MYTHS ABOUT LAW SCHOOL

School of law officers, active UClass officers and my co-surviving students new students

Before you chose getting yourself into this adventure called law school, I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of
things about it. I will be sharing just three of the things that I’ve heard from people and would share to
you, on a personal level, how wrong these notions are.

A HIGH IQ IS AN ASSURANCE THAT YOU WILL PASS EVERY SUBJECT

I’m sure, there are a lot of people around you who told you “Bright man ka, sayon ranang law
nimo” or “Kabright nimo uy, bagay ka maglaw”, etc. However, try to imagine this, you have a
photographic memory, or even an eidetic memory that upon one reading of the law, you memorize it
verbatim. But before going to class, being too engrossed in your favorite Netflix series, you read nothing.
Even with the gift, you will remember nothing. Because no matter how luxurious your car is, it will never
run without fuel.

Therefore, my first survival tip is diligence. Professors usually recommend reading the assigned
topics at least thrice. I know, that is impossible, especially if you are a working student. However, you
have to find a way to make it so. And there comes in my second survival tip – Time management. You
may have been tired of hearing this, but it’s really effective. Plot your day – of the 24 hours, how many
hours will you allot for sleeping, eating, taking a bath, working (for those who do) and studying. I’m not
going to give you a pro-forma time schedule because this will be different from one person to another;
this will take some time, but eventually, you will be able to adapt. (23 days)

HAVING A SUBJECT THAT YOU’VE ALREADY TAKEN IN YOUR UNDERGRADUATE COURSE WILL MAKE IT
EASIER FOR YOU TO PASS

In your undergraduate course, the subjects taught merely contain the general topics, basic
concepts and rely more on theories. It is an entirely different galaxy in law school since all those
concepts you have learned or at least pretended to have learned in the past, are applied in real life.

There are two effects of having already taken up a subject:

1. You will be lax in studying such subject. Minimal to no effort will be exerted since you have the
mindset that you already know everything about it. So here comes my third survival tip: Never
trust stock knowledge.
2. The other effect is this. On the first day of classes, professors will usually ask you what your
course is, so your classmates will know that you’ve already taken up certain subjects. This
challenges you to do your best because they are already expecting so much from you. But don’t
be so hard on yourself. It is just better to give it your all with the mindset of wanting to excel
than be too confident but fail in the end.

ONLINE CLASSES MAKE LAW SCHOOL SO MUCH EASIER

Honestly, at first, I thought it would be because personal recitations are super terrifying. But we learned
it the hard way last sem. In online classes you still have the usual anxieties of face-to-face recitations and
more. The anxiety of your gadgets being broken, internet crashing and all other unforeseen and
uncontrolled factors happening adds up to your stress.

So here is my final tip – No matter how many times you have been disconnected from zoom because of
poor internet connected, no matter how long you have been in the waiting room because your
professor was not able to admit students because they did not notice the notifications, and all other
challenges, keep on trying. That even if you have been disconnected from class for at least 20 times in a
4-hour class, speaking from experience, keep on getting in. However, once you feel that you are about
to get drained, it would be a better choice if you’d let the poor internet win this time and read on your
own instead. It is not recommended that you skip class, it’s just that you also have to make sure that
your learning is optimized; that if getting into class will waste the certain hours of your night because the
internet is really weak that night, then choose to study on your own instead of stressing yourself. Just be
respectful enough to inform your professors about the problems you’re encountering which is the
reason for your inability to attend their class. Fortunately, our professors are very understanding when it
comes to internet problems.

And before I end this talk, I'd like to share a bonus tip. Help each other. Especially in these tryinf times. If
your classmate had been waiting to be admitted, tell your professor. If your classmate was not able to
get back to the meeting, tell them what's the assignment for next meeting or even share notes if you
have one. If we lift each other up, the anxieties will no longer be a bother.

Stay safe everyone and enjoy this semester.