67 Days to Go

One of the great things about IU is that they have a summer start program, where a few of us can get a head start on the whole law school process. It's only one class (Criminal Law), and it's only a couple hours a day, four days a week, for five weeks. The school says in their sales materials that it's a chance for students that have been out of school for a while to get back into the groove. While that doesn't exactly fit my description (I graduated in December, so I've only been done for a couple months), I am thinking of it more as a two-part adjustment to law school.

First of all, since half of the value of law school is networking, it will (hopefully) give me a chance to get close to a small group of 1Ls, some of whom may be in my section in the fall. Moving in a couple months early acquaints me with my future classmates, gives me an idea of the type of people Ill be spending three years with, and lets me feel a little more comfortable.

The second reason is a little more utilitarian of me. Since 1L grades are based solely on exams, figuring out how to take them well will mean the difference between high scores and less high scores. If I were to start in August with the majority of my classmates, I would be taking my first exams in December. One follows the other, so I would have no time to 'adapt' to this type of exam. If, by some chance, I bomb the first one, I wouldn't have a chance to figure out how not to bomb the rest. On the other hand, taking an exam in August means that, even if I bomb on my CrimLaw exam, I will still have an idea of how to better prepare for exams in December. I hope it doesn't come to that, but you never know.

In case it's not obvious, I'm starting to freak out a little bit at the prospect of law school. I've heard enough horror stories of exams from other bloggers that I'm concerned. I've never been 'challenged' academically, so I'm completely unsure if I'm capable of studying the way one needs to in order to succeed. I've talked to people online, people that will be my classmates, and they all seem so much smarter than me. There are the people with doctorates, the people who come out of the Ivy League, and people that just plain seem better than me.

For now, all I can hope is that my incessant reading will pay off. Aside from the periodicals (The Economist, BusinessWeek, Reason, and Wired, et al), I've been trying to digest heavy material (reading law journals, old textbooks, et al). I've also been making my way through a couple books on Criminal Law, law school exams, and legal writing and reasoning. Hopefully this all works. 67 days to go.