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still get a good grade? Man, I'm having a heck of a time in this one class keeping up with the readings or even concentrating for 5 minutes on the lecture. It is a gigantic class that most 2L's take during law school. It is not hard but VERY dry and my professor is teaching in a power point, non-socratic fashion that just numbs my brain.

Anyway, has anyone ever used, say, an E&E and basically taught themselves an entire course and still got a top grade? It's hard enough for me to pull myself out of bed and get to this class on time, let alone keep up with the readings and actually learn as I go.

I taught myself Crim Law entirely from 4 supplements. The prof never really went over anything and just talked about policy and argued with students back and forth. Worst class ever, but grade-wise everything worked out pretty well. Day before the test may have been the most hectic day of my life though.

BarbellDreams wrote:I taught myself Crim Law entirely from 4 supplements. The prof never really went over anything and just talked about policy and argued with students back and forth. Worst class ever, but grade-wise everything worked out pretty well. Day before the test may have been the most hectic day of my life though.

Yeah, the problem is that I'm going against my own "do well in ls" philosophy. You need to stand out from the pack and one of the ways to do this is by mixing the professor's exact words and reasoning into your analysis in the way you would think they would do so.....I wish this was a MC class.

Idk, I stopped reading entirely for that class. Literally never opened the casebook after week 3. I still came to class the majority of the time and likely used a few of the prof's words in the exam as well, but 90% of the time I just sat there and stared at the wall (no socratic method, no computers allowed in class).

BarbellDreams wrote:Idk, I stopped reading entirely for that class. Literally never opened the casebook after week 3. I still came to class the majority of the time and likely used a few of the prof's words in the exam as well, but 90% of the time I just sat there and stared at the wall (no socratic method, no computers allowed in class).

BarbellDreams wrote:Idk, I stopped reading entirely for that class. Literally never opened the casebook after week 3. I still came to class the majority of the time and likely used a few of the prof's words in the exam as well, but 90% of the time I just sat there and stared at the wall (no socratic method, no computers allowed in class).

The real question is: how'd you do in that (those?) class(es)?

I taught myself crim and got an A- (with the help of Dressler). Pretty much everyone had to teach themselves though, the professor was horrible. If everyone's doing it, there's a good chance most of them won't give it full effort.

What I seem to learn in class is what kind of arguments the Prof wants to see on exams. What I learn outside of class is the actual meat and potatoes of the material. You are not alone.

I'm gonna have to teach myself Con Law, the professor is a cool old lady, but she isn't challenging at all, she gave everyone a huge outline of the course on the 2nd day that she's put together over the years, told us to just use Emanuels to learn the material, and said you only need about 90 minutes to finish her 3 hour final. Not to mention she flat out gives the rules she wants out of every case to the whole class

this curve is going to be a bitch and a half

I'm going to have to teach myself Civ Pro (and obviously do my best to reword things to sound like what my professor wants). S/he seems nice enough, but leaves much to be desired. Had to do the same thing with property, too; CALI was helpful for that.

pissantvache wrote:

BarbellDreams wrote:Idk, I stopped reading entirely for that class. Literally never opened the casebook after week 3. I still came to class the majority of the time and likely used a few of the prof's words in the exam as well, but 90% of the time I just sat there and stared at the wall (no socratic method, no computers allowed in class).

The real question is: how'd you do in that (those?) class(es)?

I only did this for my Crim class and I got a very good grade (Outed on TLS so I am not a fan of actually posting my grades). I really have no idea what I did well and what I didn't do well on the exam, whenever the class would ask the professor about something on the exam he basically just said "you'll figure it out when you see it". He never gave a straight answer to anything and I honestly believe that if you gave me a month to prepare I would have taught that class better. With that said, all was forgiven after I saw the grade.

Do you have old exams for the prof? I've used supplements + model answers to study and done well.

you'll be fine...I didnt even buy the casebook for 2 of my courses this semester

General Tso wrote:you'll be fine...I didnt even buy the casebook for 2 of my courses this semester

Haha, nice. This is what I'm talking about.

I may have given some people on here the the wrong idea of what I meant by teaching yourself a course. While some of the examples are cool, I've definitely had to completely rely on myself to put crap together through outside supplementation and I usually have to "re-teach" myself entire courses by the end of the semester. What I'm talking about here is basically never hearing one word your professor says all year long, not really relying on the casebook and cases and completely coming up with your outline for the test out of complete scratch. That's a little freaky.

The important thing about class is not the explanation but just getting:

1) What material is covered.

2) How your professor comes down on dicey issues/jurisdictional splits, etc.

Once you have 1 &2 you can teach yourself everything else.

Taught myself Conlaw (A) and Torts (A-).

Class time was really only useful to fine tune my outlines, and see what the professor emphasized.

A'nold wrote:

BarbellDreams wrote:Idk, I stopped reading entirely for that class. Literally never opened the casebook after week 3. I still came to class the majority of the time and likely used a few of the prof's words in the exam as well, but 90% of the time I just sat there and stared at the wall (no socratic method, no computers allowed in class).

You make it sound like that's an unusual thing...

I got an A- in Torts last semester. I stopped reading the casebook about halfway through the semester (maybe earlier) and never took very good notes or any notes at all. I won't say that going to class was completely worthless, but it was close. I relied entirely on Understanding Torts, the E&E, and CALI lessons.

This semester I'm doing things differently because I want A's instead of A-'s.

I didn't read for an entire semester, and it worked out fine.

vanwinkle wrote:

A'nold wrote:

BarbellDreams wrote:Idk, I stopped reading entirely for that class. Literally never opened the casebook after week 3. I still came to class the majority of the time and likely used a few of the prof's words in the exam as well, but 90% of the time I just sat there and stared at the wall (no socratic method, no computers allowed in class).

You make it sound like that's an unusual thing...

For a class where you haven't heard a word the professor has said all semester long, yeah. Counting the popcorn on the ceiling would get old quickly, lol.

uzpakalis wrote:What I seem to learn in class is what kind of arguments the Prof wants to see on exams. What I learn outside of class is the actual meat and potatoes of the material.

+1-fucking-80.

vanwinkle wrote:

uzpakalis wrote:What I seem to learn in class is what kind of arguments the Prof wants to see on exams. What I learn outside of class is the actual meat and potatoes of the material.

+1-fucking-80.

I think 1Ls should be required to take a basic jurisprudence course. There are far too many 1L professors (at least in my experience) who fail to address which types of argument they consider to be legitimate. You have to discern that on your own, which can be tricky when no one has ever explained to you (1) what are the basic types of argumentation and (2) how different philosophies of jurisprudence will affect which types of argumentation are favored or disfavored.

JazzOne wrote:

vanwinkle wrote:

uzpakalis wrote:What I seem to learn in class is what kind of arguments the Prof wants to see on exams. What I learn outside of class is the actual meat and potatoes of the material.

+1-fucking-80.

I think 1Ls should be required to take a basic jurisprudence course. There are far too many 1L professors (at least in my experience) who fail to address which types of argument they consider to be legitimate. You have to discern that on your own, which can be tricky when no one has ever explained to you what are the basic types of argumentation and how different philosophies of jurisprudence will affect which types are favored or disfavored.

I took my 1L elective in a class that's basically equivalent to the upper level jurisprudence class. It's pretty interesting so far, but it's a lot more philosophy than I thought.

beach_terror wrote:

JazzOne wrote:

vanwinkle wrote:

uzpakalis wrote:What I seem to learn in class is what kind of arguments the Prof wants to see on exams. What I learn outside of class is the actual meat and potatoes of the material.

+1-fucking-80.

I think 1Ls should be required to take a basic jurisprudence course. There are far too many 1L professors (at least in my experience) who fail to address which types of argument they consider to be legitimate. You have to discern that on your own, which can be tricky when no one has ever explained to you what are the basic types of argumentation and how different philosophies of jurisprudence will affect which types are favored or disfavored.

I took my 1L elective in a class that's basically equivalent to the upper level jurisprudence class. It's pretty interesting so far, but it's a lot more philosophy than I thought.

I'm taking Jurisprudence this semester as well as a Legal Scholarship course. That shit would have helped me out a LOT last year. I don't think I could have even listed the different types of argumentation at the conclusion of 1L. Surely I knew some of them, but by the end of 1L, every student should know them all and understand their roles in legal discourse.

Sounds like a cool class.