What to Expect During the First Month of Law School

Student organizations

Well this week we had our student org fair and when I was on my way there it started down pouring so I turned around and ended up missing it. I've added a lot of organizations on Facebook so hopefully I can still get involved with them. And Phi Alpha Delta sent me a form to transfer from pre-law to law which is pretty nice because I paid $100 national dues to join in undergrad and this was only $65. They also sent me letters for my car which I love because I never got any in undergrad. I'm hoping to run for some positions in these organizations pretty soon so that I can start building my resumé since I only have 3 years here.

Month milestone

Well I've been here a month and only questioned my life choices about three times so I'm feeling pretty good right now. I still haven't been cold called in any of my classes, so that's nice. Just like with my responses from law school, each one of my professors has a different way of handling that. One professor literally puts all of our names two times in a had and will draw at random who he'll call on to discuss cases. Another professor used an outline random number selector and will let us know one class in advance that we'll be called on. Another professor simply looks down at the class roll and will call someone from there to be up that day. And yet another professor doesn't call on anyone at all. I can't decide if I''m happy to not be called yet because this gives me time to get really good at briefing before I'm called, or if I'd rather have been called already because the cases seem to be getting harder as we go.

Working on my outlines

Now that I have a month worth of notes for my classes, I've started making my overall outlines for each class. It hasn't gone unnoticed to me that if I would been preparing for my finals this early during undergrad then I probably would've had a 4.0. My method is to follow the themes for each chapter and then to give the rules that we've learned so far and their cases and then also the exceptions to the rules. So far I have about a page and a half worth of outlines for each class, but I think that's because of the spacing. Here's a real rough draft of page one from what I have so far.

Related: How to Turn Your Notes into an Outline

Final thoughts

I've realized that probably the reason why I'm enjoying my classes and working so hard for them is that law school is the first higher education I've really gotten so far. To me, college was really just the most expensive party I ever went to. College was learning a little about a lot due to all of the random classes I took to get my major like History of Jazz and Walking. And law school is learning a lot about a little. Already a lot of my classes are overlapping themes! I like this a lot better and really feel like I'm not wasting my time on bullshit classes. Except for CivPro. I really dislike that class because I can read the book and cases watch the Quimbee videos, pay attention in class, and I still get easily confused on topics so idk what I'll end up doing about that :/ 

Also, this declaration for the Texas board of law examiners takes forever. With $190 application fees you'd think they'd have a website that doesn't look like its from 2002. Oh and you have to have SIX character references that can't be relatives or past employers and I really kinda am struggling past 3, so keep that in mind before you get here. They also require you to send in your official birth certificate or an official copy, so if you're still keeping that kind of important paperwork with your parents, make sure you pack it with you so you don't have to last minute call your mom and make her overnight it to you like I had to. Lastly, I'd suggest buy a used book because it's cheaper and chances are the last person highlighted everything you need.

Related: The Declaration of Intent to Study Law