1L Spring Summaries

The first week of 2nd semester is over. Vöt! Here’s a rundown of the courses:

Criminal law: Theory, theory, theory. It feels like a criminal justice class at a community college. No cases yet. Just half-page snippets of punishment theory…rehabilitation, retribution, yada-ya.

There’s way too much class discussion. I had the same issue with Constitutional Law last semester… I prefer the Socratic method because it focuses the discussion. When professors ask for volunteers in law school you get the same 5 people speaking all the time, and a fair amount of irrelevant and unproductive comments. I’ll give this class a few more weeks before it becomes my official blog-reading time.

Corporations: The reading is remarkably quick and interesting. Class is okay, but the professor tends to stick with a single student for 20 minute blocks. It’s not exactly grilling because our professor is really nice, although he does stutter when he makes a joke.

The professor made us buy this 3-inch-thick book of statutes and restatements. I’m returning it. There’s no way I’m carrying that brick of a book around and I look up everything on Westlaw anyway…

Property: The first day of Property I sit down and my classmates on either side of me start talking about how awesome the case was.
Me: “What case?”
Oh, apparently there was a reading assignment. Hah. Silly me. I’m starting off with a bang…

The supposedly awesome-case was about whaling with exploding bullets. Basically, back in the day they shot the whales with these bullet-bombs, watched them sink, and recovered them whenever the whale floated back up. This could take days. So, when someone else found the whale and sold it…well, that’s when we got a case for our casebook.

The only carry-over class from last semester is Civil Procedure, which is still my favorite. I like the predictability and efficiency of Civil Procedure. There’s a schedule, there are no irrelevant discussions or tangents.

No fluff means that I don’t have to wonder what’s important for the exam. I had some classes last year where only a handful of the classes were useful for the final…whereas in Civil Procedure everything is important. Professor V doesn’t waste our time.

Grades come out on Monday at 4pm. There’s a mandatory lecture that afternoon so people don’t drop out. This was the message from the dean:
Welcome Back 1L Students!

As you get back into the swing of things for Spring semester, this is a quick reminder that our 1L Lecture Series kicks off Monday. I’ll be joined by 2L and 3L students and the Career and Professional Development Center for a brief presentation on “Putting Your Grades in Context.” Our goal is to offer concrete ways to learn from and improve upon your Fall semester performance, and to help you understand what your grades mean – and don’t mean – for your professional development.

Best wishes, and have a great weekend.
– The dean
I think the grade delay is a retention ploy. Most of the 1L blawgers seem to have their grades…I really want to know where I stand so I can figure out who to ask for recommendations and what scholarships and jobs are realistic for me.

Anyhoot, I’m ending the week by seeing a somewhat-gory, but totally awesome movie with Jamie. Vöt.