Guest Blogger!

 ASP is happy to welcome a few guest bloggers for the next few posts!  These guest bloggers will be current students which should give you greater incite to the ASP experience. 

Many first and second year students are reluctant to ask for help--and that's okay.  You probably went to law school because you have a strong Type-A personality; and your strong sense of self led you to believe that your personal study methods were and will always be fine and dandy.  Many students, even after a semester or two of dissatisfaction with grades, are STILL reluctant to ask for help.  This is why first years are encouraged to come to ASP from the get-go.  This is also why students are encouraged (or sometimes required) to take Legal Methods I, a course designed to improve the law school skills we know you have.  If you did not have those skills, you would not have been admitted.  ASP is here to help you develop those skills.  Here is Guest Blogger Erin Langdorf-McKinley's take on her experience with ASP and Legal Methods I:

I have to say that at first, I was not thrilled to be in Legal Methods I. I figured I would just go and listen to what they have to say, but not try. I thought I did everything first year fine and they couldn’t help me. I was wrong. The extra practice of writing essays and taking multiple choice tests did help. The feedback on each essay told me something new and showed me where I needed to work harder. I learned that I needed to take it slower on MC and read the call of the question first and read every answer choice before I picked one.

I also changed the way I studied. First year, I did the majority of outlining during the couple days leading up to finals. I also studied in a study group of four the whole time; I studied from 9am to 10pm for three weeks straight. This method, I found out, was not helpful. I liked the study group aspect, but by the end of finals, I was wiped.

During this last set of finals, I had finished all of my outlines a week before finals started. Instead of cramming long days for the whole time, I worked until about 5pm and then headed home, watched some of my television shows, went out a little, went to the gym. I didn’t stop my life for finals. Instead of a group of people, I studied with one person and did more practice exams. I felt a lot less stressed and more relaxed going in.

Before Legal Methods I was happy with a 2.7 or 2.8 in a class. After Legal Methods I, my GPA for Fall 2011 went up significantly and my CGPA went up as well. I know that at first, some people (including myself) might be hurt or upset to be in Legal Methods I, but don’t fight it. It helps and the professors know what they are talking about.

A special thank you to Erin for her candid account of her experience and her amazing ability to improve her GPA and legal skills overall!

Dun Dun Dun! Checking for Grades

I know it seems premature to think about but before you know it grades will be posted.  Inevitably, one of your classmates on Facebook, via text, or via email will announce when a new grade has been posted.  If you don’t want to know your grades until they ALL have been posted be sure to steer clear of social media until January.  If you MUST know your grades immediately then you will get the announcement and check your grade straightaway. 

So, how do you check for grades?

1)      Log on to my.whittier

2)      Click on the “my info” tab

3)      Click on the link for “Academic Transcript”

4)      Hit Submit

Somewhere between Step 3 and Step 4 you will feel a slight hesitation or a nervous pang in the bottom of your stomach: This is it.  This is the moment you find out just how much your hard work has paid off.

This process is very similar to what you will go through when you get your bar results.  Bar results come out the Friday before the week of Thanksgiving at 6:00pm.  You are given a card during the bar exam with a number, a password, and a website where you can check whether or not you passed.  From 5:55pm until 5:59pm you will pace around, nervous with anticipation and raring to get it over with.  However, once 5:59 and thirty seconds rolls around you will sit down in front of your computer, hands shaking, refreshing the page to see if it’s time.  Once it’s time, you will plug in your numbers and just like Step 4 above, hit submit.  Then it feels like the entire world falls out from below you as you wait for your results to pop-up.  Then, the moment you realize you passed (which you will, I mean you’re tracking this blog so obviously you’re staying on top of you law school experience!) you will expect trumpets and bells and whistles and confetti to start falling—but it doesn’t.  Instead you’ll be so excited you won’t know what to do with yourself, call all of the people you know, and (if you’re anything like me) be so emotionally exhausted you fall asleep at 8:00pm.

Getting law school grades back is very similar but on a smaller scale.  So if you do well and get excited, imagine how passing the bar will be exponentially more exciting!  If you do not do as well as you had hoped DON’T PANIC.  There are several things to do:

·         Keep in mind these are soft grades, there is a lot of room for improvement

·         Ask your professors if you can go over your exam together to get a better idea of what he or she was looking for

·         Come to ASP—we are more than happy to work with you to figure out where and why you struggled

·         Reassess your study plan—what worked? What didn’t work?

·         Realize you have an entire semester to improve your GPA and with a little hard work significant improvement is possible