Along with a little bit of snow, finals season has fallen on us here in Bloomington, and I am in the thick of it. My toughest exam, and the one I was most dreading, was Torts on Wednesday. My worry was, perhaps, not founded. Actually, I knew more than I thought I did, which I think is the general consensus about the law among 1Ls. It doesn't feel like we know anything about the law, but suddenly when an outsider asks us a question, we seem to have the answer. None of us are sure when it happened - I suspect that it was over Fall Break - but most of us know the basics of the law, even if we don't think we do.
That said, I have this one recommendation to anyone thinking about coming to law school: take plenty of Economics. They tell you that a couple of courses will make you well suited for law classes, but that is an understatement. In undergrad, I took (I think) five or six Econ courses. On my Torts exam, I think I used each of them at least once. Well, except Labor Economics. I suppose I will have to wait until 2L to apply that one.
I have three exams remaining: Legal Profession, Contracts, and Civil Procedure. I feel the best about Civ Pro, though LP is a take-home exam this Saturday. It finds itself due at the exact time that IU will face off against Kentucky in basketball. I suspect that I will be turning it in early.
One final note. Today we received an e-mail telling us that the faculty has approved a new grading scheme that will benefit us ever so slightly. This makes me breathe easier about Torts, and since the grades are retrofitted, and because I was right on the edge, my Criminal Law grade from the summer should be moving up. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the new grading system. Sure, it benefits me. But it doesn't do much for the competitive nature of things. Despite the negative image law school competition has, I believe that competition is what drives a vast majority of us. I suppose we'll have to see how it all works in the long run.
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The rhetorical ramblings of a student at Indiana University School of Law - Bloomington.
2 comments:
How could it have a chilling effect on competition if everyone's grades go up? If my grades are going up, but so are my competition's, I have no reason to ease off on the competitive drive.
Let's assume that to get a "big firm" job, a student from IUB needs a GPA of 3.10. If the curve is set at 3.00, over half of the class will fail to meet this goal. Everyone pushes harder, because they want to be in the top. However, if the curve is set at 3.20, more than half will be in the prime range, and theoretically the drive scales back.
After all, most students don't care about their rank in the class; they care about their final GPA. The rank is relatively insignificant for job offers, while the GPA is often used as a cutoff point by employers. This is the assumption on which my argument is based.
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