UChi Students & Alumni Taking Questions Forum

[FloridaCoastalorbust]

0L w/ question. Do you feel that students at UChi are marinated in an intellectual environment more-so than your peers at other t14s? Do ideas matter, or is the experience, like at other schools, just going to class and studying for finals? Surely students can seek out that intellectual law school experience anywhere, but I'm interested to know if it is more pervasive - maybe even the expectation - at UChi. Thx

I hope at the end of my time at U Chicago I can look back and say that I've never been marinated in anything.

Nonsense Mal. One would hope you marinate in something (admittedly something quaffable) on a regular basis.

thx

[skers]

0L w/ question. Do you feel that students at UChi are marinated in an intellectual environment more-so than your peers at other t14s? Do ideas matter, or is the experience, like at other schools, just going to class and studying for finals? Surely students can seek out that intellectual law school experience anywhere, but I'm interested to know if it is more pervasive - maybe even the expectation - at UChi. Thx

Please don't come here.

[lawschool2014hopeful]

@Robb,

Thanks alot, got the email today, looks solid.


@FloridaCoastalorbust,

I dont think anyone can answer this question lol. I mean, I dont think we have transfers from other t-14s?

But the professors here seem to really take a pride in their teaching and their pedagogical style compared to other top schools, or as they claim.

[Mal Reynolds]

There are lunch talks with important speakers, campus clubs that host interesting events, and we have a strong connection to our main campus which does a lot of interesting work in a ton of different fields. I don't see how this would be any different elsewhere though. And you can choose to participate a lot or not at all. This isnt a reason to choose between t14s IMO.

[fats provolone]

but are you marinated?

[Tiny Dancer]

Did anyone take any courses they considered as not very difficult this quarter?

[orbotop]

0L w/ question. Do you feel that students at UChi are marinated in an intellectual environment more-so than your peers at other t14s? Do ideas matter, or is the experience, like at other schools, just going to class and studying for finals? Surely students can seek out that intellectual law school experience anywhere, but I'm interested to know if it is more pervasive - maybe even the expectation - at UChi. Thx

Please don't come here.

FloridaCoastalorbust, i think the answer is yes for several reasons: smaller classes; top professors teaching more often, especially to 1Ls; self-selection of students to uchicago compared to other schools who are more interested in clerking and being a professor someday; an emphasis on understanding how law shapes behavior as opposed to law a bunch of rules to remember; and a culture among the faculty that is more intense that trickles down to the way faculty teach and the experience students receive. my baseline for comparison is friends at other schools. for example, a friend at HLS never goes to class. she does the reading and shows up to take the exam. i don't think u could get away with that here -- there's an expectation that u will be in class to engage in socratic. for example again, a prof who departed for columbia last year lamented that part of what he'll miss about uchicago is how engaged the students are, especially as 2Ls and 3Ls. he had previously taught at columbia. take anecdotes fwiw and come visit to see for urself.

[Dany]

0L w/ question. Do you feel that students at UChi are marinated in an intellectual environment more-so than your peers at other t14s? Do ideas matter, or is the experience, like at other schools, just going to class and studying for finals? Surely students can seek out that intellectual law school experience anywhere, but I'm interested to know if it is more pervasive - maybe even the expectation - at UChi. Thx

Please don't come here.

FloridaCoastalorbust, i think the answer is yes for several reasons: smaller classes; top professors teaching more often, especially to 1Ls; self-selection of students to uchicago compared to other schools who are more interested in clerking and being a professor someday; an emphasis on understanding how law shapes behavior as opposed to law a bunch of rules to remember; and a culture among the faculty that is more intense that trickles down to the way faculty teach and the experience students receive. my baseline for comparison is friends at other schools. for example, a friend at HLS never goes to class. she does the reading and shows up to take the exam. i don't think u could get away with that here -- there's an expectation that u will be in class to engage in socratic. for example again, a prof who departed for columbia last year lamented that part of what he'll miss about uchicago is how engaged the students are, especially as 2Ls and 3Ls. he had previously taught at columbia. take anecdotes fwiw and come visit to see for urself.

Oh you definitely can.

[Mal Reynolds]

Yeah lol

Especially at the trickle down comment. That's hilarious for multiple reasons.

[beepboopbeep]

Everything trickles down at UofC, culture and sandwiches included.

I do legit feel like we have more people who care about learning the lawl "for its own sake" and professors who care about teaching than my super-brief introduction to other t14s (sitting in on classes at ASWs and talking to friends) indicated. Our professors certainly seem to think so but obviously they have some incentive to say that. But yea no one actually knows, because we only go to one school, and the vast majority of transfers are from outside the t14.

If you want to do academia it's going to be a slog and depend on your own effort anyway. If you don't want to do academia, you should care way more about job placement numbers and cost than culture or any bullshit inchoate thing like that.

Re: easy classes: admiralty was super easy because prof never coldcalls but we'll see what tune I'm singing after the final. Seminars are definitely the way to go, though.

[Manhattan]

Everything trickles down at UofC, culture and sandwiches included.

I do legit feel like we have more people who care about learning the lawl "for its own sake" and professors who care about teaching than my super-brief introduction to other t14s (sitting in on classes at ASWs and talking to friends) indicated. Our professors certainly seem to think so but obviously they have some incentive to say that. But yea no one actually knows, because we only go to one school, and the vast majority of transfers are from outside the t14.

If you want to do academia it's going to be a slog and depend on your own effort anyway. If you don't want to do academia, you should care way more about job placement numbers and cost than culture or any bullshit inchoate thing like that.

Re: easy classes: admiralty was super easy because prof never coldcalls but we'll see what tune I'm singing after the final. Seminars are definitely the way to go, though.

Seminars and any clinic are the way to go. Load your schedule up with those. There are a few other non-seminar seminar-like classes (e.g., Contracts & Commercial Transactions), so you can have a pretty sweet schedule after 1L year (some of us on this site only have class 2 days a week; I only have class 3 days a week because I want to knock out my ethics requirement and take the MPRE this coming March, but I could have done the 2-day schedule and taken enjoyable classes at the same time). Everything they say about 2LOL is true - at least it is if you don't bother doing a journal and avoid the law school as much as possible.

[skers]

Everything trickles down at UofC, culture and sandwiches included.

I do legit feel like we have more people who care about learning the lawl "for its own sake" and professors who care about teaching than my super-brief introduction to other t14s (sitting in on classes at ASWs and talking to friends) indicated. Our professors certainly seem to think so but obviously they have some incentive to say that. But yea no one actually knows, because we only go to one school, and the vast majority of transfers are from outside the t14.

If you want to do academia it's going to be a slog and depend on your own effort anyway. If you don't want to do academia, you should care way more about job placement numbers and cost than culture or any bullshit inchoate thing like that.

Re: easy classes: admiralty was super easy because prof never coldcalls but we'll see what tune I'm singing after the final. Seminars are definitely the way to go, though.

Seminars and any clinic are the way to go. Load your schedule up with those. There are a few other non-seminar seminar-like classes (e.g., Contracts & Commercial Transactions), so you can have a pretty sweet schedule after 1L year (some of us on this site only have class 2 days a week; I only have class 3 days a week because I want to knock out my ethics requirement and take the MPRE this coming March, but I could have done the 2-day schedule and taken enjoyable classes at the same time). Everything they say about 2LOL is true - at least it is if you don't bother doing a journal and avoid the law school as much as possible.

BTW, taking ethics does really matter for the MPRE. That's mostly a watch a couple videos the night before you take it kind of thing.

[Manhattan]

BTW, taking ethics does really matter for the MPRE. That's mostly a watch a couple videos the night before you take it kind of thing.

Yeah, but you unfortunately still have to take an ethics class regardless, and I didn't want to end up like the 3Ls who are currently in my ethics class because it seems like one of the most awful things one could sit through as a 3L. I'm trying to knock out ethics / WP /SRP / professional skillz requirements during 2L so that 3L will just be almost nothing but across-the-midway stuff and seminars.

[Manhattan]

By the way, why do most people wait until 3L to take the MPRE? Is there any reason not to take it during March of your 2L year if you just want to get it out of the way?

[Robb]

By the way, why do most people wait until 3L to take the MPRE? Is there any reason not to take it during March of your 2L year if you just want to get it out of the way?

I just looked at the dates and I have a paper due two days before the exam. Soooo that's one reason.

Also get down here and have some pancakes there's still a whole 1.5 hours until your bedtime.

[Manhattan]

By the way, why do most people wait until 3L to take the MPRE? Is there any reason not to take it during March of your 2L year if you just want to get it out of the way?

I just looked at the dates and I have a paper due two days before the exam. Soooo that's one reason.

Also get down here and have some pancakes there's still a whole 1.5 hours until your bedtime.

Heh we had the same issue but with gyoza. We made a shit-ton of them yesterday and ended up having them for every meal today. Ugh at having to eat the same thing for multiple meals in a row.

[2014]

By the way, why do most people wait until 3L to take the MPRE? Is there any reason not to take it during March of your 2L year if you just want to get it out of the way?

Normally the March test is during spring break or winter finals week, this year either because our schedule or LSAC's it falls the first weekend of Spring Q. If I were a 2L this year I'd take it in March.

[badaboom61]

By the way, why do most people wait until 3L to take the MPRE? Is there any reason not to take it during March of your 2L year if you just want to get it out of the way?

August before 3L is also a very good time to take if you aren't doing anything like travelling after your summer job ends.

Also, there may be a downside to taking it early if for any reason you end up having to take a second state's bar exam. An MPRE score is only valid for a certain amount of time in each state, so the later you take it, the less chance you'll have to take it again.

[skers]

By the way, why do most people wait until 3L to take the MPRE? Is there any reason not to take it during March of your 2L year if you just want to get it out of the way?

August before 3L is also a very good time to take if you aren't doing anything like travelling after your summer job ends.

Also, there may be a downside to taking it early if for any reason you end up having to take a second state's bar exam. An MPRE score is only valid for a certain amount of time in each state, so the later you take it, the less chance you'll have to take it again.

On that note, you should definitely be traveling after your summer job ends.

[lawschool2014hopeful]

Any recommendations as to how to outline for Henderson? He doesnt release any memos, but from some of the sample answers I have seen, it looks like he expects case-analogy arguments and stuff like least-cost avoider/coase, etc, is that a fair assessment?

Most of the outlines I see simply summarizes a case into its facts and take away, is this all I should do, or should I do some "attack-outline/checklist" similar to Elements.

Thanks for your help everyone, let me know if you want a free lunch on me when break is over.

[beepboopbeep]

Any recommendations as to how to outline for Henderson? He doesnt release any memos, but from some of the sample answers I have seen, it looks like he expects case-analogy arguments and stuff like least-cost avoider/coase, etc, is that a fair assessment?

Most of the outlines I see simply summarizes a case into its facts and take away, is this all I should do, or should I do some "attack-outline/checklist" similar to Elements.

Thanks for your help everyone, let me know if you want a free lunch on me when break is over.

Henderson's exam is a sore subject for many of the 2016ers. Has he said whether he's going back to the issue-spotter or whether it'll be the open-ended questions approach? If the latter, probably more like elements would be helpful, I guess. I mean, do what works for you. I did the normal outline approach not really knowing how strange the exam would be, and did well. Just be confident in your ability to bullshit. Your assessment of what he's looking for sounds right.

[Mal Reynolds]

I would focus on policy first if it's anything like last year's exam. That thing was terrible.

[Emma.]

Start by NOT outlining over winter break. Whatever you think of AMG, there's one thing she does have right: 1L is a marathon, not a sprint. You need to take breaks when you can. If you don't, you'll be completely burned out by the spring.

[elterrible78]

Any recommendations as to how to outline for Henderson? He doesnt release any memos, but from some of the sample answers I have seen, it looks like he expects case-analogy arguments and stuff like least-cost avoider/coase, etc, is that a fair assessment?

Most of the outlines I see simply summarizes a case into its facts and take away, is this all I should do, or should I do some "attack-outline/checklist" similar to Elements.

Thanks for your help everyone, let me know if you want a free lunch on me when break is over.

Henderson's exam is a sore subject for many of the 2016ers. Has he said whether he's going back to the issue-spotter or whether it'll be the open-ended questions approach? If the latter, probably more like elements would be helpful, I guess. I mean, do what works for you. I did the normal outline approach not really knowing how strange the exam would be, and did well. Just be confident in your ability to bullshit. Your assessment of what he's looking for sounds right.

I generally agree with this. I did the normal outline approach and did well, too, but I'm not sure my doing well had anything to do with the normal outline approach. Definitely see what kind of clarification you can get from him in regards to what the exam will look like (issue spotter vs. that BS he pulled last year), and go from there.

And Emma's right. Relax, it's a long way to the finish line.

[lawschool2014hopeful]

@Beep,

he said the exam is probably going to be short answer/questions, no other clues

@Mal,

So like "plaintiff is the least-cost avoider" here, therefore no liability, etc

@Emma,

Yea, I figure Id at least do couple hours of work a day, I am going out every night.

Thanks everyone.