I don't want this to come across as an attack, but I take great issue with your statement, Aerin. At best it's a meaningless tautology and at worst it's a recipe for exactly the type of "fear and anxiety" that plagues us. Grades are not some quantitative indicator of effort expended. In fact, Moglen seems to be the only professor here who claims to base some of the grade on "effort" rather than strictly on end product. True, to a certain extent some people with less than stellar grades could improve those grades by putting in more work, but this is certainly not axiomatically true. As a tautology, if a student isn't trying, then trying will likely increase his grade - so long as other students don't "work harder" and keep him at the same point on the curve. And the curve is where the real danger of this statement comes in. Does the A- student "work harder" than the B+ student? It would be absurd to say yes. I know plenty of students who worked like dogs and got lower grades than students who, relatively speaking, coasted. If a student took this statement to heart, I could only see it leading to self-destruction. At some point, extra study hours have a negative value. Our brains, like our muscles or pretty much anything, can break down if pushed too hard. The B student doesn't just need to "work harder" any more than the man with the underwater mortgage needed to "be smarter".

-- StephenSevero - 18 Feb 2010

The advice I got going into law school is the same advice I got going into college and high school before that: the harder you work, the better your grades. Still holds.

-- AerinMiller - 17 Feb 2010

I got very similar advice coming into law school as well, and I agree with what has been said so far. I think what everyone forgot to tell us is that we are disadvantaging ourselves by simply focusing on the exams and the grades. I agree that that is a terrible way to learn. As was mentioned in class, law school is as much about the means and the process of learning as it is about the ends. I am not denigrating how difficult it is to forget about the “end”, the goal of getting a job and security, or finding something you are passionate about. That is very difficult to do in this environment, both because of the actual institution of law school and our own internal fears and anxieties. (see thread) Law school, though, should be on many levels an intellectual experience for ourselves. I think in the end we will learn the material much better, and be able to assist our clients at a higher level, if we are intellectually engaged with it now, rather than viewing it through the lens of our upcoming exam or the newest commercial study guide.

As Professor Moglen pointed out, “You aren’t selling your grades, you are selling your judgment.” Knowing what we do now after our first set of exams, are there things that people are doing differently in learning the material for the second term, or that have changed your attitudes at all towards law school in this short time? Are there ways that people have found to balance what the teacher wants and what they find interesting?

-- SuzanneSciarra - 17 Feb 2010

I have heard this advice too and my experience last semester seems to suggest it is accurate. I think another problem not mentioned yet is that if we take the advice and either key in only on what the professor likes to ask about on exams or disengage from the material (as some 2Ls suggest) in order to get better grades, we may be disadvantaging our clients later.

-- RobLaser - 15 Feb 2010