Senioritis is applicable to law school. I know. I am suffering from it.
Remember those construction paper chains you made in grade school to countdown the days until Christmas? Yeah? I made one counting down the days to my final day of law school. School colors and all! Don’t judge!
Elle Woods, in Legally Blonde (stop rolling your eyes), chose a front row seat in her Civil Procedure class on the first day of law school. The professor menacingly tells those in that row to “BEWARE.”
I think choosing the right seat for you in your classes is one of the key ingredients to your success while in law school. Some people, like me, prefer the “danger zone.” Others prefer to be tucked away in a back corner where they are less likely to be called on. And yet others prefer to choose a middle row, center seat. Be cautious of all of these. I have tested out each of these locations and here are my findings:
FRONT AND CENTER
PROS
-You have less distraction
-This location forces you to pay attention
-You get some face time with the professor
CONS
-You are more likely to be called on
-People can see your computer screen
-If you have to leave the class during a lecture, everyone sees you and you can cause a distraction
FAR BACK CORNER
PROS
-No one is checking out your notes
-Sometimes you have that whole row to yourself
CONS
-You may be overlooked when it comes to “awarding” participation points
-You can be distracted by the computer screens in front of you
-Harder to see the slides
-Easily distracted because you won’t be noticed
-By the end of the semester, the professor doesn’t know your name
CENTER AISLE
PROS
-Neutral zone
-Some face time
-When you raise your hand to volunteer, you are statistically more likely to be called on
CONS
-Easily distracted by the computer screens in front of you
-Most people choose this area so there is not a lot of elbow room
-You are always asked to pass out handouts
Like I said, where you choose is your preference. After my first three classes in which I chose different seats, I found that front and center was the place for me and I have been successful in every class in which I chose that seat. However, at the movie theaters, the back row is the place for me.
I cannot count the number of times that when people found out I got pregnant on purpose during law school, the look on their face was one of doubt as to my choice. A gabillion! I guess I see their concern. Law school is a stressful time. Pregnancy is a stressful time. Combine both of those and you have a catastrophe waiting to happen.
Here is the thought process we went through to decide it was the right time for us to have a baby:
Timing
I kept saying we will have a baby when the time is “right.” What does that even mean? I have no clue what I meant. I think it was my way of stalling the process. Mr. Mister finally noticed that we will always find a reason as to why it was the wrong time. So I navigated my way through my first year and I established a good study routine. When we decided a baby would fit into our lives between semesters of my 2L year, I checked the week all of my finals would fall on, tracked back to an ovulation calculator (TMI? Sorry!), and decided we would have a two-month window with which we could conceive and have a safe buffer to deliver during my break between semesters. Once we had the date nailed down and finalized, it all became VERY real.
Finances
Law school is not cheap! Also, babies are not cheap! Combine those with a house payment, a car payment, utilities, etc. and you have a big ol’ debt sheet racking up. Mr. Mister and I sat down and seriously looked at our finances. We cut out the luxuries (who has time to watch TV anyway?), sold an extra vehicle we had, finished up all of the big “to-do” projects around the house, and made sure we had some savings stashed away in the event of an emergency. Knowing that we were being fiscally responsible helped eliminate a lot of the stress of simultaneous school and pregnancy.
Research
Ah, this is where my love for blogs began. I spent countless late night hours reading blogs. I searched things like: pregnant during law school; mothers in law school; effects of stress on a fetus J. I read how little amount of sleep I could get before it would affect a fetus. I read about other mother’s journey through law school while being pregnant or raising a child. I also talked to my doctor about risks and precautions I needed to take and talked to other mom friends to see just what this whole mothering thing was all about.
Support
I am not one to brag, but Mr. Mister is pretty fantastic! His support warrants its own blog post soon. I cannot express how motivational he was during my pregnancy. He was also a worrier; I always said he worried enough for all three of us. He’d make sure our fridge was stocked with yummy and healthy snacks. He would make sure I was taking vitamins, getting enough sleep (well enough relative to being a law school student and full time employee), and always made sure to call and check on me. The best thing he did was tell me when I’d had enough for the day and make sure I had actual “me” time. That may have resulted in one too many naps.
For those of you women wondering if it is a good idea to have a baby while in law school, I say it’s right if YOU feel its right. You know what you are capable of. You know how you handle stress, pressure, and criticism. You know how you are at prioritizing and time management. Take a while to sit down an analyze the situation you will be entering into and decided whether having a baby while in law school is right for you.
Scene:
A rooftop high above the city.
Actor:
Me.
Dialogue:
(ear-piercing shriek)
This is my last semester of law school!
Why are we all going to law school? For most, it is so we can take the bar and become licensed to practice law. In order to take the bar you need to graduate from law school (with few exceptions). In order to alleviate a little bit of the stress and anxiety you may be feeling, here is a little secret: the bar doesn’t care that you got all A’s. To that same end, the bar doesn’t care that you got all C’s.
I remember after my first semester grades came out I heard students saying “C’s equal degrees.” And that was the mantra they have maintained throughout their law school career. Those students chose to do the bare-bones work that was required, put in the amount of effort they felt was sufficient to get a passing grade and they were fine with that. However, these were also the same people who seemed a little less stressed because they utilized their free time to go out with friends, spend time with their families, and enjoy their time leisurely as opposed to being locked away in a library reading supplements and going through practice question. These people are still going to walk out of the law school with the same degree as all those people who chose to be disciplined enough to read the supplements, meet with professors to review concepts that they don’t understand and who took the extra time to run through some practice questions and ace their exams.
When I say law school is only a means to an end, you should take that with a grain of salt. Although you ultimately are enrolled to obtain a degree to take the bar, there are some VERY good reasons why you should strive to obtain good grades to get that degree.
Here are some reasons why I did not subscribe to the mantra that “C’s equal degrees.”
MONEY
Need I say more?! If I maintained a 3.0 average, my generous scholarship would be renewed and possibly increased! Not to mention, for those who plan on getting a big law firm job after graduation, you may want to assure you can put a good GPA and class rank on a revenue.
RECOGNITION
Whoo-wee, recognition is nice. Even if it is just from my husband telling my I did a great job or my school noting my academic achievements in the newsletter or various monitors around the school. Furthermore, potential employers may recognize one candidate’s higher GPA over the next candidate.
SATISFACTION
Don’t you feel better at the end of the day knowing you worked hard for that degree? That you didn’t take the easy way out? That you set goal and gave it everything you had to achieve it? I know I do. I get satisfaction knowing I earned by grade.
Ah! It’s finally hit me! I am entering my last semester of law school and I still have no idea what I want to do after graduation! Of course, I need a job, but where? How? Luckily, it’s not just me panicking about this. Unfortunately, it’s not just me panicking about this. That means I have that many other qualified professionals to compete against in the job market.
Here’s something saving my sanity – I know what I DO NOT want to do. That has helped me narrow down my options. I know I don’t want to practice family law, criminal law, or insurance defense. I know I will not be qualified to practice copyright or trademark law. I am in the fortunate position to currently work in the government sector and will have my job waiting for me after the bar. That means I can take my time (kinda) looking for the type of job that I feel will keep my interest and suit my family scheduling needs.
If a grade in a particular subject is any indication of what I would do well at in practice I think I would be good at business formation. I have always had a love for transactional practice. I like business formation because it is very cut and dry and governed by statute.
So……. that’s my current situation.
Only 1 semester left to go! 115 days of law school remaining. But who’s counting?
I have a Facebook page and that’s it. I don’t Tweet. I don’t post to Instagram. I have no clue how Snap Chat works. I don’t have much time to waste on these “time sucks” or I would probably check them all out to see what they are about. I get the pressure from my friends to sign up for Instagram or Twitter so I can follow them and keep up with what they are doing and so they can keep up with what I am doing. To that I ask “why don’t you call me or text me or stop by and actually see me?” Oh, because that would require the face-to-face human interaction that we are slowly losing as a result of all of these social media pressures we are bombarded with everyday. I was surprised at the increased amount of pressure to post pictures of Little Bit on Facebook. Except for her picture from the day she was born while we were still in the hospital, I will not post her picture to my Facebook page. People ask why we don’t post her picture? This is why.
I don’t want to see 642 pictures of your kid, why would I subject you to look at mine? Don’t get me wrong, Little Bit is freakin’ adorable! I may be biased, but she is pretty stinkin’ cute. So cute I can’t help but wonder what person wouldn’t want to see a picture of her gorgeous face? Friends and family know they are more than welcome to stop by and see her any time they want. We live so close to family that all of her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins get to see her often. For the family who live out state, they just call or shoot over a quick text and check on Little Bit and ask for an updated photo. I am more than happy to oblige and send the cutest picture I have on my camera phone at that moment. I don’t barrage Facebook with a multiple pictures on a daily basis of the “cute” things Little Bit is doing at that moment. Although I may have captured her silly antics for my and my husband’s own enjoyment, I don’t need to post Little Bit’s first food, her first spit up, her cute toes, her cute toes from a different angle, or her toes from the angle that includes her little hands too. It’s just not necessary. For those of our friends and family who want to see her, they need only ask. For the sake of my “friends” newsfeeds, I will spare the overkill of baby photos.
To that end, who wants strangers looking at their child? Once you post your child’s photo to a social media site it’s like releasing a helium balloon into the air. You keep it in your line of site for a little while, but eventually is escapes you and you have no idea where it ends up. Although I have my Facebook page set to the highest privacy settings and my “friends” are people I know, I can’t tell what those “friends” do with my photos. I have also noticed that when one of my Facebook “friends” “likes” a post of one of their friends who I have no association with, I can then see their post. I don’t think it is too far fetched to think of a glitch occurring that may allow this to occur with my private photo settings. People share way too much on social media these days such as addresses, when they are going out of town, how they just bought a new expensive gift. I hate to be cynical, but all of this information is ripe for the taking for any criminal who cares to “research” on Facebook. For my own sanity and safety, I will not put my daughter’s picture on Facebook.
Lastly, what if Little Bit wants to be a C.I.A. agent or an undercover agent of some sorts and because her parents decided to post 642 pictures a year during her childhood, that option is no longer an option? I know, I know, it’s far-fetched, but you get the idea. Just as people say “you can’t pick your parents” kids also can’t choose their parent’s choices. The things we as parents choose to do and not do on behalf of our children could have repercussions into their adult life. As parents we like to think we would bring no harm to our child, but sometimes we don’t realize we are harming them. For the future of my daughter, I won’t post her photo to any social media site (including this one) unless and until she is old enough to make the decision on her own to be a part of it.
As I mentioned before, I decided to attend a law school that, in addition to the traditional schedule, offered a non-traditional schedule for those students who wanted to continue to work during the semester or who had other obligations during the day that prevented them from attending classes full-time during the day. ABA rules require that a student attending law school on a full-time basis work no more than 20 hours per week during the semester. However, on a part-time schedule that ABA rule does not apply. At my school, full time is considered 13 credit hours and above (4-6 classes) and part-time was considered between 9-12 credit hours; the equivalent of 3-4 classes.
If you take the traditional route you are slated to graduate in 3 years. The non-traditional flex schedule extends the graduation date by a year (4 years total). With that extra year comes the added expense of an additional year of living expenses, book costs, school fees, and tuition. Although tuition is slightly cheaper on the part-time schedule, it still adds on an additional few thousands of dollars a year for those who choose to attend part-time.
I decided to take the part-time route for many reasons. Money was a big concern and I also carried the health insurance for my husband and I. However, one of the most appealing aspects to keeping my job and going to school was that the school I wanted to attend had a campus a block away from my work. This afforded me the added opportunity of attending student functions during the day, an easier way of meeting on campus with professors and employers, and if there was ever anything I needed to get done during the day I could just walk across the street on my lunch hour. Win-win!
One thing that I would like to stress about taking the part-time route is that IT IS NOT THE EASY ROUTE! Professor do not “take it easier on you,” you aren’t assigned less readings, and you don’t have more time to do the work since you are taking less classes. On the contrary, you are stretched thin trying to juggle work and law school; the readings, assignments, networking, student functions, to say the least, are all inevitable in law school. Try getting all that done after work and on weekends and tell me that it’s easier than solely focusing on all those aspects of law school. IT’S NOT EASY! It damn near killed me a few times. But, the more work I put into it going in, the easier it got. So, although it was hell in the beginning, it gets easier. I think this is true regardless of whether you attend full-time or part-time.
My first year schedule looked a little something like this:
6:00 a.m.- Wake up and get ready
6:30 a.m. – Head out the door and off to work
6:45 a.m. – Pick up coffee and a bagel on the way because I most likely failed to pack my breakfast and lunch the night before
7:00 a.m.- Arrive at work and get crackin’ on emails and voicemails that I missed the day before and make a to-do list (have I mentioned that I love lists?!)
11:00 a.m.- Call in a lunch order because I failed to seize the opportunity to wake up early enough to pack a lunch and I need to save as much of my lunch hour to review my notes for that night’s class
(Note: This is a good tip! Spend at least 10 minute before each class reviewing the notes you have made regarding the readings assigned for that class.)
11:15- 12:15- Lunch and studying
5:00 p.m.- Clock out and head over to school
5:10 p.m.- Grab a coffee and finish reviewing notes or get a head start on another class’s readings
6:00 p.m.- 7:30 p.m. – Class #1 and then grab a quick snack from the vending machine (ugh,the evil vending machines of law school!)
7:45-9:15 p.m.- Class #2
9:20 p.m. – Whenever I have to start re-reading what I have just read in order to retain the information- head home and get to bed. Sometimes this is 10:30 p.m. and other times I last until as late as midnight.
Wake-up and do it all over again….at least until Friday when I didn’t have classes. Friday night was a date night with my husband and the weekends were spent tucked away completing the readings for the following week. I, personally, felt more prepared having all of the readings done for the week finished on the weekends. It allowed me to feel more prepared for class discussions, to clean up my case briefs, and to fill out my outline where I felt I needed clarification on some issues. However, I had friends who would read the cases right before class and not make any notes and they were just as successful. Sometimes I made my weekend readings a little more interesting…to each their own.
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Managing motherhood and life after law school, one day at a time
Managing motherhood and life after law school, one day at a time
Managing motherhood and life after law school, one day at a time
Managing motherhood and life after law school, one day at a time
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