Another Harvard 1L taking questions... Forum

[Marmolada]

I just finished my last exam of the fall semester yesterday. I've had a good experience overall, nothing like what I had anticipated. Ask away...

[mallard]

Geez, I just can't escape the competition!

[prezidentv8]

Do you wanna play the repeater?

[Marmolada]

lol.

[Marmolada]

It's gotta suck for those section 2ers who still have exams today... serves them right for getting Dersh and Warren

[mallard]

It's gotta suck for those section 2ers who still have exams today... serves them right for getting Dersh and Warren

1 and 3 as well, I think. But yeah, section 2 is pretty absurd from what I've heard.

[of Benito Cereno]

In what way did the semester differ from your expectations?

[Marmolada]

Our section was not competitive... we all got pretty close, and refused to let our professors get the best of us. I wasn't expecting that. However, I've heard that some of the other sections got quite competitive, so I can't speak for HLS overall.

Also, I thought I would enjoy legal writing, but I ended up hating it. Writing memos is fun initially, but all the nit-picky bluebooking stuff makes editing your memos a total pain in the ass.

Finally, two of my classes weren't black letter whatsoever... we barely read cases (for torts we read about 5 cases the entire semester) and focused almost exclusively on policy stuff. Both of those classes didn't really differ from the sort of classes I took in undergrad in any meaningful way.

[generals10]

Thanks for offering to help all of us agonizing 0L's.

What other schools/scholarship offers did you consider? Why did you choose HLS, and would you do so again?

General thoughts on job prospects/ITE?

How have you found QOL/social life?

[Marmolada]

The only other offer I seriously (but not really) considered was a full scholly from Michigan. But I fell in love with Harvard when I came to visit after getting in. It's an amazing school. I've never been around so many smart people before, it's really quite overwhelming at first. I absolutely made the right choice in coming here.

The only school I would have considered going to over Harvard is Yale. Indeed, I'm pretty sure I would have gone to yale, had I gotten in. I think that would have been a mistake, for me at least. I've met so many awesome people here, and have so thoroughly enjoyed my 1L experience thusfar, that I simply can't imagine I would have had a better time at Yale.

QOL & social opportunities are as good as they could be. The girls in my section who are on the "events committee" (which gets a 10,000 budget for the year to invite speakers, hold parties, etc.) are super dedicated, and have parties/events for us all the time. What I found most notable was that our section never got cliquish. Everyone was always welcome at everything.

I haven't done anything job related. I decided to focus on my first semester grades at the expense of my job search. I just started to look into finding work for the summer yesterday. I don't think any 1Ls here are too worried about finding employment. The standard thing to do seems to be to work a public interest job after your first year, for which HLS gives you funding.

[gogamecocks10]

what was your undergrad major in college? what college?

[Marmolada]

econ at a T10 undergrad.

Undergrad pedigree seems to matter surprisingly little to the admissions folks at Harvard. There are a ridiculous amount of people from Harvard undergrad at HLS (I think something like 80 out of the 550 people in my class). Nonetheless, I've met people from all sorts of undergrad institutions, many of which I would not have classified as "good" schools when I was looking at colleges years ago.

[tomhobbes]

How much work do you do in an average day? mallard scared me in his thread.

[Marmolada]

Um... I worked pretty much all day every day, but I enjoyed most of the work. And I had enough time to go to the gym once a day and to get 7-8 hours of sleep a night. Just stay on top of things from the start.

[Marmolada]

No further questions ;(?

[fonzerelli]

No further questions ;(?

A. Dershowitz, thoughts?

[mallard]

No further questions ;(?

How have you liked the problem-solving workshop?

[Marmolada]

I didn't have Dersh... don't really know too much about him, except that he's famous, conservative and pro-Israel. He apparently offers to defend all of his 1L students if they get into legal trouble, but that might just be a rumor.

Problem solving is great, our instructor is a partner at WilmerHale and he's brilliant. Also, I've finally found the time to get to know some of my classmates. What do you think?

[mallard]

lol, I think it's been a little ridiculous, personally. I've really enjoyed the simulations and the team environment though.

[Marmolada]

lol, I think it's been a little ridiculous, personally. I've really enjoyed the simulations and the team environment though.

I don't mind getting the time off... I needed it for my job search.

Speaking of which, applying to jobs is a ton of fun when you get interviews everywhere... this never happened to me when I was in undergrad, even though I went to a good school. I'm still apprehensive about grades coming out next week though.

[conn09]

No further questions ;(?

How have you liked the problem-solving workshop?

This class is heavily biased in favor of us becoming in house at a MNC

[mallard]

I'll second everything in the above two posts.

[JAP1985]

What is the student body like: Hipsters/Nerds/New England aristocrats/im-gonna-run-for-office-one-day/etc...?

What's your favorite part about the school? Its biggest misconception? Did it meet your expectations?

(i just got my jr1 invite-yay!)

[Marmolada]

What is the student body like: Hipsters/Nerds/New England aristocrats/im-gonna-run-for-office-one-day/etc...?

What's your favorite part about the school? Its biggest misconception? Did it meet your expectations?

(i just got my jr1 invite-yay!)

What is the student body like: Hipsters/Nerds/New England aristocrats/im-gonna-run-for-office-one-day/etc...?

The student body is a pretty good mix of all of those and more... but pretty much everyone is a nerd, and proud of it.

What I really love about the school is that most students here like to learn for learning's sake. Though our current problem-solving workshop is not graded, my group will often sit together and work on our problem late into the afternoon, just because we're interested in the subject and we like talking/working together.

Good for you for getting your phone interview, I remember that was very exciting. My voice cracked several times on mine.

[emptybee]

No further questions ;(?

How have you liked the problem-solving workshop?

This class is heavily biased in favor of us becoming in house at a MNC

What do you mean?