Goodbye 1L Year

1L year is now over! I've finished the law review exam (ugh), all my exams (double ugh), and am basically just waiting for grades before I say goodbye to life as a 1L. Since finishing the law review exam, I've spent several days getting my life back together. My apartment is now significantly cleaner, although there is a stack of paper about three feet high waiting to be recycled in our living room. It's not all mine - I have been eyeing my SO's growing mountain of paper on his bureau for about six months now (he's also a graduate student), and decided that while I'm throwing out paper, we might as well make a clean sweep - but I'd say about 1.75 feet of it does belong to me. When I finally get rid of it, I imagine the feeling's going to be pretty cathartic.

So, what was 1L year like in retrospect? I'd say that unlike most people, I both really liked it and did not think it went by that fast. Of course, that may be in part due to fact that I got to move in with the SO, move back to a part of the world that I like a lot, and experience various other major personal developments that have nothing to do with law school itself. Still, I think that most people I've talked with did not think 1L year was as bad as predicted. What general advice can I offer now that SB and I are rising 2Ls?

(1) Ignore the top part of this post, and go in with really low expectations. It definitely helped that I thought 1L year as going to be the worst experience of my life, and was instead pleasantly surprised.
(2) Realize that there's going to be a really steep learning curve. The first two months of your first semester are going to be really difficult. In comparison, the rest is cake.
(3) Get a hobby. Get enough sleep. Eat right. Sorry, I'm sure I'm starting to sound like your mother. But honestly, the most unhappy people I knew were the folks who were all law school all the time. I may be totally off on this one - perhaps I'm not going to get the super great clerkships that the more intense people got or graduate with a "laude" attached to my degree. But I decided that there's only so long that I was willing to wait for my life to really start, and that if I didn't start doing the things I wanted to do now I was going to be in my mid-thirties before I could.
(4) Apply for a lot of summer internships, since they're apparently a lot harder to get than you'd think. Maybe if the economy's turned around by next winter, this won't be relevant.
(5) Put effort into making friends.
(6) Don't be afraid to change the way you study as you figure out what works for you. Don't feel pressured to study exactly the way other folks do - i.e., if using commercial outlines doesn't help you with exams, then don't use them.
(7) Probably, your law school will invite interesting people to come talk. Even if you are super busy, go see those people. They were inivited because they are probably actually interesting, they will help you to think about your career, and plus then you can call up your parents and say "I got to see X,Y,Z person" and your father will rail about the inequities of one political party or go "that's nice, sweetie" depending. (I would say that's just my family, but I think it's a pretty universal phenomenon.)

Hm...I wish I could come up with more, but that's all I've got. Enjoy your summer! SB and I will be posting sporadically, I think....probably mostly about the job search for next summer. We'll see you next year for life as a 2L at YLS and HLS.