Well, it’s now been a few month’s since I took a sharp turn in what I like to call my career, in that I started law school, and, seeming as the first exams have been graded, now might be a good time to summarize the early experiences.
First and foremost, it is a luxury to be able to spend all my time learning. When you’re working, there’s always the conflict between learning (to hone your skills in order to stay competitive) and producing (to, you know, make money). The learning part is more fun, and now I can do it 100% of the time.
I got an ”Ab” (that’s the top grade) on the introductory course and a point score of 30 out of 33, which is good but not spectacular. Then again, I only worked 8 hours a day. Before I started this, everyone was freaking me out with horror tales about needing to study 90 hours a week. It’s not been so bad, really. I haven’t spent much time on lagen.nu since I started, though, but that’s mostly related to the project being in maintenance mode. I should write a post about the problems of maintenance mode later.
I’m noticing some differences in the way I’m studying, compared to my colleagues. The thing I was most worried about prior to starting this was that it would be harder to learn new stuff in my age, as compared the people 10 years younger than me. The thought I was most relieved by was that my experiences would compensate for this, somewhat. Largely, both these predictions have come true. I find that I easily get a ”general feel” of whatever area we’re studying, enough for me to be able to ask the right questions, but I have a harder time immersing myself in the nitty gritty details of every subject.
The thing that annoys me the most so far is this preoccupation among the students, as well as the teachers, with what areas are going to be on the exam. Also, maybe it’s just because of where I’m coming from, but I found it strange that, in a 10-week course, intellectual property law was hardly mentioned at all.