Life of a Law Student

So, I told y'all that if I got a bad grade, I would write on it and I intend to keep my promise. I got my other grades back on Thursday and Friday and the one on Thursday absolutely broke me. I had to walk out and calm myself down in a study group, while still trying to complete the torts homework I hadn't finished (I found out the grade about 40 minutes before Torts). It was bad, y'all. Like after class my professor came up to me and asked if I had a bad cold and I had to explain that it just wasn't a good morning so far. He understood and he had even given us a pep talk prior to actually getting to the lesson. I wasn't the lowest score, but I wasn't middle of the pack either, and actually was below the average score (what a blow to the ego). So, here's how I'm dealing with my grade. Taking a night off to decompress. I took Thursday off after class to cry and forget my problems. Probably time wasted, but I was able to hang out with my roommate all n...

So, midterms are over. Thank the Lord it's done and over with for this semester. I'll be honest, there were a couple breakdowns, a few too many tears, and a lot of curse words thrown at my roommate (sorry). However, I got my Torts midterm grade back pretty quickly and I ended up getting the top grade. A few more tears might have been shed in class when I received that news (he kept dragging out handing back the tests and I convinced myself I had gotten the lowest grade, so it was just a huge relief.) I wanted to share with y'all how I did it. 1. Practice Exams       Now, my Torts professor told us we had to do approximately 15 to 20 before the midterm (so roughly about 5 per week.) and he only accepts two practice exams per semester. Now this professor is incredibly particular on how he wants his practice exams done. So, I did it to his specifications and turned one in. It was on intentional torts, which means it was a race horse. You didn't get time to think deeply ...

Day 1: Nervous, exhausted, and relieved. Those are the words I would use to describe myself for my first day. Generally before something big, I get so nervous and anxious that I can hardly sleep, hence the exhausted portion of my description.  My first class was legal research and writing, what an exciting way to start my day and week. But surprisingly, it wasn't half bad. It probably (read: hopefully) won't give me nightmares like McKee's legal writing class did. It went uneventfully slow, which was nice. Then I had nearly a 3 hour break between that class and next, which was filled with homework for the next days contracts class (which I had been putting off doing up until that point). My next class will probably be one of my favorite classes throughout the semester, Criminal Law and Procedure. If any of you know me, you know I love a good criminal case. I love figuring out the defenses and how to get around the defenses. Just in general, I really enjoy crimin...

This new laptop is amazing. I am absolutely in love with it. The whole thing is so light weight, and the fact that it can turn over and become a tablet makes me love it even more. It's a Lenovo yoga book 2-in-1 laptop/tablet. My cat seems to be pretty impressed with the stylus, which I think he considers his toy. I can take hand written notes, as shown above, and they will be saved onto the laptop in a notebook. This is incredibly helpful to me since I prefer handwritten notes over typed notes, for some reason I am much better at remembering copious amounts of information if it's written. The second thing I adore about this laptop is that if I so wish, I can put the keyboard all the way back to make it into a tablet. This will be a lifesaver for me since I have a real reading addiction. While I was in undergrad, I would carry around all of my books, my laptop if the day called for it, and my tablet reader, plus all the stuff for my physical education c...

Experience, experience, experience. Those were the words that were drilled into me from day one in the paralegal program at Mt. SAC. Well, that and "Write, review, review again, review once more, finalize, then review again." (Thanks, McKee.) Up until approximately April of 2017, I had never had an office job. To be fair, I didn't have much experience with customer service either, only working at J.crew in the past. I had other jobs, but they were mainly the average kid jobs (babysitting, dog sitting, mowing the lawns for neighbors, etc.) and a few manual labor jobs through either the county or the city. In other words, I had diddly squat for helpful experience for a career in law. I was extremely fortunate, I thought I wasn't going to get a good internship at all throughout my undergraduate years because I just didn't want to work at a self help center that is local to us. Not that there is anything wrong with working for said self help center, but to be honest...

Getting Ready for Law School             As of today, I have 14 days before my first day as an official law student. I’ve been getting ready, probably shirking some other responsibilities (I really need to do laundry.), and worrying that I may or may not have everything I need.             Last week I finally got all of my classes and schedules and even our syllabi. Everyone has told me that the law books would be super expensive, like way more expensive than my undergrad books. However, I am here to tell you that that assumption is false. I was able to find all of my books on Amazon, either rentable or used, and the total for my books for this semester was under $300.00. My school estimated that the books would end up being over $600.00, and I am so glad that I decided to find the books on my own.             I hav...

My name is Alyson. I'm 20 years old, I'm graduating with my degree in Paralegal, and I'm currently the President of the Association of Legal Professionals at my school. I wanted to create this blog, not only to document my progress in law school, but to also help my fellow paralegal majors to know what troubles I had with law school. I will be graduating Mt. SAC in June, and will be attending Trinity Law School in August. The reason being, mainly, is become the one thing I heard constantly from other paralegal majors is that law school is a completely different ball game. Which makes sense, the paralegal program at my school is amazing, but when I sat in at a class at Trinity, they taught with the Socratic method. Which means, they don't spell it out for then, they made them read cases and figure it out for themselves. So, I hope y'all like my blog and for the time being, the first couple of posts will be about getting ready for law school, my paralegal program, ...