At the beginning of the semester I was speculating that law school didn't seem that difficult, with the caveat that I might turn out to be woefully wrong. I wasn't. The workload ebbed and flowed but never drifted above manageable. Over 15 weeks I've only taken a casebook home to do reading maybe twice. I've had my nights & weekends 95% free of law school encroachment.

So where does this myth of the horrors of 1L come from? Does UCLA have unusually low work requirements of its students? No reason to think so. Do I not see it because I have some unusual ability to absorb the material? Definitely not.

What is true is I didn't buy into the myth coming into school, so perhaps that prevented it from becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. But what do people get out of buying in? All it yields is pure fear & intimidation. Where's the benefit.

Perhaps -- for folks who have their own pre-existing sense of fear & intimidation, mapping that onto the institutional 1L myth creates a safety in numbers effect -- I can cope with the fear more easily knowing that it's not intrinsic to me, it's part of the experience and everyone has to deal with it.

27 Nov 04