Law School Grades... feel free to comment and rant along with me!

So much has happened since my last post: but the most obvious topic, to go over (Briefly) would have to be 1L Grades….

                Some of us are happy, some not so much, and although these grades, are very important to our future, I would say they were only in the front of our minds for about 48 hours.  I believe Law students, have a short attention span.  Once grades came out, people that you may have barely talked to during the year were inquisitive to what the grade distribution was like, and how everyone thought they did.  But now… less than a week later… not so much.

                This is not a bad thing at all, honestly, it is probably the healthiest thing, because no matter how much we want to look at our previous exams, and talk to professors, the chances of our grades changing, are  low.  So we must just learn to cope.  A wise man said (and by wise I mean very person that has ever given us a speech about grades in law school) “very few of us have ever been in the bottom 20/40/50% of our class and now some of us have to be.” Then they go on to say… “this is not fair… but this is law school.”  This is where I always shake my head.  When something is not fair, not right, or not what people think should happen shouldn’t we just change it (insert random amendment to The Constitution or a random judicial interpretation joke here).  This is Law School, and most of these speech givers are administrators…. If anyone can change it, I would believe they can.

                Yale’s grading system in which they do not necessarily give “grades” is interesting to say the least.  They do give Honors, and no pass, which could be considered the same, but I do not believe they have a curve on it.  I am not ignorant to the fact that these kids are super smart, however this University may have paved the way for how law schools should judge us in the future….. just a thought.

                Personally, I don’t have a huge problem with how the grades are done, except the length of time it takes to get our grades back, and the lack of an appeals process.  It is kind of ridiculous that we do not get our grades back until we are well into the following semester.  I personally know some of us, myself included, that were unable to apply for certain internships because application deadlines were January 15^th, and they would not accept them without law school grades (yes I thought about sending college grades, and trust me, I would have loved to!).  This length of time hurts our future job search tremendously.  I think the lack of an appeals process goes without saying.  A teacher has graded 99 exams and gives you a bad mark, because they are tired, they have a deadline, it is 3AM, they just came back from a banger(insert any random excuse here)… shouldn’t you be able to have a second opinion, or some type of appeal?  I mean this is Law School!  And for the record, to get ones grade changed there has to be some type of transmission error, or an addition error.  Currently, teachers cannot “reevaluate” the exams.

There goes my rant, I think I am done with talking about grades… but it had to be done



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I am off to play Monopoly World (most likely my next post!)

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"I will take anybody's money if they are giving it away!" -Senator Clay Davis

The first semester here has taught me many things, one of these things is the fact that people out here have dough! Not money…but dough! (a lot of money)  This city is filled with great places to go out, and amazing restaurants/clubs/etc. But the problem is you gotta have money to be a part of it. 

This leaves a few options for us starving law students:

There is the splurging strategy…We have all learned this strategy from when any of us had jobs and got the Friday pay check, or even better… the tax refund!    The beginning of the semester is the happiest times for most law students with loans.    For those of you who were lucky enough to have no loans let me school you:

You are teased for weeks waiting to see when the loans will post, and then you get the email saying something like:  “Law students  will receive their refund checks the week of January 5^th…”  you don’t really read the rest of the email, you got what was important to you the date… or did you?  The following time is spent trying to decipher this email, and of course the office of financial aid has no answers for you when you call, so you sit back and then one day like Christmas…POOF! A refund check!

Now yes, this is a loan and you will have to pay it back with interest however… there are about 5 figures just deposited into your account…then the splurge begins.  I can name so many different things that money could be spent on. But one thing I do know is that money goes by super quick!  At this point you budget and realize it is near impossible to keep up with some of your rich classmates, and you start to pump the breaks. (As a side note why is Law School sooooo expensive!?... I guess that will be for another post!)

Still want to have the best of both worlds… there is an option  FREE FOOD!  Being a law student they throw the food at us. And as Senator Clay Davis said in The Wire, “I will take anybody’s money if they are giving it away!” (Same goes for me with food) So with that being said, to ease everyone’s pockets and to help keep some extra for those days we just NEED to go out and get it in! 

Here is one (or maybe two if you go twice!), and if anyone knows of others feel free to COMMENT, and let everyone know.  As a wise man said, “Share The Wealth!”

January 31^st & February 1st:  12:30PM; Room E352; Moot Court Mandatory Info (you must go to one)

PS~ Of course the other option is don't go out, or just live within your means, etc.... but what is the fun in that!?

PSS~ When I get to 10 followers I will post a 1L best moments of 2010 list

And the Geeks Shall Take Over the World

I honestly feel like there was a conference with all the nerds in the world, and they realized that law school would be an excellent place for a person to reinvent themselves and become cool.  The worst part about this, is it works. 

I have no actual proof to this, however, looking around the law campus, I am positive that most people who a “reasonable person” would consider cool were NOT cool in High School, or even College.  Diving even deeper into this topic, those who were cool in their adolescent years come to law school and become average, some even disliked.  There seems to be a paradigm shift once 1L year begins. ( For the non-nerds 1L is the first year of law school).  Now nothing is necessarily wrong with this shift.  In reality, most of us may have benefited from it. (Some may even believe that I have benefited from it)  Those who did not benefit from this shift... learn to adapt.  If you still don't get it think about it....

The nerd who was quite awkward, but had moderate social skills, he is one of the most popular kids in the school.  The girl who was too cool for the nerds are running up to them asking for outlines, and notes.  And the cool kid who was too cool to talk to the nerds is in a very lonely place now.  Oh, and the bullies, dumb jockes, and habitual slackers and underachievers… not many of them made it to Law School so that opened the door for the Nerds to walk on through. (This also means that those who you think are pushovers, or slow, or shouldn't be in law school have you fooled, because you had to be smart to get here... but that is for another post!) Sure there are outliers, and to every rule there is some type of exception, shoot, you could be that exception. However, when I am right, I am right.

Nerds, especially in Miami, are able to capitalize on this situation, but that also, is for another post!

This is Miami Law

Who are you, and why create a blog?

At first I thought about going into a long philosophical analysis into what is in a name, and how do we know who anyone is bla bla bla, but I decided I would just say nothing.  Well, nothing about who I am .  Those who I asked to read my blog obviously know who I am, but my goal is for my name to somehow get lost, and become less important.  For those of you who don’t know me…even better.

Why create a blog?  I have no idea.  Boredom I guess. Not that I don’t have pgs. and pgs. of law assignments to read.  This brings me to my next point.  I am a 1L at The U, aka The University of Miami School of Law.  Oh, and by the way I honestly don’t think 1L year is as bad as “everyone” says, or even we pretend for it to be… but that is for another post!

I am not yet sure exactly what I will be talking about, however add some comments, and it should give me a good starting point.  This should be fun.

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