Law School, no doughnuts for guessing, was a dream come true. I was in NUJS which was my first choice. I had cleared all the entrance exams I gave- if there was a tenth number cloud, I would have been on that instead of nine. On an exhilarated note, I started my law school.
And Roll, Camera and Action- Life in Law School Starts.
First thing out there- people- the super awesome Barney Stinson, the boring, dull people- way lawyers should be like- as said in Legally Blonde- some spic and span chics and chaps- for them 5 acre campus was a ramp to walk in- and some had scoffed so much that their face went into permanent frowning mode- while some had taken oaths to beat Ram Jethmalani in the profession. Though certainly not appreciating the weird wide variety of people, I went for my first class- swearing to God beforehand- to ace in academics. After class reaction- please please please God, let me pass in all the subjects!
We had some 5-10 kg of Modules- taking everything that was Greek and Latin or who knows some script dug out from, Harappa and Mohenjodaro civilization. One of our professor gave the best shot to pursue us to leave the college- why waste your parents money, while the other one told us- you guys are in a big batch! But don’t worry- by 2nd and 3rd year the number would get reduced- some would leave college and some would repeat!
Whoa! Welcome to Law School. There went for a toss all my I feel good factor.
Peep out of academics- there is an entire hoopla about Committees- CV- Interviews- Moots- Hula Hoop I could not twirl around my life- gradually I became obtuse to all of it. So I sneaked back into academics- I slogged throughout the Semester, managing tutorials, case laws with no idea how to study them- praying every day to clear all the papers- it just was not something I could comprehend- all that jazz about plagiarism- footnotes- headnotes- de-noted not much of sense.
During my first end sem exam- my sleep hours reduced from 6 to 3, the day my exam got over- I could have been declared dead. All the while- all I wished- was to pass the exams- which I did- with an average grade, though. I didn’t know what was missing. I expected better grades – I worked day and night for it. The result was just average. What could I do more? I was clueless.
So, How did things change for me? How did I top?
2nd year onwards, I learned the knack to hack the system.
How? I observed, learned, changed the way I did things.
What did I learn?
In law school, you need to adapt very quickly, otherwise in a flash of seconds you would be thrown out of the rat race (buy it, you are in a rat race). Know your seniors- they have been there for a while- they know professors and subjects better than you.
Believe it or not, I don’t slog throughout the semester like before, I just study two weeks before the exam. The first time I did it, I got 6.8 GPA out of 7.
Before you ask me HOW once again, I have got something for you.
You can not do what everyone is doing and expect extraordinary results. But I did once, and most people do. You need to cut through the noise, you need to stand out, you need to cut out your own niche. Once you have done that, everything fall in place – the grades, the committees and everything people strive to achieve in law school. I can not possibly teach all that I learnt about doing things differently in one blog post.
That is why, I’m giving away an E- Book- a compilation of what I learned and what other made me learn- that gives all the tips you must use to hack the law school system. All you need to do is to sign up for our posts by adding your Mail ID in the box on the top and if you are already added, just drop a mail at [email protected]
Sign up quickly, as it’s a limited edition E- Book and is the first edition in electronic format. I’m going to publish formally a book on how to kick ass in law school, but of course, that will be a more elaborate and polished version. Feel free to drop your mail and write some comments down there.
