Law School and Social Life Forum

[Andreeai]

I am a 0L and would like to know how do you guys balance social life with law school.

In particular I am interested on what hobbies you guys had before law school and how you maintained it, if so. Did you scale down? Did you stop alltogether? You didn't?

Did you guy out at night during the weekend? How often? etc

Also, if anyone would like to post their daily routines, that would be appreciated.

Thanks

[Bosque]

I am a 0L and would like to know how do you guys balance social life with law school.

What, like it's hard?

[pehaigllleises]

On 9:45 class start days:
6:45: Wake up
6:45-7:30: Drink coffee, eat light food, watch morning shows, read the internet, get into gym clothes
7:30-8:30: Gym
8:30-9:15: Shower/get ready
9:15-9:45: Get to school
9:45-2:30: Class
2:30-4:30: Laze around or nap, read the internet, plan my wedding
4:30-10:00: Do the readings, with frequent breaks for reading the internet and looking at wedding blogs, half an hour for dinner, depending on the day of week I would watch an hour or so of Grey's Anatomy (yes) or some other shitshow.
10:00-11:00: Laze around, read the internet

On 8:30 class start days I just didn't go to the gym but I got up at the same time.

On weekends I spent about 6-8 hours each day doing some sort of work, with similarly frequent breaks.

That seems like a lot for the weekends, but as you can see I didn't do that much work during the week, and I was pretty bad about sitting and getting things done without going off to my Google Reader or looking at pretty pictures every 10 minutes. My schedule left a lot of room for consolidation. I didn't go out a lot, but that's mostly because I am old, and my most important social life is at home with my almost-husband. I would have had time to go out if I had focused while I was doing work. I don't think I'd have time to go out and drink heavily every week just because of the recovery time required after doing that for me. I live in a building with a lot of other 1Ls so most of my social outings were a few hours worth of frolicking and detouring to their apartments.

The 2-3 weeks before exams I would focus a lot more, but still not to the extent reasonably possible. I just wouldn't go to the gym as much, I napped less, and I took fewer breaks (but still a lot of breaks), and I cut sleep down to 7 hours a night from 8, which gave me an extra 3-4 hours of work in every day.

I did very well 1L year. There is plenty of down time, except for exam crunch time, for whatever you want to use it for, and you can still do well. My GPA went up as I spent less and less time in the library each quarter.

[megaTTTron]

[quote="pehaigllleises"]On 9:45 class start days:
6:45: Wake up
6:45-7:30: Drink coffee, eat light food, watch morning shows, read the internet, get into gym clothes
7:30-8:30: Gym
8:30-9:15: Shower/get ready
9:15-9:45: Get to school
9:45-2:30: Class
2:30-4:30: Laze around or nap, read the internet, plan my wedding
4:30-10:00: Do the readings, with frequent breaks for reading the internet and looking at wedding blogs, half an hour for dinner, depending on the day of week I would watch an hour or so of Grey's Anatomy (yes) or some other shitshow.
10:00-11:00: Laze around, read the internet

On 8:30 class start days I just didn't go to the gym but I got up at the same time.

On weekends I spent about 6-8 hours each day doing some sort of work, with similarly frequent breaks.

That seems like a lot for the weekends, but as you can see I didn't do that much work during the week, and I was pretty bad about sitting and getting things done without going off to my Google Reader or looking at pretty pictures every 10 minutes. My schedule left a lot of room for consolidation. I didn't go out a lot, but that's mostly because I am old, and my most important social life is at home with my almost-husband. I would have had time to go out if I had focused while I was doing work. I don't think I'd have time to go out and drink heavily every week just because of the recovery time required after doing that for me. I live in a building with a lot of other 1Ls so most of my social outings were a few hours worth of frolicking and detouring to their apartments.

The 2-3 weeks before exams I would focus a lot more, but still not to the extent reasonably possible. I just wouldn't go to the gym as much, I napped less, and I took fewer breaks (but still a lot of breaks), and I cut sleep down to 7 hours a night from 8, which gave me an extra 3-4 hours of work in every day.

I did very well 1L year. There is plenty of down time, except for exam crunch time, for whatever you want to use it for, and you can still do well. My GPA went up as I spent less and less time in the library each quarter.[/quote]

1st half of the semester: party all the time
2nd half of the semester: study all the time

it's a nice even balance.

[jayn3]

That seems like a lot for the weekends, but as you can see I didn't do that much work during the week, and I was pretty bad about sitting and getting things done without going off to my Google Reader or looking at pretty pictures every 10 minutes. My schedule left a lot of room for consolidation. I didn't go out a lot, but that's mostly because I am old, and my most important social life is at home with my almost-husband. I would have had time to go out if I had focused while I was doing work. I don't think I'd have time to go out and drink heavily every week just because of the recovery time required after doing that for me. I live in a building with a lot of other 1Ls so most of my social outings were a few hours worth of frolicking and detouring to their apartments.

thanks, this makes me really optimistic since it pretty much looks like my ug schedule jr/sr year. so i'm holding you accountable when all my dreams are shattered five months from now.

also, the bit about recovery time from drinking is really good advice.

[gdane]

Theres a lot of exaggeration here about having no time for non law school related activities and all that. The truth is that if you balance your time right, you can have as much of a life as you want. You dont need to spend 16 hours a day reading, but it is important to stay on top of it. I have a friend who finished up her 1L year at UMiami in the top 15% I believe she said. She was out at bars every weekend and she had a healthy social life. What most people will agree on though is that the month before exams is crunch time and this is the time when reading and outlining 16 hours a day might not be out of the question.

Dont worry. Youll be fine.

[prezidentv8]

Law school is nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be. Put another way, I have drank (drunk?) more alcohol and partied more during law school than at any other point in my life thus far.

You get to have a social life still.

[sophie316]

First 3/4 of the semester: Wake up 45 minutes before class(whenever that may be), shower, get coffee. Attend whatever classes I may have(returning home to nap during any break longer than 2 hours). After classes end/evening at some point do 1-2 hours of reading. Then play video games/drink/watch tv/spend time with my SO. Weekends I;ll do 2-3 hours on a sunday.

Last 1/4: probably about 4-5 hours of work a day, ramping up to 6-8 in the week before/during exams. Took at least 1 day off between each exam(assuming decently spaced exams)

Really, really not that bad.

[etown989]

Law school is nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be. Put another way, I have drank (drunk?) more alcohol and partied more during law school than at any other point in my life thus far.

You get to have a social life still.

question is.... how much did you used to party?

[megaTTTron]

Law school is nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be. Put another way, I have drank (drunk?) more alcohol and partied more during law school than at any other point in my life thus far.

You get to have a social life still.

I totally agree. And I was in a fraternity that partied A LOT.

[GettingReady2010]

Law school is nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be. Put another way, I have drank (drunk?) more alcohol and partied more during law school than at any other point in my life thus far.

You get to have a social life still.

I totally agree. And I was in a fraternity that partied A LOT.

It's funny, because after reading many posts on TLS, you get the impression that you may possibly be able to devote 1 hour a month to having a social life.

[jayn3]

It's funny, because after reading many posts on TLS, you get the impression that you may possibly be able to devote 1 hour a month to having a social life.

please find yourself in the membership directory, sorted by post count, and reconsider this statement.

[gdane]

It's funny, because after reading many posts on TLS, you get the impression that you may possibly be able to devote 1 hour a month to having a social life.

please find yourself in the membership directory, sorted by post count, and reconsider this statement.

I dont get it? Are you saying that because the poster only has 58 posts he/she isnt qualified to make the statement? Remember that a high post count isnt indicative of how much a person frequents/reads stuff on TLS. So for all we know even though Getting only has 58 posts, he/she might read 10000 TLS posts a day.

[megaTTTron]

Law school is nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be. Put another way, I have drank (drunk?) more alcohol and partied more during law school than at any other point in my life thus far.

You get to have a social life still.

I totally agree. And I was in a fraternity that partied A LOT.

It's funny, because after reading many posts on TLS, you get the impression that you may possibly be able to devote 1 hour a month to having a social life.

TLS tends to exaggerate.

[Thomas Jefferson]

TLS tends to exaggerate.

I feel like this should be stickied and put in bold flashing neon lights at the top of a page somewhere.

[nickwar]

There's time for everything.

I slept 8 hours a night, exercised 5-6 days a week, went out ~3 times a week and was happy with how I did. What I didn't do: Spend hours briefing cases, make fantastic 300-page note novels, stalk my teachers' office hours.

Was I stressed? Of course, but 1L (specifically first semester) will absolutely fly by. Law school was basically my undergraduate life without all the extra empty free time.

It's about working smart; not just endlessly working.

My schedule:

Wake up at 8:30, cursory review of assigned reading for first class.
Class at 9:30
Reread next class 10:30-11:30
Class at 11:30
Reread next class 12:30-1:30
Class at 1:30
Reread next class 1:30-2:30
Last class 2:30-3:20
Read for the next day 4:00-5:30ish
Gym 5:30-6:30

Then I'm done. If I wanted to go out I could. If I wanted to sit around and relax I could. Look at it like a full-time job.

My study method: Fairly in depth reading for class. Probably 30 minutes per 10-pages. Reread between class. Read the E+E for each class throughout the semester (and again before finals), do the E+E problems (very important). I liked Cali lessons for topics that confused me. Make a good outline to study from (you should have it memorized and basically never use it in class.) And finally, my last thing was to fly through a commercial outline right before the finals. It helped bring everything together. It sounds like a lot, but it's not if you space it out right.

There were 1-2 weeks in there that were rough with memo/brief/first week of finals studying. We also got a full week off before finals, so I'd basically wake up a 9 and study all day, but it's really not that big a deal once it's over.

Bottom line is don't sit around doing nothing throughout the day. Get all your work and concentration out of the way before 5 or 6 so you can just relax the rest of the night. Five or six hours off each night can make you completely forget about your terrible days. It makes things a lot easier.

The worst people were the ones sitting in the library on facebook while complaining nonstop about how much work they had to do. It's a lot more mentally challenging (at least for me) to have some work I have to do hanging over me all day. I'd rather get it out of the way and forget about it.