So, unlike SB, we have actual grades for the fall semester, and they were released to us last week. Well, I say "actual grades" - I should say "fake grades, but with more options for doing badly than a Yale 1st semester 1L". The new grading system accounts for the fact that most of us, when we got with our grades, reacted with...not fear...not glee...but...confusion. Never before have I looked at my transcripts and not known what to think. The feeling was not universal. Both the kids who got 5 Low Passes and the kids who got 5 High Passes knew what was up. Still, the rest of us had almost no idea.
But, as someone who has gotten some pretty bad grades over the course of her lifetime (I'm not talking about a B, all you college over-achievers out there, I'm talking about bad grades), I'll rejoice in the fact that I appear not to have failed property, and move on. To less confusing pastures, like the job market, where I understand exactly what's going on - lots of rejection. Hopefully, employers will share in the general befuddlement over grades, and hire me on the spot, thinking I'm going to be valedictorian.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Cruel Summer?
When orientation started, the big questions were usually variations on a theme: "Where did you go to school?" "Where are you from?" "What kind of law do you want to do?"
Now that we all know each other better (and "what kind of law" you want to do becomes at least somewhat self-evident on the basis of the courses you're taking, not to mention the journals, clinics, and other extra-curriculars you've chosen to do), the question has turned to "What're you doing this summer?"
Admittedly, there's a sense of uncertainty in the air. This summer is perhaps shaping up different than others, simply on the basis of the economy. Law firms are cutting jobs, meaning there's an inevitable trickle-down effect...summer associates aren't be hired at the same rates by big firms, meaning that there's more competition for government and non-profit jobs, too.
Luckily (for us), we're somewhat better-insulated than many other schools. A number of my friends accepted jobs at big firms back in December. Others have accepted offers at various US Attorneys Offices from coast to coast. People are working for circuit court judges. Or for other countries' supreme courts. Or for non-profits with which they've built a relationship through the Pro Bono Network here at school. Or they've arranged to volunteer abroad in something completely non-law-related.
It's not really, then, that you can't *get* a job which is causing a number of people around here to worry...rather, it's that we don't yet *have* jobs (or, in my case, due to a bunch of mis-matched deadlines, I have been playing summer job roulette by turning down offers while [perhaps foolishly?] anticipating the possibility of other ones yet to come). Because I am interested in kind of a niche specialty (which, in some cases, means that jobs I'm interviewing for aren't even "law" jobs), the magic 'December 1' date for 1L applications didn't really apply, and now I'm trying to make a number of important decisions, but there are just too many things to think about! What to do. Where to do it. Who to do it with: private, government, non-profit.
The Career Development Office and the new public interest adviser try their best to help us navigate the mess that is the summer job search (including hosting an on-campus interview day, which netted me some interesting conversation and an awesome firm-logo coffee thermos(!), but so far no job offers), but sometimes it's hard to calm yourself when you need to figure out how to get to and live in another city (most people don't stay here in New Haven for the summer unless they're working in the school's clinic or perhaps as a research assistant to a professor, so you've got to sublet your apartment here, too) - all in exactly 3 months from now.
Hopefully, I'll have my job situation all wrapped up by the end of next week...I have two more interviews in two different cities between now and then, and I've been promised that I'll be able to make a fully-informed decision by March 1st at the very latest. At the same time, I'm kind of tempted to just move to the Mediterranean or South Africa for the summer - so who knows.
**
Now that we all know each other better (and "what kind of law" you want to do becomes at least somewhat self-evident on the basis of the courses you're taking, not to mention the journals, clinics, and other extra-curriculars you've chosen to do), the question has turned to "What're you doing this summer?"
Admittedly, there's a sense of uncertainty in the air. This summer is perhaps shaping up different than others, simply on the basis of the economy. Law firms are cutting jobs, meaning there's an inevitable trickle-down effect...summer associates aren't be hired at the same rates by big firms, meaning that there's more competition for government and non-profit jobs, too.
Luckily (for us), we're somewhat better-insulated than many other schools. A number of my friends accepted jobs at big firms back in December. Others have accepted offers at various US Attorneys Offices from coast to coast. People are working for circuit court judges. Or for other countries' supreme courts. Or for non-profits with which they've built a relationship through the Pro Bono Network here at school. Or they've arranged to volunteer abroad in something completely non-law-related.
It's not really, then, that you can't *get* a job which is causing a number of people around here to worry...rather, it's that we don't yet *have* jobs (or, in my case, due to a bunch of mis-matched deadlines, I have been playing summer job roulette by turning down offers while [perhaps foolishly?] anticipating the possibility of other ones yet to come). Because I am interested in kind of a niche specialty (which, in some cases, means that jobs I'm interviewing for aren't even "law" jobs), the magic 'December 1' date for 1L applications didn't really apply, and now I'm trying to make a number of important decisions, but there are just too many things to think about! What to do. Where to do it. Who to do it with: private, government, non-profit.
The Career Development Office and the new public interest adviser try their best to help us navigate the mess that is the summer job search (including hosting an on-campus interview day, which netted me some interesting conversation and an awesome firm-logo coffee thermos(!), but so far no job offers), but sometimes it's hard to calm yourself when you need to figure out how to get to and live in another city (most people don't stay here in New Haven for the summer unless they're working in the school's clinic or perhaps as a research assistant to a professor, so you've got to sublet your apartment here, too) - all in exactly 3 months from now.
Hopefully, I'll have my job situation all wrapped up by the end of next week...I have two more interviews in two different cities between now and then, and I've been promised that I'll be able to make a fully-informed decision by March 1st at the very latest. At the same time, I'm kind of tempted to just move to the Mediterranean or South Africa for the summer - so who knows.
**
Monday, February 9, 2009
Meeting the Other
Around this time, 1L students at HLS start engaging with the other. That's right - those mysterious folks from different sections that you pass in the hallways but knew nothing about. Your class suddenly grows from 80 to 500+, and the transition is...well...relatively painless. Why? Because most people still seemed attached to their sections. No one is quite ready to move on. There's a whole big frightening world of new people out there, and we already went through one traumatic transition this year.
So, how to get acquainted? I think there are the following options:
(1) Engage in group projects with people from other sections (this is annoying, but probably safer than engaging in a group project with people from your own section that you have to see at least six times in any given week)
(2) Tipsily make their acquaintance at bar review. I have not tried this, but I've heard that the consequences are decidly mixed.
(3) Ignore them until next year, when you'll have no choice but to get to know eachother.
I'm not going to reveal which (or which combination of 1 and 3) that I'm going for. In other news, trying to find a job sucks. A lot. I knew all that stuff about the "competition being over" was demonstrably false. Still, I could have lived with being the counter-example.
So, how to get acquainted? I think there are the following options:
(1) Engage in group projects with people from other sections (this is annoying, but probably safer than engaging in a group project with people from your own section that you have to see at least six times in any given week)
(2) Tipsily make their acquaintance at bar review. I have not tried this, but I've heard that the consequences are decidly mixed.
(3) Ignore them until next year, when you'll have no choice but to get to know eachother.
I'm not going to reveal which (or which combination of 1 and 3) that I'm going for. In other news, trying to find a job sucks. A lot. I knew all that stuff about the "competition being over" was demonstrably false. Still, I could have lived with being the counter-example.
Curious about Life at CLS?
If you're sick of hearing only about Harvard & Yale (or you just want to read some interesting reflections on life as a 1L), check out this awesome new blog by our friend, Columbia 1L:
http://columbiaonel.blogspot.com/
***
http://columbiaonel.blogspot.com/
***
Gunning with an AK-47
Every prospective law student has heard lore about "gunners " - even Wikipedia has an entertaining description. I kind of assumed that we'd have a good share of them here, since there are SO many uber-smart people - surely, *somebody* would want everyone else to know how smart he/she is, too.
In a way, though, there's an assumption that everyone here is pretty intelligent. So most people don't feel the need to show off. Some of the smartest people I know here don't talk in class. Ever. Last semester, with the exception of one or two people in two of my three larger (about 50-60 student) classes, everyone was pretty calm and reserved - saying things when they were important, but generally letting the professor guide the discussion. [The few exceptions, of course, were pretty blatantly obvious...and led everyone else to kind of snicker about those particular individuals' desire to hear themselves talk.] In general, I felt pretty lucky, though...nobody was a gunner to the point of driving me insane, and the professors managed class discussion well enough so that the same people didn't talk all the time.
This semester, things have changed for the worse. In one of my classes, there are 2 or 3 individuals that make probably 65-75% of the comments in class. And they're not particularly brilliant comments, either. They're often what everyone else is thinking, but everyone else doesn't feel the need to share with 80 other people. If they're not saying what everyone else is thinking, the likelihood of anyone else caring is (generously) slightly greater than zero, and the content of their comments ranges from delirious philosophical babbling to wacky hypotheticals.
As a result, I've pretty much stopped paying attention in this particular class. I sit waaaaay on the left side of the room, and since the professor doesn't cold call, there's no worry of needing to participate if I don't want to. I've admittedly already stopped doing all the reading (b/c, really, something's gotta give with my clinic work taking over my life)...and since it's a "black letter law" class, I can probably just relatively blow it off and study some hornbooks at the end of the semester and be fine. Obviously, this is where the "no grades" system here is a good thing - I'll take my "P" and move right along, thankyouverymuch.
***
In a way, though, there's an assumption that everyone here is pretty intelligent. So most people don't feel the need to show off. Some of the smartest people I know here don't talk in class. Ever. Last semester, with the exception of one or two people in two of my three larger (about 50-60 student) classes, everyone was pretty calm and reserved - saying things when they were important, but generally letting the professor guide the discussion. [The few exceptions, of course, were pretty blatantly obvious...and led everyone else to kind of snicker about those particular individuals' desire to hear themselves talk.] In general, I felt pretty lucky, though...nobody was a gunner to the point of driving me insane, and the professors managed class discussion well enough so that the same people didn't talk all the time.
This semester, things have changed for the worse. In one of my classes, there are 2 or 3 individuals that make probably 65-75% of the comments in class. And they're not particularly brilliant comments, either. They're often what everyone else is thinking, but everyone else doesn't feel the need to share with 80 other people. If they're not saying what everyone else is thinking, the likelihood of anyone else caring is (generously) slightly greater than zero, and the content of their comments ranges from delirious philosophical babbling to wacky hypotheticals.
As a result, I've pretty much stopped paying attention in this particular class. I sit waaaaay on the left side of the room, and since the professor doesn't cold call, there's no worry of needing to participate if I don't want to. I've admittedly already stopped doing all the reading (b/c, really, something's gotta give with my clinic work taking over my life)...and since it's a "black letter law" class, I can probably just relatively blow it off and study some hornbooks at the end of the semester and be fine. Obviously, this is where the "no grades" system here is a good thing - I'll take my "P" and move right along, thankyouverymuch.
***
Monday, February 2, 2009
And so it begins, all over again
A new semester, a new computer, and a frustrating inability to find a job. This is the trifecta of a second semester law school student (well, I guess not everyone poured a full cup of water on their old computer...)
Is becoming a 1.5L better than just being a plain old 1L? I don't know. It's hard to tell, but classes do seem a lot less stressful. Being cold-called is less intimidating, you know the other kids, and even the reading seems shorter. Of course, the real work hasn't really begun yet, so check in with me in about a month.
In other news, Boston continues cold and snow-covered. I've started having dreams at night about falling asleep somewhere very sunny and warm. Recently, I watched someone with knee-high rain boots step into a sleet-filled puddle that was just a little to deep (really, we do have puddles that big in Boston.) On the other hand, my plants have started blooming. My biology PHD friend explained that they had to get cold and deal with shorter sunlight, a.k.a. being vernalized (I'm definitely not spelling that right) before they could bloom. So, I guess that's my silver lining of the Boston winter and my high note to end on.
Is becoming a 1.5L better than just being a plain old 1L? I don't know. It's hard to tell, but classes do seem a lot less stressful. Being cold-called is less intimidating, you know the other kids, and even the reading seems shorter. Of course, the real work hasn't really begun yet, so check in with me in about a month.
In other news, Boston continues cold and snow-covered. I've started having dreams at night about falling asleep somewhere very sunny and warm. Recently, I watched someone with knee-high rain boots step into a sleet-filled puddle that was just a little to deep (really, we do have puddles that big in Boston.) On the other hand, my plants have started blooming. My biology PHD friend explained that they had to get cold and deal with shorter sunlight, a.k.a. being vernalized (I'm definitely not spelling that right) before they could bloom. So, I guess that's my silver lining of the Boston winter and my high note to end on.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
All Good Things Must Come to an End
Sorry for a period of relative (posting) inactivity. Luckily, the last week or so was spent in a state of relative intellectual inactivity (for both Cat & me, as both our schools had vacation until classes resumed yesterday).
Quick update: I spent "vacation" in Massachusetts. My last final (con law - which we could take anywhere in the world, thanks to the magic of the internet) was, somewhat ironically, on the morning of January 20th. After relatively blowing off that exam (reason explained more below) and watching the inaugural events while baking cookies, I had a few unencumbered days in Boston, give or take a few meetings and some summer job search nonsense. Got to see some people I love: my long-lost college roommate whose boyfriend just transferred to HLS; my former classmate who worked with me in DC last year and moved to Boston in August; Cat(!!) and her boyfriend; another friend who is doing his PhD at MIT [and who I know reads this - See, you're famous now!]. After a few more days of seeing friends and some volunteering, I had to come back Sunday evening, totally unprepared for the onslaught of beginning-of-semester craziness.
Buying books. Choosing classes. Starting clinic. Figuring out how to get paid for my TAing job. Figuring out how to get my student loan money refunded so I can pay rent. Lots of fun stuff.
In short: my new classes (two small 20ish person courses - one of which has VERY little to do with law, one large "black letter" class, and clinic) are awesome so far. Since I've only been to each one once, not too much to say yet...but I think it'll make a huge difference that we get to pick all our classes this semester - so I can't blame anyone but myself if I don't like the material/don't do the reading.
On the flip side, this semester will require some marginal amount of work beyond what was expected of us last semester (which was all "pass/fail"), since we now get graded with either "honors" or "pass." So I should redouble my efforts to stay caught up with reading, and to go to class regularly. I'll keep you updated as to how long that lasts...I have a feeling clinic might become a big time commitment that pushes some other things out, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing as my clinic involves doing stuff that I'm truly interested in.
A bunch of people have asked about how finals wrapped up. In sum: they're done, and not getting a grade makes it super-easy not to ever think about them again. In more detail:
Torts: First law school exam ever. More details here.
Contracts: Since contracts & procedure were both self-scheduled (we could take them any time we wanted between January 7th and January 21st), some people took this pretty early on to get it over with...our professor suggested that she'd do no more than take a cursory glance at our exams, so there wasn't much worry about knocking it out of the park. After reading over a couple of other people's/Lexis's outlines, I took this at 1am-3am one day. The fact pattern was truly interesting...I'd be interested to see the model answer, as I think there were a number of ways to go with it.
Procedure: It would not be an overstatement to call this the relative bane of my existence as far as exams went. We had to do a take-home essay before starting the timed portion, and I had kind of blissfully forgotten about that during the holidays. I ended up writing something relatively cogent (maybe?) examining the Guantanamo habeas proceedings from a feminist perspective. The actual timed portion of the exam (3.5 hours) had a rather extensive issue spotting question, and a relatively painless (read: we'd harped on the issue for DAYS in class) policy question. In the end, I kind of psyched myself out for this exam (the only one for which a professor is giving personalized feedback to everyone in the class, without students asking specifically)...but hopefully the extra two days of "studying" resulted in me not embarassing myself (meaning, after I actually read an outline, I knew that a state's attachment rule had nothing to do with the stapling/binding of filings).
Con Law: By the time the 20th rolled around, I was SUPER-glad that my professor had told us that he wasn't going to read our exams. He told us we didn't need to write anything, in fact. It was "for [us], not [him]," and if we wanted feedback, he'd give us comments...but there was no need to prove we knew con law on an exam, as he knew from our small group seminar that we all knew con law. Sweet. As a result, a few people just wrote "Thanks for a great semester!" or something similar...and the rest of us sort of halfway wrote something relating to the questions.
So yeah. That's the end of first semester 1L. Now we're in the big leagues, taking all our classes with 2Ls and 3Ls and getting more involved in activities and clinics. If the last two days are any indication, that's going to mean 10-12 hour days at school...no easy welcome to spring semester, I guess.
***
Quick update: I spent "vacation" in Massachusetts. My last final (con law - which we could take anywhere in the world, thanks to the magic of the internet) was, somewhat ironically, on the morning of January 20th. After relatively blowing off that exam (reason explained more below) and watching the inaugural events while baking cookies, I had a few unencumbered days in Boston, give or take a few meetings and some summer job search nonsense. Got to see some people I love: my long-lost college roommate whose boyfriend just transferred to HLS; my former classmate who worked with me in DC last year and moved to Boston in August; Cat(!!) and her boyfriend; another friend who is doing his PhD at MIT [and who I know reads this - See, you're famous now!]. After a few more days of seeing friends and some volunteering, I had to come back Sunday evening, totally unprepared for the onslaught of beginning-of-semester craziness.
Buying books. Choosing classes. Starting clinic. Figuring out how to get paid for my TAing job. Figuring out how to get my student loan money refunded so I can pay rent. Lots of fun stuff.
In short: my new classes (two small 20ish person courses - one of which has VERY little to do with law, one large "black letter" class, and clinic) are awesome so far. Since I've only been to each one once, not too much to say yet...but I think it'll make a huge difference that we get to pick all our classes this semester - so I can't blame anyone but myself if I don't like the material/don't do the reading.
On the flip side, this semester will require some marginal amount of work beyond what was expected of us last semester (which was all "pass/fail"), since we now get graded with either "honors" or "pass." So I should redouble my efforts to stay caught up with reading, and to go to class regularly. I'll keep you updated as to how long that lasts...I have a feeling clinic might become a big time commitment that pushes some other things out, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing as my clinic involves doing stuff that I'm truly interested in.
A bunch of people have asked about how finals wrapped up. In sum: they're done, and not getting a grade makes it super-easy not to ever think about them again. In more detail:
Torts: First law school exam ever. More details here.
Contracts: Since contracts & procedure were both self-scheduled (we could take them any time we wanted between January 7th and January 21st), some people took this pretty early on to get it over with...our professor suggested that she'd do no more than take a cursory glance at our exams, so there wasn't much worry about knocking it out of the park. After reading over a couple of other people's/Lexis's outlines, I took this at 1am-3am one day. The fact pattern was truly interesting...I'd be interested to see the model answer, as I think there were a number of ways to go with it.
Procedure: It would not be an overstatement to call this the relative bane of my existence as far as exams went. We had to do a take-home essay before starting the timed portion, and I had kind of blissfully forgotten about that during the holidays. I ended up writing something relatively cogent (maybe?) examining the Guantanamo habeas proceedings from a feminist perspective. The actual timed portion of the exam (3.5 hours) had a rather extensive issue spotting question, and a relatively painless (read: we'd harped on the issue for DAYS in class) policy question. In the end, I kind of psyched myself out for this exam (the only one for which a professor is giving personalized feedback to everyone in the class, without students asking specifically)...but hopefully the extra two days of "studying" resulted in me not embarassing myself (meaning, after I actually read an outline, I knew that a state's attachment rule had nothing to do with the stapling/binding of filings).
Con Law: By the time the 20th rolled around, I was SUPER-glad that my professor had told us that he wasn't going to read our exams. He told us we didn't need to write anything, in fact. It was "for [us], not [him]," and if we wanted feedback, he'd give us comments...but there was no need to prove we knew con law on an exam, as he knew from our small group seminar that we all knew con law. Sweet. As a result, a few people just wrote "Thanks for a great semester!" or something similar...and the rest of us sort of halfway wrote something relating to the questions.
So yeah. That's the end of first semester 1L. Now we're in the big leagues, taking all our classes with 2Ls and 3Ls and getting more involved in activities and clinics. If the last two days are any indication, that's going to mean 10-12 hour days at school...no easy welcome to spring semester, I guess.
***
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