Class selection

I thought I'd take a little break from my series on what you should do if you fail a subject to write about class selection, seeing as my university started Law Sign-on this morning (Mine is tonight).

In high school it was so easy. You'd make a list of all the subjects you wanted to do and the teachers would slave away and try to design a timetable that allowed most people to do all the subjects that they wanted to. The hardest choice you had was whether to do music or business!

I failed! Now what? Part 3

This is Part 3 in my 4 Part series on what you should do if you fail in law school.


For those of you who missed the first part in this series I recommend you click the link and have a look.  Then you should check out the second part.

1. Identify the problem: Did you slack off and have no idea of the content? Did you have a medical issue going on through the semester? Did you try and learn in a way that just didn't suit you?
2. Work out your game plan: You can't just try to conquer the next semester the exact same way. You will need to make some changes. What are they going to be?
3. Make the changes (and be realistic about it): If you don't try to be realistic in your plan, passing will be anything but simple.

So my focus today is on working out the game plan.

Okay so if you followed Part 2 you should have either a list or a basic idea of what you need/want to improve upon. Now in a perfect world you would be able to make all the changes at once and stick to them forever. In a perfect world you probably wouldn't have any changes to make either. So unless you're totally amazing (which you very well could be) you will probably have to choose one or two things to  to work on for now and come back to the rest another time. This may be next semester or even in a few weeks.


Okay so take out your list, or think about your list of things that you want to change. Pick one or two of them, depending on what they are. If you are wanting to work on time management, you're never going to succeed if you also plan to spend more time summarising your lecture notes on a weekly basis, to get involved in extra-curricular activities and to read every single word of assigned reading. 


If you're going to pick something like time management, you could take that on as a whole or break it up. Personally, time management is an ongoing area of trouble for me. I always have and always will have to work on it so rather than just trying to improve, I pick an area to work on. I've worked on developing study plans and sticking to them, worked on scheduling my work and so on. This means each semester I am improving in my time management without neglecting to work on other areas. IF I were to only try and improve my time management I would never get to work on anything else!


I think time management is likely to be high on many law students lists, in some form or another. Although classes don't start for weeks, have a go at making up a rough daily schedule. Take your diary or calendar and mark in dates your assessment is due, as well as any classes that have already been set. If you have your Course Profiles (or whatever it is that your school calls the outline for each course), go through and look at the assessment page. While you may not have your assessment topics yet, break down each piece of assessment. If you do this for each subject and, depending on how nerdy you are feeling, put them up on your wall you will have a good idea of where you are heading.


The idea is to know exactly how you want this next semester to go. I once read somewhere that basketball teams run certain plays over and over again until they can do them automatically without thinking. These aren't the plays they use all the time, but when push comes to shove and they are exhausted, they can do them automatically. You need to be as prepared as possible now so when your work starts to pile up you will automatically know what to do. 

Return for Part 4 where I will be talking about making (and sticking) with the changes.

I failed! Now What? Part 2

This is Part 2 in my 4 Part series on what you should do if you fail in law school.


For those of you who missed the first part in this series I recommend you click the link and have a look. To summarise, the best thing to do immediately is to talk to the examiner and have a look at your exam or the piece of assessment that led you astray. While this is useful, my focus is on what to do in the following semester. I broke this into a number of steps.

1. Identify the problem: Did you slack off and have no idea of the content? Did you have a medical issue going on through the semester? Did you try and learn in a way that just didn't suit you?
2. Work out your game plan: You can't just try to conquer the next semester the exact same way. You will need to make some changes. What are they going to be?
3. Make the changes (and be realistic about it): If you don't try to be realistic in your plan, passing will be anything but simple.

So my focus today is on identifying the problem.

If you failed a subject, like it or not, something went wrong. You may have procrastinated a little too much and spent much too long on Facebook. You may have completely missed the point of a major essay and was unable to recover later on. Maybe you just had a hell of a semester. The fact is, whether there were unavoidable factors (such as poor health or a messy breakup) or whether you spent too much time watching Buffy reruns, there is a good chance that you could have done better if you had been prepared or had different study techniques.

Personally, I've always thought that I can be very effective. I have, however, often been told that my study habits are hardly time efficient. Each semester I try to reflect on how I worked the semester before and how I can improve my study habits. I have done this all semesters, whether I have done poorly the semester before or not. Certain things (ahem time management ahem) crop up nearly every time I look over how I could improve. I also often find I could start working earlier and be more organised.

Nobody is perfect and I am sure that you all have an idea of what things you can work on improving. Whether you failed a subject or not, you need to sit down (or stand - it's really up to you) and reflect on your habits and work out a few areas you need to improve on. Be honest with yourself and you may be surprised.

Return for Part 3 where I will be talking about forming your semester game plan.

I failed! Now what? Part 1

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been wanting to write something about what happens if you fail a class (or two) in law school. It's an experience that I have had the displeasure of having (more than once) and one that I hope to never have again. It's a little disconcerting to check your grades and discover that you didn't really ace that contract law exam. Failing is horrible. You feel sick in the stomach and a feeling of dread every time you get results from there on in. Sometimes however, failing isn't all that bad. I've failed. I'm not proud of it, but it's a part of my academic history and I think it has helped me to become the law student that I am today.

When I failed my first subject (yes that is right folks, I've failed more than one), I told a few people, but I didn't really mention it to any of my law friends. I was dreadfully ashamed of it. The thing is, keeping it to yourself isn't necessarily the way to go. Don't get me wrong, I hardly go around uni wearing a t-shirt that says "I failed! How about you?" on it, but I no longer hide my past.

So what should you do? If you've talked to other people about it, they may have suggested contacting your lecturer and making a time to speak with them, particularly to review any assessment. I definitely recommend doing this, although I did not do this myself. I had the intention, at least with my first subject, but was embarrassed. If you, like me, are too ashamed to do this, at least try to look over the  answer guide if it is made available to you. It is not the same as looking at your actual exam script and seeing what you wrote although it is fairly good. You will usually be able to get a general idea of whether you were way off in your answer or if you were on the right track.

While it is most definitely the first step you should take, my focus of this series is more what to do after that, in the semesters that follow. The steps are:

1. Identify the problem: Did you slack off and have no idea of the content? Did you have a medical issue going on through the semester? Did you try and learn in a way that just didn't suit you?
2. Work out your game plan: You can't just try to conquer the next semester the exact same way. You will need to make some changes. What are they going to be?
3. Make the changes (and be realistic about it): If you don't try to be realistic in your plan, passing will be anything but simple.

I will cover each of these in the coming week in this four part series.

Check out the rest of the series:
Part 2 walks you through identifying what went wrong
Part 3 helps you to work out how you will move forward

Dear Readers

Dear Readers,


Sorry I haven't been in touch lately. I could blame my studies (but we all know it is summer break and there isn't any studying going on), a busy social life (but I'm a law student) or any multitude of things but I'll just be honest: it is difficult to write about being a law student when there is no studying going on. That's right, I've spent the break lounging on a chair by the pool... or at least I have in my mind!


So what have I been up to since my last exam in November? I just returned from a two-week trip to the United States with my family so much of my break has been monopolised by preparing and unwinding from the trip.


Other than my trip, I've tried to do much more reading than I have been able to do throughout the year. At the end of my 2nd year of study, so at the end of 2010, I began reading Les Misérables. My aim was to finally finish the epic tome, but unfortunately this has not happened. You see, for my January birthday in 2011 I received my amazing Kindle! I love it so very much. Unfortunately, I found that the translation of Les Mis that I was reading was some modern fancy-schmancy version (The Julie Rose one if you're wondering). Now this version didn't seem to be available on my kindle and, being halfway through (okay, maybe more like a quarter of the way through) I didn't want to change to a different translation. Les Mis was relegated to the bookshelf and I haven't managed to continue with it.


A book I did finally manage to read was A Private Life by the one and only Michael Kirby. I thoroughly enjoyed this read. In fact, there was one particular day during the time I was reading it that I had tickets to see Elton John in Brisbane. When I left the Brisbane Entertainment Centre I, like all dutiful Gen Y-er went straight onto Facebook and found that Civil Unions had been passed in Queensland. I felt that this was slightly poetic and will always remember what was going on for me the day that Civil Unions were passed. 


While I haven't exactly posted anything for some time, I have a number of posts I've been trying to write. The main about what your plan should be if you happen to fail a subject. I'll be honest! I've been working on that since December so be prepared!


Of course, it would be amiss of me to write to you without mentioning something fabulous! When I logged on and noticed the huge traffic spike I was a little confused until I found Survive Law's list of Australia's Best Law Student Blogs! Yes dear readers, I made the list! Even further, I love what they said about my blog:

Law school can be a tad scary, but it’s always nice to know that you’re not the only one trying to navigate it. We love Obiter Girl’s musings about obsessive planning, procrastination, coffee, the virtues of flash cards, beautiful stationery, law essay competitions and all the other things that make our law student world go round.

While I'm so very excited about this I'm also a little annoyed at myself for not having updating so regularly over the past few months! Hopefully someone reading this found my blog through Survive Law (one of my go-to sites for most things) and will stick around for the joys of a new school year! Hi there! And yes, that was aimed at you! No, not you! The one behind you with the brown hair!


So thank you to Survive Law and the wonderful people of the blawg-o-sphere! I must also congratulate all the others who made the list! I must say that I already read quite a few and have now added some more great reads to my feed!


Anyway, this letter has been long enough and the postman, or rather my pillow, is waiting.


Lots of Love,


Obiter Girl


PS. I promise to write more often in the future! 

Choices!

So after finding out I had passed my dreadful exams I set out to choose the courses that will torture me throughout next year. There are, of course, compulsory subjects but I now have enough law courses to start electives. I'm also a dual degree student so even though I have enough credits, the general plan suggests I should wait until next year.

Despite this, I'm seriously considering taking a Medical Law elective in the first semester. I have 2 compulsory law courses, which gives me 2 other courses to take, which means I can still work through my Arts degree. I have a real interest in medical law, partly because I've had some work experience previously in the dental industry. I'm sure all the medical shows on TV help! 

It's a difficult choice and I'm not sure whether it is the right one to make. I was thinking about trying to contact someone in the Law School, but I suspect it would be difficult at this time of the year. As I'm going overseas in January I think I may wait until I am back in the big smoke and physically go to the campus and see what I can find out. 

I've heard mixed things about the subject, both that it is great and a lot of hard work. I'm okay with hard work, but when I have an interest in the area I find it much easier. I'm very interested in the subject, and I know I like, and respond to, the teaching style of the lecturer after having them for a Torts subject in my first year. The exam is historically open book, which makes me more than a little glad as I love these exams, especially if I have prepared great notes.  I also like the idea of taking an elective where I can work closer with the staff and students. 

I think writing this has almost helped me to make the decision! 

School's out for the summer!

First of all I'd like to apologise for my silence of late. With my exams and moving I haven't had much time to surf the net, not to mention the fact that I have a tendency to switch my brain off as soon as I exit my last exam each semester!

Ideally I would be spending the summer doing some work experience although, as a dual degree student, it seemed that I'm not quite far enough into my degree for most positions. In addition, I'm most likely going overseas in January so returning to my regional home seemed like the best option. 

Seeing as getting some work  experience isn't a true possibility here, I'd love to be lazing on the beach working my way through Les Miserables and other classics. Turns out I've done that too many holidays in my life so I'm attempting to be productive. You might recall that I was planning on entering a few essay competitions. While I did a little basic research early on, I've still got quite a bit to go. I had thought I'd be working on them as soon as I finished my assessment, but two weeks have passed and I'm just starting today. I made a decision that I didn't want to start working on the essays before results came out, just in case I didn't do as well as I had hoped and had to re-sit an exam. Thankfully I passed everything which is a huge relief! 

I'm actually really enjoying the work I've done so far, probably because these essays aren't for assessment and there isn't the stress associated with them. It is either that or a testament to how nerdy I truly am!