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Originally Posted by Ironic Mustache
There is a SHIT-TON of work but I'm getting better at recognizing how much of it is actually important.
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This is the battle and it takes a while to get this. Congrats at getting it this early in the game.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ironic Mustache
Note: Including class time I put in between 13-15 hours per day into studying. A big part of this is determining what to exclude.
It's definitely possible to study a case for like 5 hours and not understand the relevant facts at all.
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Um, I take back the above mentioned "congrats." That's a lot of time in both examples. Maybe soon. At least you know what you're looking for.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ironic Mustache
I have been able to fend off professors thus far but have seen otherwise "smart" people reduced nearly to tears by professors who are trying to make a specific point. Not understanding relevancy is the law school equivalent of bleeding out of your asshole in the midst of a great white feeding frenzy. The evil professors feed on this and will continuously question you for the entire hour and fifteen minutes, knowing the whole time that you're completely at a loss as to the main concept. I've had a couple of hour and 15 minute classes where 90% of the questions were directed at one person who just didn't "get it." It's like watching someone getting waterboarded.
Other than that, all is well.
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Expect to get called on once or twice per class per semester at first. Socratic completely loses it's effect in a room full of people who can all play the game. That'll happen sooner than expected. You'll notice when the class gangs up on the instructor to move on and quit wasting an hour and 15 minutes on somebody who doesn't know. That always frustrated me. Spending 1.25 hours drilling some poor sap who fucking has no clue. How are you supposed to benefit from learning from somebody else who doesn't know and get's toyed with while giving wrong answers? Yeah fucking thanks prof I just took two pages of notes over wrong material because you wanted to dick with somebody all class.
I'm pretty sure AP has mentioned it before: There's not a lot of difference in ability between the top of the class and the bottom of the class. You're all pretty damned good with few exceptions. You should have a better idea where you stand in January.
Unless classroom prep is a significant part of your grade, don't worry about getting humiliated. You're not supposed to know jack shit at this point. The instructor is going to ask you shit that you obviously couldn't possibly know --that has little to with the relevancy of the facts or law of a case. The dynamic will change when over half of you can summarize facts effortlessly, repeat the holding, how the facts applied to the law, and when the prof tries to change things with hypotheticals, not get caught up in that.
The hard part is knowing when to admit that you just don't know. "It depends on . . . . . ." is almost always the correct way to start an explanation to a hypothetical.