Work and 1L Forum

[kiwi4president]

I was all ready to enter 1L as an unemployed debt peon until I was offered a position teaching the LSAT through Princeton Review. I would work at night for 2-3 nights a week. My question is should I take the job and risk worse law school performance or ignore the job and wallow in debt?

[Nova]

I think you should wallow and focus solely on school, since 1L grades are the most importaint grades of your life. Perhaps you can look for a job that you can study during, like being a lab monitor/librarian or something.

[Ozymandias]

How many hours per week?

[kiwi4president]

3 hours or so per night, so like 9-12 hours a week.

[Skyblaze]

DON'T DO IT!

Your compeition will bury you. 9 Hours a week is an eternity in 1L land where every hour counts.

[spleenworship]

DON'T DO IT!

Your compeition will bury you. 9 Hours a week is an eternity in 1L land where every hour counts.

The bolded is BS. I would recommend not doing it simply to keep your stress level down. The first year sucks, and is incredibly stressful for most people. Working is stressful by itself. Both together and it just sucks. Staying cool, getting some time in with your video games, significant other, friends, a good book, etc. is well worth that time, instead of work.

Studying, however, hits a point of diminishing returns. You can easily give up 9 hours a week for other crap besides studying. I'd just recommend stuff other than work. Definitely do not fall into that competitive "I have to study harder than everyone else" trap. Lots of people study hard and stupid at the same time and if you are trying to study for more time than them you will regret it because they'll see you studying and try to study harder.... endless cycle of frustration. I did virtually no work in my classes Spring semester until the last four weeks and ended up top third. And I drank several times a week with friend, got laid occasionally, played Black Ops, read a novel, kept my house clean, etc. Either you get it or you don't. Several of my classmates worked hard and barely got median, others did nothing and were top 10%. The people who worked and did school though... they could make top 1/3, but their personal relationships suffered badly for it.

[Skyblaze]

DON'T DO IT!

Your compeition will bury you. 9 Hours a week is an eternity in 1L land where every hour counts.

The bolded is BS. I would recommend not doing it simply to keep your stress level down. The first year sucks, and is incredibly stressful for most people. Working is stressful by itself. Both together and it just sucks. Staying cool, getting some time in with your video games, significant other, friends, a good book, etc. is well worth that time, instead of work.

Studying, however, hits a point of diminishing returns. You can easily give up 9 hours a week for other crap besides studying. I'd just recommend stuff other than work. Definitely do not fall into that competitive "I have to study harder than everyone else" trap. Lots of people study hard and stupid at the same time and if you are trying to study for more time than them you will regret it because they'll see you studying and try to study harder.... endless cycle of frustration. I did virtually no work in my classes Spring semester until the last four weeks and ended up top third. And I drank several times a week with friend, got laid occasionally, played Black Ops, read a novel, kept my house clean, etc. Either you get it or you don't. Several of my classmates worked hard and barely got median, others did nothing and were top 10%. The people who worked and did school though... they could make top 1/3, but their personal relationships suffered badly for it.

Depends, if your aiming for Top 1/3rd and want time to goof around then thats fine. If your aiming for Top 5% though good luck. There enough people studying both hard and smart to make the top of the class a crowded place. Either way though, don't work. Even if your aiming for above median its enough stress and work where you don't want to have a job.

[Ozymandias]

That should be completely doable for most of the year, but with two pretty major exceptions: 1. Before a LRW brief or memo is due (probably the 2 weeks before), and 2. Three weeks to a month before finals. If you will be able to take off work completely during those periods AND you are willing to work a little harder/more efficiently during your non-work hours, that should be fine. If you'd be making good money, I'd absolutely do it.

[Ozymandias]

DON'T DO IT!

Your compeition will bury you. 9 Hours a week is an eternity in 1L land where every hour counts.

I lol'd

[hopper123]

Would you work in your first semester at Yale? No grades.

[Elston Gunn]

Would you work in your first semester at Yale? No grades.

Thought about doing this. Students I talked to said it would be doable, you'd just have to be efficient with your time. In the end, decided I was probably going to be stressed/overwhelmed enough, plus needing to find time to spend with my fiance, that it wasn't worth it. The ~$3k is about $60/month in loan payments on a 10 year plan though, which IMO is a fair amount. If I were single I probably would have done it, especially because the October test happens well before finals.

(This is all assuming you're talking about teaching the LSAT. Otherwise, advice is the same, just make sure you can take it off in the time leading up to finals.)

[hopper123]

Would you work in your first semester at Yale? No grades.

Thought about doing this. Students I talked to said it would be doable, you'd just have to be efficient with your time. In the end, decided I was probably going to be stressed/overwhelmed enough, plus needing to find time to spend with my fiance, that it wasn't worth it. The ~$3k is about $60/month in loan payments on a 10 year plan though, which IMO is a fair amount. If I were single I probably would have done it, especially because the October test happens well before finals.

(This is all assuming you're talking about teaching the LSAT. Otherwise, advice is the same, just make sure you can take it off in the time leading up to finals.)

Oh cool. Not goin to Yale here but am fascinated with the school. Just out of curiosity why would you be overwhelmed/stresse when you have no grades?

[Elston Gunn]

Would you work in your first semester at Yale? No grades.

Thought about doing this. Students I talked to said it would be doable, you'd just have to be efficient with your time. In the end, decided I was probably going to be stressed/overwhelmed enough, plus needing to find time to spend with my fiance, that it wasn't worth it. The ~$3k is about $60/month in loan payments on a 10 year plan though, which IMO is a fair amount. If I were single I probably would have done it, especially because the October test happens well before finals.

(This is all assuming you're talking about teaching the LSAT. Otherwise, advice is the same, just make sure you can take it off in the time leading up to finals.)

Oh cool. Not goin to Yale here but am fascinated with the school. Just out of curiosity why would you be overwhelmed/stresse when you have no grades?

Presumably because we are all hopeless strivers.

[spleenworship]

DON'T DO IT!

Your compeition will bury you. 9 Hours a week is an eternity in 1L land where every hour counts.

The bolded is BS. I would recommend not doing it simply to keep your stress level down. The first year sucks, and is incredibly stressful for most people. Working is stressful by itself. Both together and it just sucks. Staying cool, getting some time in with your video games, significant other, friends, a good book, etc. is well worth that time, instead of work.

Studying, however, hits a point of diminishing returns. You can easily give up 9 hours a week for other crap besides studying. I'd just recommend stuff other than work. Definitely do not fall into that competitive "I have to study harder than everyone else" trap. Lots of people study hard and stupid at the same time and if you are trying to study for more time than them you will regret it because they'll see you studying and try to study harder.... endless cycle of frustration. I did virtually no work in my classes Spring semester until the last four weeks and ended up top third. And I drank several times a week with friend, got laid occasionally, played Black Ops, read a novel, kept my house clean, etc. Either you get it or you don't. Several of my classmates worked hard and barely got median, others did nothing and were top 10%. The people who worked and did school though... they could make top 1/3, but their personal relationships suffered badly for it.

Depends, if your aiming for Top 1/3rd and want time to goof around then thats fine. If your aiming for Top 5% though good luck. There enough people studying both hard and smart to make the top of the class a crowded place. Either way though, don't work. Even if your aiming for above median its enough stress and work where you don't want to have a job.

Fair enough. I'll admit I have no idea what it takes to make top 5%.

[ScottPilgrim]

Not sure how in the hell you would manage that 1L year. I would think I would have struggled to get an extra 10ish hours a week, but I put in 12 hour days during the week. I don't think it would be worth the money.

Maybe 2L year, depending on journal and moot court.

[crossarmant]

As someone who has held a job almost continuously since he was 14, I say do not do it. 1L year was the first time I've never held a job during school and I can't imagine how I would've done if I had had a job. Especially during the evening like that, you'll quickly fall behind on reading.

[for10s88]

I cannot stress this enough: the answer depends entirely on how you study best.

The people here assuring you that you best be working your tail off, spending 6 hours a day outside of class studying, if you want to do well, are wrong. That is only necessary if you're the type of person who needs that constant level of studying to perform well. Many people don't need that.

I can assure you that starting in November, you won't be able to teach the LSAT. And for anyone needing clarification/explanation as to not everyone needs to study until midnight every night to do well, just PM me.

[r6_philly]

I worked through 1L. It took time away from studying for sure. But I can't honestly say that having the extra time would have resulted in better grades. It's not that kind of exams. I also have kids and my wife is also in school, for reference, so I was really taxed when it comes to time. So if I can do it, so can others. Whether or not it's the best decisions depends on how much free time do you want do you want any free time to rest.

[Richie Tenenbaum]

I am assuming you would be teaching a class for the December test and it would be the first time you taught a class?

I say don't do it. Your 9-12 hour estimate doesn't seem to include prep time, which, depending on the teacher, can be pretty substantial--especially when it's your first time teaching a class. The hour commitment could easily reach 20 per week for 9-12 hours of class time.

Money in the short term isn't worth risking poor grades the most important year of law school.

[cinephile]

I did an unpaid legal externship on top of a full courseload during 1L, as did several of my sectionmates. It was fine. It was actually really nice to get a break from studying and do something outside of school with non-law school people. It would have been even nicer if I could've gotten paid for it. As long as you're not doing this right before exams come up, I don't see the harm.

[Redamon1]

I'm in a similar situation, but less demanding and therefore more tempting. 5-7hrs/week on average. Interesting policy, but non-law, research. Flexible hours from home. $45/hr. It doesn't add much to my CV, and I don't want to be distracted during 1L, but the money is nothing to sneeze at. What would you do?

[spleenworship]

I'm in a similar situation, but less demanding and therefore more tempting. 5-7hrs/week on average. Interesting policy, but non-law, research. Flexible hours from home. $45/hr. It doesn't add much to my CV, and I don't want to be distracted during 1L, but the money is nothing to sneeze at. What would you do?

5-7 hours at $45 an hour? I'd probably do it.

[Ozymandias]

I'm in a similar situation, but less demanding and therefore more tempting. 5-7hrs/week on average. Interesting policy, but non-law, research. Flexible hours from home. $45/hr. It doesn't add much to my CV, and I don't want to be distracted during 1L, but the money is nothing to sneeze at. What would you do?

I'd absolutely do it. That could probably pay your rent for the year.

[PutSumGravyOnIt]

I worked at Princeton Review for about a year and a half doing about 20 hours a week. I taught small classes and also some tutoring.

My takeaway from the experience is that the work requires more than you think it would. I ended up doing about 3 hours per week unpaid just to grade people's essays, prepare for teaching the material myself, etc. They also required me to drive lots of different places, sometimes far away, often at rush hour (when kids get out of school). That became a big hassle, as each session that was 3 hours long ended up being 5 hours if you include preparation and driving. They do pay you some rate on gas as well as administrative (read: minimum wage) pay for grading. Still, it took a lot longer than I thought it would, and did not end up being worth it.

Also, the research dude got paid $45/hr and worked from home. I got paid $24/hr and had to drive everywhere to earn it.

I'm sure some jobs work just fine for 1L or law school generally, but after my experience with Princeton Review, I would not say that this job is one of them. Hope my experience helps--PM me if you want more specific info about the job.

[HarlandBassett]

what about teaching small classes during 1L summer?