Fall Semester Update

It’s crazy to think that this time last year I was scoping out potential law schools and starting (and if I’m being completely honest, procrastinating on) the application process. What’s even crazier is that now I’m two months into being a law student! It seems like for the longest time I had been anticipating law school and getting back into the groove of being a student, and now I’m here: two months into school with about a full month of classes left to go before finals and before I’m done with my first semester of law school! It’s honestly so mind-blowing and scary to think just how fast time flies…

Presently, I’m anticipating my first grades as a law student. We recently took our first midterm for torts and submitted our first graded assignment for legal writing class. One of the things I haven’t completely wrapped my head around just yet is the grading process. Loyola, like most law schools, grades on the curve. If you’re like me, a humanities and social sciences student, grading on the curve will be just as foreign of a concept to you. At UCSB, I was very much used to an A being an A, a B being a B, and so forth. Here, that’s not completely the case. Our grade for each assignment or exam is graded on a curve with a specific formula. That grade is then combined with any other assignments, exams, and points and then calculated with yet another specific formula that distributes a spot on the curve to each student. It’s complicated, scary, intimidating, and nerve-racking, but I’d like to think that I gave both tasks my best effort. So fingers crossed that all goes well!

I’m two months in, so how exactly am I faring in law school? Well, I told my friends a couple of weeks ago that I likened law school to being in the ocean. It’s vast, deep, intense, seemingly endless, and can be overwhelming. Currently, I feel like I still have my head above the water. School has been exactly what I imagined: late nights, lots of hard work, drinking plenty of coffee, attempting difficult problem sets, memorizing rules, and briefing cases. But finally understanding the concept is so satisfying, and that “Aha! Eureka!” moment is such a beautiful thing. So now, I’m just looking forward to ending the semester as strong as possible so I can start the new year off on a good note.

Stay tuned! There’s more to this adventure, and the best is yet to come!