First Year Reflections after Final Exam: Five New Points of Advice

So I’m all done! My first year of law school is complete. In many ways it is a mixed bag of emotions. I think in many ways I’m going to miss law school, particularly my fellow students. At the same time, its good to get that weight lifted off my shoulders, at least for a few months before the turbulence of the second year of law school begins. If it is true that ‘the first year they scare you, second year they work you, third year they bore you,’ then the second year may be an interesting one.

All the same, I did want to reflect a little on my first year experience, particularly writing down advice that I gave to myself while I was writing exams, along a similar vein of my previous post “Five tips for Law School I learned from my exams.” I figure I had better hurry, before the seductive call of summer has completely evaporated any memory of my experiences. So yet again, here are some tips I’ve given myself, and some reflections over the past year.

Letter to a friend…

An old friend from my philosophy days contacted me by facebook. He works in Ottawa but never finished his honours philosophy degree. He was thinking finishing up his degree and then going into law school. He was asking for some advise. So I sent him the letter below.

Some of you may wonder why I would post this on my blog. Well, I always remembered that alot of the philosophy I read was personal letters to fellow thinkers. I thought that the things I wrote in the letter really showed how I’ve been feeling, as well as how I felt about the past. I thought it illuminating, so I took out all the personal stuff, and am showing you what I wrote…

________________________________________

The Honours Degree.. wasn’t too bad. Again I did a double honours in history and philosophy. I’m really glad I did the Thesis, it ended up being on the philosophy of history, and something like a hundred pages. If I were to do it again, I think I would stick to something more managible, like the moral philosophy of plato, or something like that. Even that might be too large, but make sure you do something specific. Any good advisor will tell you that, and even though I got a B+, I might have reached too far. I think the thing to remember is that your not writting philosophy (as I was trying to do), but you are a student of philosophy. It’s alot of work, but worth doing. I never thought I could do it, and now that I have, it really gave me the confidence to think I could move on to greater and better things.

Law School… I almost didn’t get in. Study hard for your LSAT. That is the thing that will make or break you.