Building off our Fridays From The Frontline post earlier, we wanted to pass along another source of law student input, as a blog interviewed four current students for their thoughts on law school’s first year.
In a post entitled, “What is the First Year of Law School Really Like?“, the blog, Policy Diary, gathered four from Yale Law School, Columbia Law School, Harvard Law School and the University of Texas School of Law, respectively, to discuss their 1L experiences.
Within the post, the law students relayed their first-year expectations and definitions of success, study habits, strategies for engaging with peers and professors, summer hiring revelations and general advice. Two of the interviewed students are also transfers, and subsequently discussed their strategies in that regard.
The interviewees found some general consensus pertaining to their expectations of 1L year, as by and large they had heard about the year’s difficulty but found it manageable after committing to working hard. Additionally, the interviewees generally stressed the importance of learning one’s strengths and weaknesses and adapting one’s approach based on those self-evaluative steps.
“Know what works for you, and know what doesn’t,” said Harvard 1L Katy. “I am someone who is really sensitive to quality study time over quantity. If I start to feel like I’m not being productive, I tend to take a break and come back to what I’m doing later; for me, I think it would have been a terrible strategy to try to spend as many hours as possible in the library.”
(Thanks to Ann Levine for passing on the Policy Diary post.)
