Thursday, August 20, 2009

Orientation: A review

Day 1: It was such a long day. I started the morning by participating in the community service project. I like volunteering, so it was fun to me, but getting up at 7 for it? Not so much.

After that there was a picnic at the law school with other students and the faculty and for the rest of the day we just had people talking to us. Various "welcomes" and a student organization fair. I would have liked to have signed up for everything, but I picked three organizations that interested me most and signed up for those.

The law school gave us packets when we first arrived and registered. In these packets was a myriad of information, including our homework for the rest of orientation. Joy. The case and the chapters I read altogether took me around 3 hours, which I was okay with.

Day 2: We were divided into our two sections for this day. My section had an analysis section in the morning to go over our homework. Basically the instructor just told us how to write a case brief and gave us an extremely helpful handout for it. Yay! So, that session was particularly helpful.

Later that afternoon, we were divided further into our legal r & w sections and went on various law library tours and were talked to about research and the like.

At the end of the day I had a terrible headache and still had to brief a new case, but it also took me about 2 hours. Would have taken less time if I hadn't been checking facebook off and on...

Day 3 (Today): We started this morning by being introduced to our professors for the year.

Then we were gave a speech about the honor code and basically just scared shitless. Then after that we received a speech from a Bar employee about taking the bar and registering for that. Once again, we were scared shitless.

Then appropriately enough, we were presented with a counseling presentation.

We had a luncheon with professionals in the law field and that was really enjoyable. Also very informative.

The afternoon was spent with other presentations, like "How to succeed in law school" and the like and another analysis session. This one was more entertaining than the last and still quite helpful, so it was a good way to end the day and the session.

Admittedly by the end of the three days I was tired of hearing this question:

"Any questions?"

3 comments:

S said...

Here is my orientation story. It is basically the only thing I remember from that 2 days (other than the presence of the guy from my small section who just never showed up to class).

We were in a huge lecture hall that was freezing. Between every big group thing, the 2 and 3Ls running the show would give away door prizes. Some were simple things like mugs. Some were bookstore gift certificates. And some were big, like the $60 hooded sweatshirts that I had decided I couldn't justify buying for myself. Originally, they were calling out one name for each item. Towards the end of orientation, though, everyone was getting a bit tired and sloppy. So they would just announce these are the 4 items, here are the 4 names, come on down and claim what you want. For about an hour, I had been eyeing that hooded sweatshirt and its soft, warm goodness. I didn't hear any of the presentations because all I could think about was how wonderful that thick, warm sweatshirt would feel over my goose-bump covered arms. They announced the 4 names and hallelujiah mine was one of them. Now, I was sitting towards the back of the room, but I was going to get that damn sweatshirt! I don't think I knocked anyone down, but I did get there first and there was running involved. I strode back to my seat victoriously and warmly to a round of envious applause. (everyone else had been eyeing that sweatshirt, too.) Took me about 2 seconds to get that sweatshirt on.

I do not recall anything at all about the substance of law school orientation. But I still have that precious sweatshirt.

Meryl said...

Ahh, the memories....

Two of mine:

1. One of our orientation presentations was on how common it is for lawyers to become alcoholics, watching for the signs, etc. This lecture was followed by a student bar association sponsored party with kegs.

2. A guy in my small section dropped out in the first week because his girlfriend got kidnapped and turned up in South (North?) Carolina. We were all very worried about him, but our professor assured us he would get most of his tuition back. I think we also used him as inspiration--after all, even at it's worst, law school isn't *that* bad!

Unknown said...

cool!