Why law school is like hockey....
Bear with me.....
I have been playing ice hockey for about 10 years. Whenever beginner hockey players ask me what they can do to get better, I always tell them it's all about the skating. In hockey, you have to get to the point in your skill level in which skating is basically a non-issue. I'm not talking about NHL-level skill.....I'm talking about knowing how to do basic skating moves without having to think about them. Once skating is a non-issue for you, then you can focus all your energy on playing the game itself.
It just came to me, but law school is just like this. I have been thinking a lot about how I'm going to tackle law school when I get home in the fall. I want to leave that place knowing that, in at least one class, I did as much as I could possibly do (and more than just about anyone would be willing to do). In other words, I gave everything I had and left it all on the ice (to expand on the hockey metaphor).
Even in the classes I have enjoyed the most and worked hardest in in the past (Constitutional Law Individual Rights, Constitutional Law Fed/State, Criminal Procedure), I never felt at the end like I did absolutely as much as I could have done.
Even for those classes, in which I knew the law pretty well, knowledge of the law was not, for me, an absolute non-issue. I still had to think hard to recall rules while I was sitting there in the exam. That is a waste of time, and it affects your ability to get the most out of the legal rules when conducting your analysis.
It's just like hockey. The bottom line is if you're still struggling with skating, it's just too hard to do other stuff during the game. All you can focus on is getting from one end of the ice to another when you need to, and getting to the bench when you need to come off. You don't have any energy left to focus on strategy, working together with teammates to set up plays, positioning, passing, shooting, etc. This makes your arsenal severly limited, and it means that unless everyone else is a beginner too, it will be hard for you to come out a winner.
The problem with law school is that it's filled with smart people who do as much as they can as quickly as they can to overcome their "rookie" status. The top people already figure out the "skating" element of the class (the law) long before they actually sit down and take the exam.
Learning how to skate effectively enough to make it a non-issue takes a long time. That's why time management, and doing steady work on learning the law throughout the semester is so necessary. This is very hard when you're tired, or when the law is difficult, or you want to go out for drinks. But it's necessary.
Maybe I'll have more luck next year if I approach learning the law like learning how to skate. Nothing else I've tried has produced the results I'm looking for so far.
I have been playing ice hockey for about 10 years. Whenever beginner hockey players ask me what they can do to get better, I always tell them it's all about the skating. In hockey, you have to get to the point in your skill level in which skating is basically a non-issue. I'm not talking about NHL-level skill.....I'm talking about knowing how to do basic skating moves without having to think about them. Once skating is a non-issue for you, then you can focus all your energy on playing the game itself.
It just came to me, but law school is just like this. I have been thinking a lot about how I'm going to tackle law school when I get home in the fall. I want to leave that place knowing that, in at least one class, I did as much as I could possibly do (and more than just about anyone would be willing to do). In other words, I gave everything I had and left it all on the ice (to expand on the hockey metaphor).
Even in the classes I have enjoyed the most and worked hardest in in the past (Constitutional Law Individual Rights, Constitutional Law Fed/State, Criminal Procedure), I never felt at the end like I did absolutely as much as I could have done.
Even for those classes, in which I knew the law pretty well, knowledge of the law was not, for me, an absolute non-issue. I still had to think hard to recall rules while I was sitting there in the exam. That is a waste of time, and it affects your ability to get the most out of the legal rules when conducting your analysis.
It's just like hockey. The bottom line is if you're still struggling with skating, it's just too hard to do other stuff during the game. All you can focus on is getting from one end of the ice to another when you need to, and getting to the bench when you need to come off. You don't have any energy left to focus on strategy, working together with teammates to set up plays, positioning, passing, shooting, etc. This makes your arsenal severly limited, and it means that unless everyone else is a beginner too, it will be hard for you to come out a winner.
The problem with law school is that it's filled with smart people who do as much as they can as quickly as they can to overcome their "rookie" status. The top people already figure out the "skating" element of the class (the law) long before they actually sit down and take the exam.
Learning how to skate effectively enough to make it a non-issue takes a long time. That's why time management, and doing steady work on learning the law throughout the semester is so necessary. This is very hard when you're tired, or when the law is difficult, or you want to go out for drinks. But it's necessary.
Maybe I'll have more luck next year if I approach learning the law like learning how to skate. Nothing else I've tried has produced the results I'm looking for so far.
posted by Jennifer at 05:53
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home