Study Groups? Effective or distracting?

NBC's cult hit Community features an odd-ball study group

Confession: I've always wanted to be a part of a study group.

While I lived on campus I briefly studied with fellow law students on a weekly basis, but my interest waned. I decided that studying with other people didn't help me to actually learn. Now, as I enter my third year of studies, I am pretty sure that I'd actually learn better.

Why the change in heart? I've finally worked out some of the benefits of working as a group.

• You can divide up the readings and make less work for yourself. Readings are a drag.  Any law student who tells you they do all the assigned readings each week is lying to you. Okay, maybe a few of them are telling the truth, but the fact remains that most law students don't manage to get all the readings done. If you're part of a study group you can split the readings  and make your own life much easier.
• You have others to bounce ideas off. Ever been confused about a concept but been too nervous to bring it up in a tutorial? There are so many occasions where I know I would feel more comfortable with legal principles if I had been able to bounce ideas off some others in an informal setting. Yes, you can talk about it all after class with some friends but I know I'd prefer to forget entirely about class the second I leave that room!
• No longer will you be unsure if your answers are wrong! While every study group has different objectives, answering tutorial questions and past exams can be a great way to boost your confidence. If you work with another to answer any set questions, not only will you feel more comfortable when it comes to answering in class but you will be able to sit back and relax in class, without having to try and jot down answers!
• If you miss a class you have contacts who will willingly help you out! Have you ever missed a class and been unsure what you should do? Yes, you probably have a few friends in the class but they might not be so willing to hand over their notes. A study group, however, is based on working together and sharing your knowledge. While you might not get an automatic yes, chances are someone from a study group will lend a hand.

Now that I know there are numerous benefits to working with other people I've decided I must work with others in the coming semester! I'm sure I will soon be wondering why I had not come to the conclusion sooner.

Do you have any experience in study groups? Do they work for you?

I failed! Now what? Part 4 - Making changes and sticking with them

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. Then, if you're not bored of me by then, check out the third 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 actually making the changes (and trying to stick to them).

As I said in the third part, it can be easy to stick with a change when you don't have the pressure of 15 cases to read and 3 essays but the hard part is staying on track in the week where you have 4 pieces of assessment due in 3 days and haven't slept for 38 hours (not that you should ever do this! It is bad for your health). 


So how do you make sure you are sticking with these new and wonderful changes in your life? The thing that has worked best for me has been making sure I have some time each week where I sit down and go over everything that needs to be done. I read Getting Things Done last year and in a way my weekly time came from that. If I sit down every Sunday night and make a list of what I need to do, go over my calendar for the week and evaluate how I have been going, organisation-wise I can be sure that I am sticking to making a change in my life.


Another way to ensure you are sticking to any changes is to make yourself accountable. You can do this by asking a room-mate or family member to remind you to write down assignments or even just to ask you every now and then how your change is going. If you really want to make yourself accountable, why not start a blog? If you have a blog already, mention the changes you want to make to yourself. If you don't want to do that, just make a new one. Even if no one is reading it, you have still put your proposed changes out there for everyone, but mainly you, to see. 


Although it's probably a little immature, I've even considered starting a sticker chart for myself! 


If you find, after a few weeks, that you've done well at implementing your latest change why not pick another? Just remember to keep it realistic.


If you slip-up and start to revert to your old habits, don't worry! It's natural! You just have to get back on the horse of change and keep on going to the finish line. Don't wait until SWOTVAC/STUVAC/Study Week until you make huge changes because it's generally too late!  That first piece of assessment and first exam after failing will be tough, so you have to make sure you are super prepared! I'm talking starting the assignment the day you get it, not the day before it is due! 


So you failed a subject. It's not the end of the world and if you use the experience to make some positive changes to your study techniques and personal habits you will become a better person! Good luck in the coming semester!

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!