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Ok so I'm a 1L and my friends want to start a study group for one of our doctrinal classes. They want us to each take on a topic and create an outline for the rest of the group and then get together and share our outlines and discuss. Is this a pointless exercise at this point in the semester? Is it an inefficient use of time? Our finals aren't until December.

Thank you!

Trust no one

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Sounds pretty inefficient

PourMeTea wrote:

thislamp wrote:Ok so I'm a 1L and my friends want to start a study group for one of our doctrinal classes. They want us to each take on a topic and create an outline for the rest of the group and then get together and share our outlines and discuss. Is this a pointless exercise at this point in the semester? Is it an inefficient use of time? Our finals aren't until December.

Thank you!

An outline...for each topic within a single class?

yeah...

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You're not being tested as a group. Every single one of you should outline all the topics for the class and discuss if you're gunna do this. But do practice problems. It'll be like a 10 minutes session if you're just talking abt topics without applying them to fact patterns.

cusenation wrote:You're not being tested as a group. Every single one of you should outline all the topics for the class and discuss if you're gunna do this. But do practice problems. It'll be like a 10 minutes session if you're just talking abt topics without applying them to fact patterns.

Would you recommend doing this throughout the semester rather than just nearer the end of the semester?

This is a terrible idea. If you want to do a group, the purpose should not be to reduce work, but rather to reinforce each other's knowledge.

My group (3 one semester, 4 the next) outlined together (using google docs so that we could build each one collaboratively without asking "How did you organize that?") and reviewed the material together, questioning each other about it as we went. Then during finals we would spend the morning and early afternoons of off and reading days studying on our own and then get together for about four hours where we could answer each others questions and discuss strategies for certain issues.

I know there's split feelings about group work, but I feel like ours was very helpful. We ended up two in top 10%, one top 25% and one top 33%. Plus, group work has the added advantage that if you have a scheduled group work time, you can't end up wasting it on FB or TLS because there are other people there who can see what you're contributing.

thislamp wrote:

cusenation wrote:You're not being tested as a group. Every single one of you should outline all the topics for the class and discuss if you're gunna do this. But do practice problems. It'll be like a 10 minutes session if you're just talking abt topics without applying them to fact patterns.

Would you recommend doing this throughout the semester rather than just nearer the end of the semester?

Eh it depends. Towards the end of the term it should mostly be taking and reviewing full practice tests together. My recommendation is to make ur schedule as u go, instead of trying to chart it out from day one and potentially trying to put a square peg into a round hole. Do things as u need to and be flexible. Don't meet just for the sake of meeting. There should always be a purpose and the sessions should actually add value.

BVest wrote:This is a terrible idea. If you want to do a group, the purpose should not be to reduce work, but rather to reinforce each other's knowledge.

My group (3 one semester, 4 the next) outlined together (using google docs so that we could build each one collaboratively without asking "How did you organize that?") and reviewed the material together, questioning each other about it as we went. Then during finals we would spend the morning and early afternoons of off and reading days studying on our own and then get together for about four hours where we could answer each others questions and discuss strategies for certain issues.

I know there's split feelings about group work, but I feel like ours was very helpful. We ended up two in top 10%, one top 25% and one top 33%. Plus, group work has the added advantage that if you have a scheduled group work time, you can't end up wasting it on FB or TLS because there are other people there who can see what you're contributing.

I think it's a terrible idea too....
I was especially seeking reassurance from TLS because I really don't want to spend my time this way but I don't want the friends that I usually study with to think I'm just being lazy about our work

When in the semester did you start outlining with google docs?

cusenation wrote:

thislamp wrote:

cusenation wrote:You're not being tested as a group. Every single one of you should outline all the topics for the class and discuss if you're gunna do this. But do practice problems. It'll be like a 10 minutes session if you're just talking abt topics without applying them to fact patterns.

Would you recommend doing this throughout the semester rather than just nearer the end of the semester?

Eh it depends. Towards the end of the term it should mostly be taking and reviewing full practice tests together. My recommendation is to make ur schedule as u go, instead of trying to chart it out from day one and potentially trying to put a square peg into a round hole. Do things as u need to and be flexible. Don't meet just for the sake of meeting. There should always be a purpose and the sessions should actually add value.

Thank you; this is really helpful and reassuring. I don't think our meeting will be very productive and I'm going to make sure I don't get myself into another meeting without a real purpose.

Sounds like your group is lazy and overvalues outlines as exam prep. I'd bail.

you'll definitely need everyone in the group to sign and notarize one of these before proceeding regardless. typically one of the financial aid officers at your school will be an authorized notary public.

thislamp wrote: When in the semester did you start outlining with google docs?

We started meeting to outline on 10/5 and started with one subject per week, going to more as needed later in the semester. (Though it was sometime later that month that we realized google docs would eliminate the inefficiencies we were having working on a joint outline). To give you a sense of when that was in the semester, our classes started 8/17 and finals started 12/3.

ETA: Just don't do this: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 5#p8039366

jbagelboy wrote:you'll definitely need everyone in the group to sign and notarize one of these before proceeding regardless. typically one of the financial aid officers at your school will be an authorized notary public.

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