Choosing my second and third year electives felt like one of the first moments in law school where I had real control over shaping my legal education. After completing the foundational first year curriculum, I wanted my upper-level courses to reflect both my interests and the direction I hope to take in my legal career.

Since my summer at Kabateck LLP, my interest in litigation has grown significantly. That experience gave me firsthand exposure to the strategic and advocacy-focused nature of litigation, which ultimately led me to pursue the Civil Litigation and Advocacy concentration. With that goal in mind, I have been intentional about enrolling in the required elective courses that fulfill the concentration requirements. Courses centered on trial practice, motion writing, and litigation strategy felt like natural extensions of what initially drew me to law school and have helped bridge the gap between doctrine and real-world advocacy.

At the same time, I have been deliberate about balancing my concentration requirements with bar-related courses. While developing depth in litigation is important to me, I am also mindful that bar preparation requires a strong grasp of foundational subjects. As a result, I have prioritized electives that overlap with tested bar topics so that I can reinforce those core areas now rather than relying solely on post-graduation bar preparation. This approach has helped me feel more confident and prepared moving forward.

Since I went to a large undergraduate university, it wasn’t common to form study groups. I didn’t even know the names of most of my peers in my 100+ person classes. Outside of class, all of my friends were in different majors. We studied together at coffee shops every weekend, but we weren’t studying the same material.

At Loyola, you get to know everyone quickly. Your peers are the people you spend every day with, specifically, the people in your section, and they are the only ones who can truly relate to what you are learning. My peers have served as a support system for me here, especially because I don’t have family nearby. When I need to go on a coffee run, take a 15-minute break to chat about the latest reality TV scandal, or do anything other than read my assigned cases, my peers are there.

One of the most important parts of a study group for me is being surrounded by people I feel comfortable with. There are no stupid questions, but there are sometimes questions you’d rather not have classmates or a professor hear. My friends are always kind and caring and give me the space to ask about anything. I’ve learned so much from their patience in explaining rules, ideas, or cases. They’re also always there for the 9 p.m. text to clarify something or the 6 a.m. “It’s going to be a great day” text.

Finding people to study with is important, but it’s even more important to find people you trust and feel comfortable with. The best studying and improvement comes from treating each other with kindness, respect, and patience, which makes studying a little more bearable.

Law school often asks you to make decisions before you feel entirely ready to make them. Electives are no exception. The questions come up early, even if the answers take time.

As a second-year evening student, I have not yet had to formally choose my electives. Technically, I am still in what would be the first year, second semester of traditional law school. But, as I move closer to my third year, when elective choices and schedule choices are in my hands, I have started thinking more intentionally about electives.

The first step for me has been looking ahead rather than waiting until the moment arrives. One practical consideration is identifying courses that are tested on the bar exam and seeing how they realistically fit alongside a full-time job and other responsibilities. Bar-tested courses matter, and knowing when they are offered and how they align with work and life helps make the process feel manageable and strategic.  As a heads up, here are some bar courses offered: Criminal Procedure, Trust & Wills, Remedies, and Marital Property.  Fortunately, Loyola offers a wide range of electives, including bar courses, in the evening, making it easy to plan for electives. 

At the same time, electives are not just about bar prep. Law school is demanding, and taking at least one class that genuinely interests you can make a semester feel lighter and more engaging.  As someone who is a gamer, I am especially excited about the possibility of taking Videogame Law, an elective that connects my creative interests with the evolving intersection of law and video games.

Even without choosing electives yet, I have already seen the value of electives. This year, we were placed into Legislation and Regulation, an elective course, which I have come to appreciate deeply. Learning how to read and interpret statutes and understanding how agency regulations fit into broader legal frameworks feels foundational, regardless of practice area. It was a reminder that some courses quietly shape how we think as attorneys long before we realize it.

For now, I am approaching electives the same way I approach much of law school: with preparation, openness, and patience. 

With the rigor of law school, studying with friends is helpful. Exam season makes this especially clear. Being able to explain, debate, and defend ideas out loud made exam preparation more effective for me.

I studied with two of my friends almost every day for two weeks. We complemented each other well, with each of us excelling in different areas. This helped me identify my strengths and weaknesses in each class. LLS students are willing to work together and support one another during exams, and we occasionally conferred with another study group while studying.

My group pushed each other constantly. In the middle of discussions, we would randomly cold-call one another. If someone stumbled, we slowed down and worked through it. If someone answered confidently, they were challenged. 

The best part of the group was not academic. During breaks, we laughed a lot. We bonded over shared stress and mutual exhaustion. We also spent a considerable amount of time critiquing the local selection of restaurants on Uber Eats.

Sure, group studying can make it easier to lose focus, but it also makes it harder to avoid accountability. If someone drifted off, they were called out immediately. This kept us motivated when the caffeine was wearing off.

Studying in groups does not work for everyone, but I encourage new law students to try it. The right group, even temporarily, makes the workload feel more manageable and the experience more purposeful.

Law school has a way of measuring time differently. Semesters feel long, finals feel endless, and suddenly you look up and realize you are one and a half years into this journey.

This past exam period was one of the more challenging ones yet. As a second-year evening student, I faced two in-class exams and a take-home essay, all within a two-week span. Balancing three major assessments in such a short period of time was not easy. It required discipline, long study hours, and a lot of patience with myself. I put in significant time and effort, and while it was exhausting, it was also a reminder of how much stamina law school quietly builds over time.

One thing that made this exam period more manageable was the people around me. I studied alongside friends who formed a study group, and that support made a meaningful difference. We helped each other work through difficult material, clarified concepts, and found moments to laugh and release some of the stress. Law school can be intense, but it is experiences like these that remind me I am not doing this alone.

Winter break, on the other hand, offered something entirely different. Space to slow down, reflect, refresh, and reset. Having a little more time to focus on myself made me realize how much law school has come to shape my daily life. It keeps me busy, challenged, and mentally engaged in a way that feels purposeful. At the same time, this break reminded me how necessary rest and balance are. I have learned that productivity and rest are not opposites, they work best together.

Looking back over the past year and a half, law school has changed me in ways I did not fully anticipate. I am more disciplined, more structured, and more intentional with my time. Oddly enough, my time management is better now than it was in undergraduate, even though I balance far more responsibilities.  I approach problems differently now, breaking them down carefully and thinking several steps ahead. At times, the demands of law school can feel overwhelming, but I have also gained confidence in my ability to handle difficult workloads and unfamiliar challenges.

If there is one lesson this stage of law school has reinforced, it is that growth does not always feel comfortable while it is happening. Some semesters test your limits more than others. Some breaks are necessary not just to recover, but to reflect on how far you have come. Completing one and a half years of law school feels less like a finish line and more like a checkpoint. 

As I move forward, I carry both the discipline law school has instilled in me and the reminder that balance matters. Winter break may be over, but the perspective it offered is one I hope to keep with me for the rest of the two and a half years of this journey.

For weeks I studied, memorized, re-learned, and hoped for the best. In between the hours of studying, I would walk around my neighborhood for an hour to get much needed fresh air and sunshine. I was more appreciative than ever of an unseasonably warm December in SoCal. 

It was hard not to feel overwhelmed when there were cases and rules to memorize and so little time to do it. I tried to focus on each day as it came instead of worrying about all of the inevitable future exams at once. During music class in elementary school, I was taught a song that goes:

“little by little, inch by inch,

by the yard it’s hard, 

by the inch it’s a cinch, 

never stare up the stairs, 

just step up the steps, 

little by little, inch by inch” written by Ron Hamilton. I recited these lyrics often as I went through large stack after large stack of flashcards trying to make the information stick. 

The day after my last exam, my cat and I boarded a plane to Virginia. Immediately upon landing in my home state, I felt that I could finally relax. I saw friends and family, made tiramisu for the first time, and walked my family dog every morning. 

For me, this break was about rediscovering the self care rituals I left behind during finals, but that kept me from burning out during the semester. 

Before finals, I fell asleep reading a book every night because I read somewhere that it’s better for your brain than scrolling or TV. During finals, this ritual faded because reading felt more like a chore than a relaxing endeavor. After finals, I made reading a priority again. Over break, I finished five books. My favorite of those books is Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I started it on the plane ride to Virginia, and it was so good that I was sad to find myself at the end a couple of days later. 

Going home was the reset that I needed to prepare for the second semester and internship application season.

Happy New Year! The dreaded question I got the most over winter break was “How did exams go?” My standard response was . . . “Well, they went.” 

I admit, I do exaggerate a little. All in all, exams did not go bad at all. As an evening student, I only had two exams – a Torts midterm and a Contracts final, and they were both spaced a week a part so I had time to shift my focus from Torts to Contracts without my head feeling like it was spinning too much. 

As soon as my exams were over, however, I had a different reason for staying up late and keeping busy – the law firm I work for has been gearing up for a trial that starts in mid-January. Pretrial deadlines (such as the filing of motions in limine, which is when a party requests that the Court order that none of the parties are allowed to use a certain piece of evidence at trial, usually arguing that the evidence in question is prejudicial and/or irrelevant to the case) had started during my law school finals and continued up until New Year’s Eve. So a majority of my holiday break was spent in front of my computer, preparing filings and refreshing PACER. Fun! 

But – despite the less than ideal timing, there is nothing quite like the adrenaline of preparing for trial. After literal years of cooking on a case, trial is the ultimate culmination of all your efforts. This case that I am working on in particular is close to my heart because it is the first ever case I ever worked on – I listened in on the intake on my first day as a paralegal and three years later we are heading to trial to get a final resolution on behalf of our clients. 

This isn’t my first trial – I was able to assist on a different one a year ago – but back then I did not have the rich legal context that my first semester at Loyola provided me. The res ipsa loquitur jury instruction would have just looked like gibberish to 2024 Jae, but 2026 Jae has a semester of Torts under her belt and is now able to actually follow along with what is happening. 

Studying for 1st semester exams rewired my brain. My first 1L midterm gave me a sense of what exams would be like at the end of the semester, and all of my professors made the process feel manageable by providing past exams to practice. These things prepared me, and I feel satisfied with the results.

My winter break started rough. For the first few nights, I fell asleep while involuntarily thinking about hypothetical cases and legal scenarios. Apparently, my subconscious did not believe in winter break.

After that passed, I was able to enjoy spending time with my family, including my aunt and cousins who visited from the UK. I chose to stay in Los Angeles rather than travel, which gave me the chance to reconnect with friends, catch up on work, and unwind at home. The rare stretch of LA rain limited my options anyway, which made staying in feel fitting.

The only law-related work I did over break was marketing work for a law firm. After exams, the law and I needed some time apart.

As the Spring semester begins, I am excited to see what my new courses will bring. While I will miss Professor Grossi’s entertaining lectures on Civil Procedure, I am looking forward to diving into Torts and Innovation Law with a clear mind and renewed focus.

When people ask how my exams went, the most honest answer is complicated. Law school exams are never just about how much you studied. They are about endurance, strategy, and managing pressure in a way I had never experienced before. This round of exams felt slightly different though. Not easier, but more familiar. I understood the rhythm of exam season better. I knew when to push and when to step back. That alone felt like progress.

My last exam was Evidence, and the very next day I was back at work. While winter break is often described as a time to fully unplug, returning to work was actually something I was looking forward to. Being back in a professional environment reminded me why I chose this path in the first place. I enjoy learning from the attorneys I work with, seeing how the law operates outside the classroom, and continuing to grow through hands on experience. In many ways, going back to work felt grounding rather than exhausting.

Being 1.5 years into law school feels like standing at a strange midpoint. I am no longer new, but I am far from done. Law school has changed me in ways I did not fully expect. For the better, it has sharpened how I think. I am more confident in my ability to analyze complex problems and advocate for a position, even when the answer is unclear. I trust myself more under pressure. I also understand my limits better and have learned that asking for help is not weakness, it is strategy.

At the same time, law school can be consuming. It has a way of turning everything into an internal critique. It can make productivity feel like self worth and make rest feel undeserved. I have had to become more intentional about separating who I am from how I perform on an exam or in a single class.

Balancing school with work has helped me keep perspective. It reminds me that law school is part of my journey, not the entirety of it. At this midpoint, I feel more resilient, more self aware, and more certain that I am capable of handling challenge and growth at the same time.

Law school is not just teaching me how to be a lawyer. It is teaching me how to show up consistently, learn from the people around me, and keep moving forward even when things feel demanding. At 1.5 years in, that lesson feels just as important as anything I have learned from a casebook.

Everything about exams is long. The hours spent actually taking them. The weeks devoted to studying. And perhaps worst of all, the wait for grades. In college, exams were packed in a single week. There was only five days of immense stress followed by the relief of heading home. Law school is different. Exam stress stretches over a full four weeks, not including the additional weeks spent trying (and failing) to push the thought of my grades away.

The week before returning to campus feels like knowing a massive wave is coming, you just don’t know whether you’ll dive beneath it or get knocked to the shore. It’s the classic impending doom of grades being released. Before exams, professors reminded us not to let our grades define us, but that’s far easier said than done. What felt even stranger was the expectation that after being knocked down by that wave, you’re supposed to be excited about jumping right back into the water. I hadn’t opened a textbook in weeks (they had collected dust!), and on top of schoolwork, I was expected to apply to summer jobs. Re-entering all of that at once felt daunting.

A few days before the second semester began, I went on a walk around Los Angeles to reconnect with my “why.” Why did I decide to take the LSAT? How did it feel when I got my acceptance letter? Who am I doing this for? Reflecting on those questions helped me gain perspective beyond the letter grades I received and allowed me to rediscover joy in returning to campus.

The truth is, I love to learn, and I love my school. I came to law school to learn the law and pursue a fulfilling career. Loyola is a community where I’ve always felt supported, and that reassurance carried me into the new semester. I know the resources are there for me to grow, improve, and feel more confident. I’m ready to begin again.