice too -- you won't know what you're doing until you're actually doing it.

Prior to the semester, you might be able to get some insight on prof finals schedules/expectations, but that will be meaningless to you because all the info you gain will be out of context. You may know your study habits,stress levels and workload management style, but you will not know how they factor in to law school until you are at law school. You cannot predict how you will study, how much time you will need to prepare for finals, and, as many of us have experienced, how cranky/tired/emotionally unstable you will feel prior to and during finals. For many people, 1L is the single most challenging (emotionally, physically, and academically) experience of their lives up to that point -- finals are a wild card and should be handled with kid gloves for that reason.

I know it may sound really dramatic/super Type-A to swear off your social life for all of 1L, and yes, it's totally shitty to decline bridesmaid duties in a close friend's wedding. Yes, one bad grade may not totally kill your professional livelihood, but considering that you're on this forum (most TLSers are high achievers looking to maximize their odds at success), that you're going to be attending Penn (a well-ranked school), and that the over-saturated legal job market requires grads to fight tooth and nail for the smallest competitive edge, the recommendations that you'll get from TLS will point in the direction of taking all possible precautions to ensure optimal 1L performance. The best way to do that is to eliminate all distractions/variables over which you personally have control so that you can focus on school. Sure, if you are super relaxed and highly organized by nature, then you might be able to compartmentalize your time and concerns and manage both 1L and the wedding bit. But if you know that you need all the study time you can get, if you are a stress-ball re: exams, etc (and by nature, many of us are), then you should focus ALL of your energy on school and politely bow out of everything else.

A few other caveats you should consider: being a bridesmaid means not only shelling out dough and time for a dress/photos/hair and makeup for the big day, but a whole lot of other commitments too: doing bachelorette/shower stuff, dress fittings, e-mail exchanges, coordinating of plans, schedules and gifts, etc. If you don't respond to e-mails in a timely manner because you're stuck debating the tactical advantages of 12(b)6 motions in civpro, your limited availability may irritate the MOH and even the bride (and create wedding planning friction, aka horrible). If your friend is a drama queen (or worse, an outright bridezilla), then you might have a hard time juggling both roles and suffer consequences in your friendship and your grades. Yes, your friend will be upset if you decline but trust me, if you accept and then phone it in for the four months leading up the wedding, your friend will be even more upset.

Moreover, when you have finals, you're not just preparing for one exam, but for several. You are exhausted, confused, juggling highlighters and swaths of papers and 500 outline versions and you're generally a mess. Even if you are only studying for one exam at a time, there is the mental block of knowing that you still have X more finals to go, and that no matter what you are doing at that particular time, you should be studying. You might not jeopardize one exam grade but several. Though study breaks are really important during finals season, there's a big difference between blowing off some steam on a long afternoon gym sesh/dinner with family and taking an ENTIRE weekend off. You can't plan ahead to "front load" your learning (I mean, you can, but you should never bank on it) and you can't promise yourself that you'll study in the car/hair dresser's chair (though sidenote, many people LOVE audio lectures as a study tool--check that out when you start 1L). Banking on being able to fit in all your studying before the wedding is just too big a risk. In the end, the very stress of knowing that you have this wedding hanging over the end of your semester may be sufficient enough a deterrent to decline.

I would suggest telling your friend how honored you are but that it's not going to work, making an effort to spend time with her before the wedding (this summer?), taking her out to a nice dinner, getting her an extra-special gift but ultimately bowing out--and telling her that it's out of fairness to the both of you. This way you show that your friendship is important to you but that you are being realistic. Having gone through 1L, planning my own wedding, dealing with disorganized/half-present bridesmaids and having declined attending more than one wedding myself under similar circumstances, I can tell you that the bride will appreciate the upfront candor far more than possible half-assed participation down the line. In turn, you might regret not going but at least you will be able to focus all of your time and energy on school.

Best of luck to you on your first year!

[Danger Zone]

Everyone up top has raised lots of good points. For my 2 cents, I'd vote to skip the wedding and send a VERY nice gift.<--TL;DR.

The problem with law school is that you don't know what you're in for until you're deep in the trenches of the semester. Even if you read TLS guides, LSC, GTM, and every hornbook under the sun, you will still be at square 1 when you embark on that academic journey come August. BTW this is general law school advice too -- you won't know what you're doing until you're actually doing it.

Prior to the semester, you might be able to get some insight on prof finals schedules/expectations, but that will be meaningless to you because all the info you gain will be out of context. You may know your study habits,stress levels and workload management style, but you will not know how they factor in to law school until you are at law school. You cannot predict how you will study, how much time you will need to prepare for finals, and, as many of us have experienced, how cranky/tired/emotionally unstable you will feel prior to and during finals. For many people, 1L is the single most challenging (emotionally, physically, and academically) experience of their lives up to that point -- finals are a wild card and should be handled with kid gloves for that reason.

I know it may sound really dramatic/super Type-A to swear off your social life for all of 1L, and yes, it's totally shitty to decline bridesmaid duties in a close friend's wedding. Yes, one bad grade may not totally kill your professional livelihood, but considering that you're on this forum (most TLSers are high achievers looking to maximize their odds at success), that you're going to be attending Penn (a well-ranked school), and that the over-saturated legal job market requires grads to fight tooth and nail for the smallest competitive edge, the recommendations that you'll get from TLS will point in the direction of taking all possible precautions to ensure optimal 1L performance. The best way to do that is to eliminate all distractions/variables over which you personally have control so that you can focus on school. Sure, if you are super relaxed and highly organized by nature, then you might be able to compartmentalize your time and concerns and manage both 1L and the wedding bit. But if you know that you need all the study time you can get, if you are a stress-ball re: exams, etc (and by nature, many of us are), then you should focus ALL of your energy on school and politely bow out of everything else.

A few other caveats you should consider: being a bridesmaid means not only shelling out dough and time for a dress/photos/hair and makeup for the big day, but a whole lot of other commitments too: doing bachelorette/shower stuff, dress fittings, e-mail exchanges, coordinating of plans, schedules and gifts, etc. If you don't respond to e-mails in a timely manner because you're stuck debating the tactical advantages of 12(b)6 motions in civpro, your limited availability may irritate the MOH and even the bride (and create wedding planning friction, aka horrible). If your friend is a drama queen (or worse, an outright bridezilla), then you might have a hard time juggling both roles and suffer consequences in your friendship and your grades. Yes, your friend will be upset if you decline but trust me, if you accept and then phone it in for the four months leading up the wedding, your friend will be even more upset.

Moreover, when you have finals, you're not just preparing for one exam, but for several. You are exhausted, confused, juggling highlighters and swaths of papers and 500 outline versions and you're generally a mess. Even if you are only studying for one exam at a time, there is the mental block of knowing that you still have X more finals to go, and that no matter what you are doing at that particular time, you should be studying. You might not jeopardize one exam grade but several. Though study breaks are really important during finals season, there's a big difference between blowing off some steam on a long afternoon gym sesh/dinner with family and taking an ENTIRE weekend off. You can't plan ahead to "front load" your learning (I mean, you can, but you should never bank on it) and you can't promise yourself that you'll study in the car/hair dresser's chair (though sidenote, many people LOVE audio lectures as a study tool--check that out when you start 1L). Banking on being able to fit in all your studying before the wedding is just too big a risk. In the end, the very stress of knowing that you have this wedding hanging over the end of your semester may be sufficient enough a deterrent to decline.

I would suggest telling your friend how honored you are but that it's not going to work, making an effort to spend time with her before the wedding (this summer?), taking her out to a nice dinner, getting her an extra-special gift but ultimately bowing out--and telling her that it's out of fairness to the both of you. This way you show that your friendship is important to you but that you are being realistic. Having gone through 1L, planning my own wedding, dealing with disorganized/half-present bridesmaids and having declined attending more than one wedding myself under similar circumstances, I can tell you that the bride will appreciate the upfront candor far more than possible half-assed participation down the line. In turn, you might regret not going but at least you will be able to focus all of your time and energy on school.

Best of luck to you on your first year!

LOL

[BigZuck]

law students literally are the worst.

+1

[sundontshine]

That super long post above is hilarious.

Go to the wedding.

[spleenworship]

law students literally are the worst.

+1

[sighsigh]

Even if you read TLS guides, LSC, GTM, and every hornbook under the sun, you will still be at square 1 when you embark on that academic journey come August.

Can I ask what LSC is?

[Puttanesca]

Even if you read TLS guides, LSC, GTM, and every hornbook under the sun, you will still be at square 1 when you embark on that academic journey come August.

Can I ask what LSC is?

Law School Confidential

[sighsigh]

Even if you read TLS guides, LSC, GTM, and every hornbook under the sun, you will still be at square 1 when you embark on that academic journey come August.

Can I ask what LSC is?

Law School Confidential

Ty.

[lawhopeful10]

Go to the wedding. But budget your studying time wisely. If you don't fuck about, you have plenty of time to study for finals.

Missing your friend's wedding after she asked you to be a bridesmaid would be extremely shitty.

I agree with this. Everyone budgets their time and studies differently but I found for me the week before finals to be one of the least stressful. My outlines were already memorized and I would just force myself to take practice tests but once you learn how to take a law exam the benefit of each additional test is probably pretty low. Most people exaggerate the finals craziness. If you learn how to take law exams and actually learn the material during the semester one missed day wont mean shit.

Edit: In fact I found the one day I had to miss class during the semester was the most annoying because I had to learn the nuances of the material that day myself. You easily have enough free time the week before finals to prepare as much as needed.

[TelegramSam]

Go to the wedding. But budget your studying time wisely. If you don't fuck about, you have plenty of time to study for finals.

Missing your friend's wedding after she asked you to be a bridesmaid would be extremely shitty.

This.

Jesus you people are neurotic

[qwertypie]

interesting, seems the general sentiment has really shifted since i last checked in. glad to know that taking a few hours/a day off may not be career-ruining after all -- or at least i hope. in any case, everyone here was super helpful (including of coase... contrary to what other posters may believe, i thought your advice was wonderful!), so i just wanted to thank you all again. you people are great!

[DoveBodyWash]

i went to my girlfriend's white coat ceremony the day before my crim final. 6 hour drive one way. Got there in the morning, got home at midnight before the final. Got A.

If you know that the event is coming up, you'll study harder to compensate for it. I worked my ass off to have crim completely mastered before i went. I woke up early the next morning and reviewed outline before the exam and it was fine.

However, I'm also that kid who just relaxes the day before every final anyway. I understand that being a bridesmaid will likely eat up a lot more time than my one-day ceremony did since there will inevitably be stuff you need to do leading up to the wedding. But the burden is on you to adjust your schedule and prepare accordingly.

I'm not saying you should definitely do it per se, 1L grades are important. I'm just saying that there are ways to offset the lost time and still do well