Finals Survival Guide

With the Law School heading right into finals during next week, I thought a survival guide was in order. Read on to learn all about the importance of study groups, how to best manage your time, and ways to make sure your parents feel good about the time and money spent on your education!



1) When trying to memorize every case in a 1,000 page casebook (of which you read 980 pages), make sure to take a five minute study break every hour or so. This has been proven to be an effective way to improve concentration on many tasks, and certainly applies to studying. A brisk walk and stretching exercises are the most highly recommended. Getting the blood flowing keeps you awake, and is important to maintain healthy circulation after long periods of sitting.

Additionally, don't forget about law school standbys such as Bubble Spinner, Penguin Smack, and of course, if you feel like vomiting, First Person Tetris.

2) Don't forget to stay in touch with the world outside of school to maintain some perspective. Sure, reading cases and memorizes restatement sections are great, and of course learning procedural rules is very interesting and rewarding, but it is also important to stay in touch with the outside world. Check CNN regularly so you can argue about politics with your peers! Read up on TMZ so you can repeat Tiger Woods jokes and make yourself feel interesting. Go to failblog and see all the new, inventive ways people are hurting themselves!

3) Don't neglect important relationships! Studies show that social support correlates with both academic satisfaction and health! Forget that in a correlational study it could just mean that people who do better in school are better liked by their parents, or people who are in shape and attractive have more friends, and instead think of who will offer you a job mowing their lawn when you fail your exams?

So call your parents, and enjoy the four hour phone pass and stories about how the lawn is growing! That time couldn't have been used for outlining anyways. And of course after you have blown off your significant other because you are way too busy, don't neglect to spend at least an hour on facebook complaining to your classmates about how much work you have to do.

This is seriously how I prepare for class...

4) Form a supportive study group to help tackle tough topics and divide the workload! Study groups can also help you feel motivated and stay on task when faced with boring work. They will also help you keep to a set schedule. Sometimes explaining difficult topics to another person is the best way to teach yourself!

And of course, the more know it alls in the group, the more you will be able to listen to them shouting over everyone else with the wrong ideas, which you can then repeat on the test! Also, study groups help you stay motivated by providing that extra anxiety when you realize everyone else in your class knows the material better than you do. Nothing like a forced curve and stiff competition to give you both an ulcer AND an adderall addiction! Finally, remember that study groups that meet at the bar always get the most work done.

5) Remember, its not about grades, its about learning for personal enrichment. Trust me, there is no way to tell by your resume how well you did in school, you would never have a section on top for both your GPA and class rank. And when you sit down to interviews, they don't want you to answer questions like, "Why did you take Criminal Law twice?", no, they want to know, "But how did you FEEL when you learned the Rule of Civil Procedure?" They understand that you class will be curved into classes graded by different professors who assigned different assignments, and therefore aren't concerned that you got a B on a paper about three issues compared to their A for the same paper on one issue. Besides, in this economy, there are so many jobs available that you can just pick the one that you think will be the most fulfilling and rewarding. Since we all know UB returns tuition money AND repays outstanding loans, you don't even need to worry about a job, just enjoying that "stretched brain" feeling after a good exam.

Author's note. 1) The above cited games and sites are not endorsed by me, but at the time of the writing, were all SFW. If you are unsure, just google the games and click the first link. 2) I make no recommendations that you follow any of my advice. 3) "Life: No one said it would be easy, they just promised it would be worth it."