Law School Registration

Hey all, not much of a post from me this week. Law School has been super busy recently.

All the 1Ls had a 20 plus page paper due tonight at midnight. Drift on over to our building, and I bet you see a lot of zombies. So, this post will be fun.

But I thought I would share a little about the registration process here at the Law School, and I am very interested to see what it is like across the rest of the disciplines.
Our registration is done online through the MyUB Portal, which I imagine is pretty similar for most of the campus. Law School is sort of odd, as your first year you don't get to pick any of your classes. Then, for your second and third years, you have about 4 more required courses, and 4 "highly recommended" but not at all necessary courses. What is even more odd (odder? otter? udder? when did I last sleep?) is that you don't get any sort of say in your first year courses (not only are the classes selected, the times and professors are as well!) but you don't get a whole lot of direction with picking your second year courses. There is an hour long info session where they explained the requirements, but then it is up to you.

This would be fine, except in law school it has to be difficult. What course will get me the best job? What course will help the most with the bar exam? How does scheduling moot court or clinic work? How many internships can I do for credit? Which course will help me get the best GPA?

On top of that, of course law school breaks down into the normal groups. The people who somehow seem to know someone who took every course from every professor and know which exam is easiest and which is hardest. The people who sign up for the "coolest" professors. The people who sign up for all night classes, or try to take everything Monday and Wednesday. The Hermione Grangers, and by this I mean the people who can't limit themselves to 16 credits like the rest of us, they have to apply for special permissions to take two full time course loads. (Wow, animal onomatopoeia and Harry Potter references in one post, I need to drink more coffee)

The real fun, and drama, however, occurs when we actually do the registering. They do it by number of credits earned, (so basically class year) so part time students near graduation register on a Monday, rising third years register on the Tuesday after, then everyone else (that means all the 1Ls plus anyone who for some reason didn't register before) on that Wednesday. This is where the fun really begins.

First of all, they said registration would open at 8:30 am. Then they realized almost all of us have 8:30 am classes, and quite literally everyone would skip. So then it was changed to 8:15 am. I arrived on campus at 7:45 am, and headed up to the library. The library does not open until 8. It didn't matter, there was about 60 people camped out outside.

So I headed to the next door computer lab, and lo and behold, there are quite a few law students there as well, even though we normally don't venture into other campus buildings. At about 8:13, everyone began repeatedly refreshing their screens, attempting to get in. At 8:14, of course, the servers crashed. At about 8:16 I got the loading bar, then a confirmation, then I rejoiced. Meanwhile, the girl across the room had somehow gotten herself locked out of the campus computers, and was loudly crying (you think this is hyperbole, but it isn't). My oral argument opponent, Gregg, was sitting next to me, he got into his classes as well. It was only later in the day that I discovered that most people seemed to get into classes with no problem. I have only heard limited stories about waiting lists, but then again, this is law school, and people never talk about their failures, even if it isn't their fault.

Some highlights of my schedule include taking Con Law II with Dean Closius. How cool is that? How many other Deans out there actually teach classes? I am pretty pumped.

So, for the rest of you UBers, how is your registration process? Stressful? Easy? Confusing? Hopeful?

It should be noted that 1)there is plenty of opportunity for academic counseling and career planning at UBLaw, and I know many people took advantage of it prior to schedule selection and 2) I apologize for any errors in this, it has been a long week, 3) I do not apologize for Harry Potter references, they are way too awesome.