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Intramural sports teams, clubs, associations, going out every weekend, and generally just doing lots of stuff that isn't class-related. I expecting everyone to hermit for grades.

I am a hermit.

Not really, but my classmates probably think so. I'm married and I try not to work on school at home, so I usually work in the library for several hours a day to do my work, and then I try to spend time with my family. I do a lot of social stuff, but not too much with my classmates.

I'll probably do far more as a 2L and 3L because I'm a pretty social dude, but I'm trying to keep my eye on the prize this year. Grades trump making superficial friendships for me right now, though I see the value of those friendships going forward. My school isn't really cutthroat or anything, so people are really friendly anyway.

On a side note, I was hanging out with my family this weekend wearing a sweatshirt repping my school, and I happened to meet an older lawyer from an adjoining city that is a partner in a medium sized firm. He was really nice and gave a bunch of advice, + offered to stay in touch. That is probably a far more valuable contact than a fellow 1L at this point.

stocksly33 wrote:Intramural sports teams, clubs, associations, going out every weekend, and generally just doing lots of stuff that isn't class-related. I expecting everyone to hermit for grades.

Do you mind posting where you are attending?

stocksly33 wrote:Intramural sports teams, clubs, associations, going out every weekend, and generally just doing lots of stuff that isn't class-related. I expecting everyone to hermit for grades.

My law school is incredibly social; it's one of the main reasons I love it so damn much. Also, you have no good reason to be antisocial yet - finals aren't for months. Keep up with your reading, sure, but now is the time to relax and have fun. Don't get burned out before it counts. The kids plowing through hornbooks 6 hours a day right now will be so burned out by Halloween that half of them will fuck up their finals anyhow.

And to the gent who said grades > law school friendships... to a degree, sure. You aren't getting a big firm job without the grades. But also consider the factor that in the legal profession, networking and relationships can make or break you. Most of the people at my school (UC Davis) will end up spending the next 20-30 years practicing in the relatively small area between SF, San Jose and Sacramento. That means I never know when I'm going to bump into them in a professional context, and what kind of benefit the relationships I'm cultivating now might confer upon me later.

Plus which, one of the main things that partners look for in hiring, and later in partnership votes, is social skills. Outgoing, social people are just better at life. So go out, have fun, and double down on the studying in another month when it's actually necessary to do so.

SBL wrote:But also consider the factor that in the legal profession, networking and relationships can make or break you. Most of the people at my school (UC Davis) will end up spending the next 20-30 years practicing in the relatively small area between SF, San Jose and Sacramento. That means I never know when I'm going to bump into them in a professional context, and what kind of benefit the relationships I'm cultivating now might confer upon me later.

Extremely credited, especially in the Sacramento region. I worked as a midlaw paralegal in that region and everyone, literally everyone, in our practice area in that region knew each other. And the ones who are socially awkward/borderline aspie/downright assholes are known and avoided/mocked.

This was the #1 thing that surprised me most about the business of law.

SBL wrote:

stocksly33 wrote:Intramural sports teams, clubs, associations, going out every weekend, and generally just doing lots of stuff that isn't class-related. I expecting everyone to hermit for grades.

My law school is incredibly social; it's one of the main reasons I love it so damn much. Also, you have no good reason to be antisocial yet - finals aren't for months. Keep up with your reading, sure, but now is the time to relax and have fun. Don't get burned out before it counts. The kids plowing through hornbooks 6 hours a day right now will be so burned out by Halloween that half of them will fuck up their finals anyhow.

And to the gent who said grades > law school friendships... to a degree, sure. You aren't getting a big firm job without the grades. But also consider the factor that in the legal profession, networking and relationships can make or break you. Most of the people at my school (UC Davis) will end up spending the next 20-30 years practicing in the relatively small area between SF, San Jose and Sacramento. That means I never know when I'm going to bump into them in a professional context, and what kind of benefit the relationships I'm cultivating now might confer upon me later.

Plus which, one of the main things that partners look for in hiring, and later in partnership votes, is social skills. Outgoing, social people are just better at life. So go out, have fun, and double down on the studying in another month when it's actually necessary to do so.

Agreed. But: Top 10% that is "normally social" > bottom 50% social butterfly. At least in narrow terms of having a job when you graduate.

Being social is good. Networking is good. But there is so much available to do (bar nights, sports, study groups, symposia, clubs, volunteering, non-school social functions, etc.) that it would be pretty easy to do too much and rope yourself into a situation where later in the semester you realize that you aren't prepared for exams (or worse, not even realize that you aren't prepared.)

There's a difference between a normal dude that studies a lot and a anti-social-asshole-hermit.

kswiss wrote:

SBL wrote:

stocksly33 wrote:Intramural sports teams, clubs, associations, going out every weekend, and generally just doing lots of stuff that isn't class-related. I expecting everyone to hermit for grades.

My law school is incredibly social; it's one of the main reasons I love it so damn much. Also, you have no good reason to be antisocial yet - finals aren't for months. Keep up with your reading, sure, but now is the time to relax and have fun. Don't get burned out before it counts. The kids plowing through hornbooks 6 hours a day right now will be so burned out by Halloween that half of them will fuck up their finals anyhow.

And to the gent who said grades > law school friendships... to a degree, sure. You aren't getting a big firm job without the grades. But also consider the factor that in the legal profession, networking and relationships can make or break you. Most of the people at my school (UC Davis) will end up spending the next 20-30 years practicing in the relatively small area between SF, San Jose and Sacramento. That means I never know when I'm going to bump into them in a professional context, and what kind of benefit the relationships I'm cultivating now might confer upon me later.

Plus which, one of the main things that partners look for in hiring, and later in partnership votes, is social skills. Outgoing, social people are just better at life. So go out, have fun, and double down on the studying in another month when it's actually necessary to do so.

Agreed. But: Top 10% that is "normally social" > bottom 50% social butterfly. At least in narrow terms of having a job when you graduate.

Being social is good. Networking is good. But there is so much available to do (bar nights, sports, study groups, symposia, clubs, volunteering, non-school social functions, etc.) that it would be pretty easy to do too much and rope yourself into a situation where later in the semester you realize that you aren't prepared for exams (or worse, not even realize that you aren't prepared.)

There's a difference between a normal dude that studies a lot and a anti-social-asshole-hermit.

You make it sound like it's not possible to be "top 10%" and "very social"... I know several people in the 2L class here that are both.

OP read my mind. Here at UVA I'm starting to wonder if my fellow 1L's even realize that we're in a recession right now......

BruceWayne wrote:OP read my mind. Here at UVA I'm starting to wonder if my fellow 1L's even realize that we're in a recession right now......

being social has nothing to do with spending money. just showing up and saying 'sup' to people is generally free as far as i can recall.

sundance95 wrote:

stocksly33 wrote:Intramural sports teams, clubs, associations, going out every weekend, and generally just doing lots of stuff that isn't class-related. I expecting everyone to hermit for grades.

Do you mind posting where you are attending?

my school's in the 50s

BruceWayne wrote:OP read my mind. Here at UVA I'm starting to wonder if my fellow 1L's even realize that we're in a recession right now......

word. especially when this is the year where grades matter most. if i want friends later, i'll just buy them. i kid.

savagedm wrote:

BruceWayne wrote:OP read my mind. Here at UVA I'm starting to wonder if my fellow 1L's even realize that we're in a recession right now......

being social has nothing to do with spending money. just showing up and saying 'sup' to people is generally free as far as i can recall.

That's not social, that's just human.

You completely missed BruceWayne's point.

savagecheater wrote:

savagedm wrote:

BruceWayne wrote:OP read my mind. Here at UVA I'm starting to wonder if my fellow 1L's even realize that we're in a recession right now......

being social has nothing to do with spending money. just showing up and saying 'sup' to people is generally free as far as i can recall.

That's not social, that's just human.

You completely missed BruceWayne's point.

He completely made a statement not related to the main point of this thread which made people believe that students spending too much was the real problem.

savagedm wrote:

savagecheater wrote:

savagedm wrote:

BruceWayne wrote:OP read my mind. Here at UVA I'm starting to wonder if my fellow 1L's even realize that we're in a recession right now......

being social has nothing to do with spending money. just showing up and saying 'sup' to people is generally free as far as i can recall.

That's not social, that's just human.

You completely missed BruceWayne's point.

He completely made a statement not related to the main point of this thread which made people believe that students spending too much was the real problem.

Dooder, his point was that people are spending more time socializing and not much time studying as he'd expect; the point about the recession is that considering the state of the market you'd think everyone was super-gunning for grades, as opposed to socializing to the (surprising, in his opinion) extent that they are.

Nothing to do with 'spending money'.

damn i should have gone to UVA

savagecheater wrote:

savagedm wrote: He completely made a statement not related to the main point of this thread which made people believe that students spending too much was the real problem.

Dooder, his point was that people are spending more time socializing and not much time studying as he'd expect; the point about the recession is that considering the state of the market you'd think everyone was super-gunning for grades, as opposed to socializing to the (surprising, in his opinion) extent that they are.

Nothing to do with 'spending money'.

Ahh I gotcha, I went back and re-read the posts, I'm pretty sure I was just reading something on ABTL about how absurd student debt is right now so I was already on fire w/ the whole $$ thing and I'm kind of tired of reading about it when no change is happening to fix it.