September 19th, 2012 – 10:55 am

Somehow, I made it. The first year of law school can be terrifying at times. It’s sort of like boot camp for those of that are not inclined to wake up at 5AM and run mile after mile while someone screams at us. But don’t be fooled, I saw 5AM more times than I care to count. Sometimes it was because I went to bed early and woke up early to read. Somtimes, it was because I went to bed late and still woke up early. Other times, I stayed up frantically attempting to make my brain retain all the information I was reading.

The best and worst of those late nights/early mornings happened right here at John Rogers Hall. My classmates and I would stay in a classroom reading and quizzing one another until we just couldn’t keep our eyes open. But even then we would keep going. We’d make a QT run and come back with more sugar and caffeine than one person should have in a day.

Looking back on those days, I can’t help but laugh. One, we stressed ourselves out way too much, but such is the life of a 1L. My second thought is that it was all worth it. Everyone tells you not to stress out, not to worry, not to lose sleep, but you don’t know what it’s like to be in law school until you have tons of heavy books and your professors actually expect you to read them— every last word of them.

At some point, though, everything begins to make sense. It happens at different times for different people but when the light bulb comes on it is an awesome feeling. During my first year, I felt swamped with just classes. Now in my second year, I am balancing school, work and extracurricular activities. And guess what? Somehow, there’s still time to sleep!

Even after only 5 weeks of school, I believe the old adage about law school is true: The first year they scare you to death. The second year they work you to death. The third year they____ you to death. I can’t personally attest to the third year so I’ll save that for a future post.

Now, back to the grind!

Until next time friends,

-L