3L

So odd for school to be nearly over. Two years of my life past, another half year to go before I graduate. So much time, so little time.

Normally I get to school around 5 and go straight into the classroom and hang out in the quiet, but today, I was there early in order to review an exam from last semester. So rather than go into the classroom at 4 and sit for 2 hours, I chose to sit in the open cafe area for a while and get a little sunlight. Some summer-start 1Ls were sitting at the table next to me, studying - HA! - criminal law.

As I was putzing around on the net, killing time, I was listening to their conversation drift past. It's so funny how cool they think they are. I say this not to be snotty, nor to suggest that they're being snotty. They're not. They're just in awe of themselves for even getting here, and, because they're only taking a single summer class, they're thinking that it isn't so bad. Oh, somewhere deep down, they realize that fall will be more difficult because they'll have more classes, but they haven't quite internalized that; they've still got the dream that they might actually be at the top of their class. Heh.

Come September that will change. Sort of. For the first few weeks of the semester, as they get used to their new class sections, they'll be riding high on adrenaline and fear. Just learning the language will be challenging. Then somewhere around the fifth week of the semester, they'll go back to thinking "Gee, this isn't so bad." Because it won't be. For a while. They do ease you in at this school -- they don't just drop you in the deep and and expect you to breaststroke. Only the 1Ls don't know that. They've heard the horror stories and they're on tenterhooks because of it. But at the same time, they're wondering if indeed they aren't better at this than they expected.

And then October arrives, and the first of the legal writing assignments is due. Suddenly, there are far more grim faces than cocky ones. And it will stay that way through the rest of the year, only they don't know yet. They don't know about the hell of the reading period and the first slate of exams. They don't know about the February slump -- where everyone goes through a bad patch because they're taking the same classes with the same people in the same seats, and it feels like they never even got a Christmas break.

What's worse, though, is that in May of next year, they'll think they're awesome again, for having gotten through the first year. And they are; no doubt about it. It's no small achievement. But the 1L year is nothing compared to the 2L year. And nothing - NOTHING - can prepare them for that.

There's a saying in the law school world: First year they scare you to death, second year they work you to death, third year they bore you to death. I can unequivocally say that the first two are accurate to a letter. The 2L year is a MASS amount of work, and even the best students feel as if they are perennially behind. It really does make the first year look easy.

I'm glad to be on the other side of both of those. One more semester to go. One more PACKED semester, but that's it. Then the final hurdle -- the bar. It's nice to be the one who is so close to being finished, rather than the one looking at the 3Ls with wistful envy.