All Finals All the Time
It's common for law students not to talk about finals once they're done, but I always like going over them. Anway, I just want to gripe about IP. The short answers were like, "compare fair use in copyrights with fair use in trademarks." That's a law review article right there. See, e.g., 71 Brooklyn L. Rev. 1665. And the essay was short on facts, but basically asked you for a treatise on IP. The analogy I'd draw is like getting a fact pattern that says, "A makes an offer to B. B accepts, but later retracts. Discuss any issues that may arise under contract law principles."
Fed Courts was the opposite. Each question tested a specific area of the course. Making me feel stupid incrementally. I hope the tax people had a better time with that exam this year.
Note: I'm posting this now that all makeups are either taken or about to be taken for this past week.
Fed Courts was the opposite. Each question tested a specific area of the course. Making me feel stupid incrementally. I hope the tax people had a better time with that exam this year.
Note: I'm posting this now that all makeups are either taken or about to be taken for this past week.
Labels: 0L/1L Advice, Grades And Other Neurotic Bullshit, OCIP/Employment
posted by Armen Adzhemyan at 2:00 PM
33 Comments:
My time management in the exams has been killing me. I end up wasting too much time looking through my outline and then rushing through the latter questions.
Are first semester 1L grades "end of story" or can you still do OK at OCIP if you pull some Hs second semester?
-- scared 1L
2nd Semester is definitly in play. And remember...no outlines on the bar. So if you are really worried about it, spend time to memorize the material. Those of you in Moran's torts this spring will get a taste of a closed book exam. *Evil Laugh*
maybe this is a stupid question from a 1L, but when are we supposed to buy books for spring classes?
When you come back. The books for your classes are not revealed in advance to make sure you buy them from Ned's (the bookstore at the law school) so that part of the profits can pay for BHSA. Details here.
Could people take a shot at explaining when the EARLIEST time is that grades will be available online this year? The registrar, in a famous email earlier this year, merely said that we won't have to wait until February for the release of grades because the faculty can upload them directly. But they never spelled out when the EARLIEST is that we can see our grades online. Why shroud the process of grade reporting in secrecy?
Let's try to figure this out.
So, as stated in the Boalt Exam Memo, faculty can now submit grades online, whatever that entails (I assume that faculty assistants will be data entering the grades in most cases, not the professors. Who usually data entered the grades in previous years? The registrar's people? I would imagine that the registrar [whether it's Boalt or UCB who has done the entry in the past] has a much lower data entry error rate than the faculty assistants will have in entering in grades, as the registrar's assistants are BearFacts afficionados; the faculty assistants, as competent as they are, are using the BearFacts grade reporting system likely for the first time.) If you read page 7 of the Boalt Exam Memo, faculty still need to submit final grades by Jan. 12 to the registrar. The registrar processes the raw score and checks that the professor has not violated Boalt's (unforgiving, inaccurate, and brutal) curve. (When does the registrar close and reopen for the holidays? What is the date range BEFORE January 12 in which this vetting dance can occur such that a professor could submit BearFacts grades before 1/12?) Then, once the faculty get the green light from the registrar, the faculty posts the grades to BearFacts, and, assuming BearFacts is accessible, we can see the grades once BearFacts is updated a day or two later?
So, is this an accurate sequence of events for the new grade submission process? What do people think?
Is it at all possible that a professor could post the grades next week on BearFacts? How about the first week of January? I understand that, after January 12 (the deadline for faculty to submit grades), the grades could be posted any day. But I want to know about BEFORE January 12 - you know, the somewhat diligent professors who get grades in between December 21 and January 5 (they could be fast graders, the test was on scantron, their class could have 12 people in it, etc.). Is UCB permitting updates to BearFacts between, say, 12/21 and 1/5? What's the deal?
I think these are legit questions. I'm probably not the only bruised and anxious Boalt soul who'd like to know when the earliest time is that I can start checking BearFacts (obsessively? cautiously? with trepidation?) for the grades. The registrar and Student Services should spell out the procedure more clearly so that it doesn't get our hopes too high and so that we don't waste time checking BearFacts incessantly.
Good question, 9:47 PM. The old system (waiting until February or beyond) totally sucked. At least, however, we knew that it was pointless to start checking for grades on BearFacts before a specified date that the registrar announced. In this bold new system, students have been given NO CLUE regarding when to start checking.
At the very least, Boalt should have an explicit policy telling professors to email their classes as soon as they have posted grades to BearFacts (or as soon as the faculty member knows that students can actually access those grades). That way, we aren't randomly checking BearFacts for the month of January.
Re: 1L grades and OCIP. I don't know, but I assume that improvement looks great. My grades substantially improved from first semester to second semester once I started getting the hang of law school (turns out it's different from math, science, etc.). I have no way of knowing, but I imagine improvement looks great. No, going from all HHs to all Ps... that I wouldn't recommend.
I'll admit I didn't read that entire enormous post by 9:47 (sincere apologies to those who insist upon a full research standard on N&B), but one of my friends reports one of her/his grades is already posted.
Buying books: write to your professor and ask what the book is so you can order it online beforehand. I've never had a professor not answer.
Hey, 11:24 PM, is your friend who claims his/her grade is posted in a seminar/paper class or a class with a final? (I don't think you'll be giving anything away about the person if you answer the question; I'm just curious what kinds of classes have grades posted already.)
1Ls should not be stressing about 2L OCIP right now. That is a long way away and grades are only part of the picture. If you want to work for a big firm, there are a lot of firms who are willing to gobble up a Boaltie who has lower grades, even straight Ps. There are also lots of ways to strengthen your resume that can help you with some firms. If you get all Ps for the entire year, you may have to cast a wider net but if you do enough interviews (including a good number in New York) and the economy doesn't tank, your grades likely will not keep you from landing several job offers. The offers may not be at the "top" fancy firms but they usually pay the same and keep in mind that 97% of the law students in this country (those who aren't either at a top national law school or at the top of their class at a lesser law school) have no shot at getting an offer even at these "lesser" firms. Plus, pretty much everyone you know who is not in law school doesn't know the difference between Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Strook & Strook & Lavan.
I think this new grade posting regime is going to suck. It works for undergrads because they know their grades will all be posted within a window of a few days. Since our professors have about a six-week window for posting grades, the result will be that we will all be nervously checking bearfacts 2, 3, 4, 10, 20 times a day for up to six weeks! On a related note, I have a friend at another school who never looks at her grades. She may be onto something...
if she never looks at her grades, how does she do her resume? i'm a bit skeptical...
WTF? What does a resume have to do with grades? How do YOU do your resume?
Education
JD Candidate, University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall)
HH -- Contracts???
It's only relevant if you want to list any awards you've gotten, and even then, a transcript speaks louder than a resume.
As I recall, it is an Honor Code violation if you list anything besides a Prosser or AmJur on your resume for OCIP. Remember, we are one of those schools that doesn't allow pre-screening of candidates' grades during OCIP (and that is a good thing).
11:55 - it was a paper class.
This talk about grades coming out is making my head hurt as I try to study for my last final:(
4:02--
The upshot of the discussion about grades is that they are not work worrying about right now. You will likely be fine even if you get all Ps. And if you just do your best, you will likely not get straight Ps anyway. Remember, you got into Boalt for a reason and you should be capable of having a transcript that makes employers scratch their heads just like most other students here!
Anon 4:37,
I think a lot of folks do their best and get straight P's. Boalt's student body is a tough crowd. Someone has to be in the bottom 60%, and it doesn't mean they didn't try hard.
After working so hard for the past two years, I have to admit I am really enjoying this 3L "P's With Dignity" experience. I'm studying, yeah, but just enough to enjoy learning the material and to not completely waste my professors' time. But not so much that my social life is suffering. What worries me a little bit is snapping out of this attitude for the bar exam... although I think that both the carrot and the stick will be much more compelling at that point.
To the 1Ls, the main thing to remember is that the learning curve your first semester is _so_ steep. You might get all P's first semester, because you didn't understand a single thing the professors were saying to you for three months. But when you come back spring semester, I assure you you'll be surprised at how much more you'll understand. And, speaking from my own experience, all P's first semester can light a very useful fire under your ass.
My lengthy $0.02.
Boalt Faculty and Staff who deal with grades:
Two Things:
1) Make sure our professors email the class to notify us when they posted the grades to BearFacts so we don't have to check incessantly.
2) Also, professors should email (or send a letter) to the AmJur and Prosser ASAP when grades come out. It's silly to have to wait a month to hear you won an award. Some professors are diligent about notification, others aren't. Boalt should have a uniform notification policy on the matter and get professors to abide by it.
Oh come on, people need to drink some egg nog, see some relatives and friends, and chill out. Professors and staff shouldn't do a god damn thing. If you're not mentally stable enough to refrain from checking your grades, that's your own dilemma to confront.
I for one am enjoying catching up on The Office online.
OK, Armen, you successfully established that a commenter, not you, posted the rational request to Boalt about grades. Don't worry. Boalt won't think you posted it. (See instance two years ago when Dean Edley mistakenly tagged "this blog" as a whole or "the blogger" (Armen) of N&B for making a critical comment, when, in reality, it was an anon commenter in the comments section, not Armen.)
Rational? You can seriously read through this sort of psychopathic frenzy over grades and consider it rational? And you should be more than aware of my feelings towards grades...vent all you want about them, but I reserve the right to ridicule and laugh.
It's worth noting that one of the grade-whiners is whining about not finding out about his (her?) AmJur in a timely manner.
I have a final in 8 1/2 hours and am currently drinking a rum-n-diet sprite and reading blogs. My guess is that I'm more representative than these stressed out crazies posting above.
12:06, would that be Securities Regs?
It's good to know I'm not alone on this one.
Anon 12:06, you are certainly representative of me and most of my 1L friends. And I'm pretty sure we're *supposed* to care.
Boy, Sec Reg sure sucked. Not hard in material, but hard to finish because there was so much fucking material. At least that's my opinion.
What did people think of Fed Courts? Major time crunch, no?
Nope, wasn't Securities Regs, but an equally intriguing class. Glad to know I was in the company of T.F. last night, even if only via the internets. Speaking of whom, I saw him picking up some food in Goldberg before the final this morning and he was all cute with his touseled hair - very non-Federalist looking.
Seriously, 12:11. Cuteness. Can we talk about a "Men of Nuts and Boalts" calendar for 2007? I'd buy it.
This thread is starting to make me feel like vomiting (and not from fear of finals) ...
I'd buy it. "Hot Men of Nuts and Boalts" would be a catchier title though. Problem is there aren't enough for every month of the year.
So who's Mr. January? I'm voting for Armen.
we can just fill the rest of the months up with bears
Post a Comment
<< Home