This is the tale of two law students: Dave and Dave. The first half of this (very long) post was written the day after I took my first exam of my second semester. As you will see, I was pretty despondent. When I finished, I decided that although writing about it was cathartic, posting it would only have revealed half of the story–my perception at the time, but not the reality of my performance. The rest of the story would have to wait until grades were released.
This week, I received the grades, and so I drafted the second half of the post. Here are both parts…
May 13, 2005
Self-realization. I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, when he said, “I drank what?”
Congrats on the grades.
I’m not at all looking forward to having my entire career come down to a handful of first year exam grades. The system seems insane.
I was pleased, as I told you earlier, with my Contracts grade, less so with my Property grade. I agree that the single exam = entire grade concept is not very good and impractical. To me it says that my approach to exams, not knowledge (I think what hurts me is poor time management in exam-taking) presents the wrong image of me as a student. But life goes on. Great post.
Ah, but you’re attempting to be way too pragmatic. A key purpose for the structure of law school is not to prepare good lawyers, but to restrict the number of people who become lawyers. A great deal of the system amounts to no more than hazing. Same in the medical profession.