Being a True Law Student: The First Cooley Exam Experience

Imagine running a long marathon and you are not a runner. Before running you thought all the preparing you did would be enough to get you through it but the moment you set foot on the track all the training you prepared yourself with just seems to not have paid off. Now many people may say that you obviously did not prepare enough or correctly but I say to them, how are you to know what awaits you once you if you've never done it before? As a first time marathon runner nothing could really prepare you for the real thing but the real thing.

This is exactly what I am facing as a law student. The major difference is that nothing can prepare you for the rigors of law school and the competition that lies within each of your classmates. As a first term student at Cooley Law School the first piece of advice you get is to not get involved with any organization, no working, you may entertain yourself with hobbies or the movies here and there but in the end do nothing but study. Then your question is, "how do I avoid burning out if I eliminate all the things in my life that keep me from flat lining?" That, my friend is the test... Here I am under 24 hours away from my first law school exam and my head feels like an over stuffed bowl of cotton. I didn't exile myself entirely from other activities but I did keep my face buried in a book. Today I feel like life is so boring and yet if I attempt to liven it up I am doing myself a disservice by not studying.

The thing that pushes a person to a life of boredom is knowing all your classmates are fighting for the same thing you are- the top spot in your class. I tried the study group thing but one thing you also learn about law school is that since it is all shades of gray no other person thinks like you do. No other person will study the same material you study and speak the exact same language you speak. Although you may sit in a room of about 70 to 100 other people and the professor will give one lecture for the evening (actually as little lecture as possible with the Socratic method and all) and for the most people may have a different spin on what was actually taught that day. Today I say to myself, "so this is the language of law." Of course I still have a long way to go, but this past 15 weeks is a start.

Tomorrow is my first exam. Of course I am nervous. So that we are on the same page, number one everyone is vying for the number one spot in class. It's no longer like undergraduate school or even getting an MBA where the whole class has the potential to make A's or everyone can come out with B's. No. Here the whole class could get in the 89 to 99 percentile of the score but the person who made 89 percent would be the one who flunked. The person with 95 percent correct would be the person with a D. So of course I am very nervous. I should just relax, right? I won't be able to until after I see my scores. Then I just might have a melt down, but I promise, I will try not to.