Using a Long Weekend to Your Advantage:  Tackle your most onerous study task as early as possible this weekend.  That way, it won't hang over you during the long weekend and add to your stress.  Also consider tackling your hardest study tasks when you are most alert.  Your brain will absorb material more easily for greater understanding and retention.  Consequently, you will feel better about your study session and lower your stress.

Monday, September 14 - deadline to apply for a December 2009 degree.

ULink  -  Student Services  -  Degree Application

Using a Long Weekend to Your Advantage:  Begin the process of outlining.  Research shows that you will understand and remember material better if you do your own work to learn a course.  The process of outlining requires you to wrestle with the topics and sub-topics so that you really know them instead of knowing them generally.  Making your own outlines helps you to have long-term retention of the material rather than merely short-term regurgitation of material for an exam. Use this weekend as your starting point for outlining.  For great tips on outlining, review the article Creating a Course Outline posted at http://www.law.louisville.edu/academics/academic-success.  You are also invited to attend an outlining workshop next Thursday, September 10, in Room 275.

Using a Long Weekend to Your Advantage:  Catch up on your sleep this long weekend.  Remember to get no less than 7 hours of sleep per night every week.  If your body is sleep-deprived from the last two weeks because you have been sleeping less than 7 hours per night, now is the time to re-charge.  Then, make sure you get proper sleep hours for the remainder of the semester.

Using a Long Weekend to Your Advantage:  Create a structured study schedule and stick to it!   If you have been “flying by the seat of your pants” on your time management, now is the time to create a schedule and stick to it for the remainder of the semester.  If you follow a study schedule, you will be able to complete your reading and briefing one or two days before class (without rushing through the material), rather than the day of class.   You will also ensure that you are devoting enough time to other study tasks, including reviewing your class notes, outlining, meeting with your study group, working on papers and projects, and completing practice questions.  Perhaps the best part about following a study schedule is that you can have guilt-free time off because you have finished all of your study tasks for the week.  And, your family members, significant others, and friends will know when you will be free.  To create your own study schedule, use the blank time management schedule posted on the Academic Success webpage at http://www.law.louisville.edu/academics/academic-success.  If you need any assistance in completing your schedule, stop by the Academic Success Office (Room 212).

Using a Long Weekend to Your Advantage:  Congratulations!  You are beginning your third week of classes.  For those of you who are new to law school, things should be getting into a routine now.  For those of you who are returning to law school, you probably feel like you never left because it is all so familiar.

You now have a long weekend that you can look forward to.  Use this time to improve your future workload as a law student.  Three days can be a blessing for law students who have gotten behind in their reading or who are feeling sleep-deprived.  This week's tips will provide suggestions for getting the most out of this weekend.  Tip 1:  If you are still getting settled in to your apartment, try to finish all of those tasks by the end of the weekend.  Finish unpacking boxes.  Finish organizing your study area.  Finish the final decorating touches.  Starting Tuesday morning you want to make law school your priority.

Should I rely on an upper-division student's outline or a commercial outline to prepare for exams?  NO.  Remember that you are not creating an outline to turn in as an assignment or to win any awards.  The outline is another tool from which you can study the law.  The process of you outlining a course dramatically increases your ability to retain the information and to develop a sense of what information you will need to apply to a set of facts on an exam.  In addition, commercial outlines are not always in tune with the material as presented by your professor.  Canned outlines may be helpful to fill in any gaps after you have done the work, but they SHOULD NOT take the place of your own outlines.

Study Groups are Not for Studying:  Study groups are one of the most misunderstood aspects of law school life.  In fact, the term "study group" is something of a misnomer - "review group" may be more appropriate.  Review groups are most effective when all the group members have studied on their own and then come together to test each other's knowledge.  Before you decide whether or not to join a review group, you need to consider the advantages and disadvantages.  The Academic Success Workshop this afternoon at 1:00 p.m. in Room 275 will address these issues and more.  I hope to see you there. 

It Takes Time To Acquire New Skills in Law School:  Even if you learn perfectly every bit of information presented to you in your texts and classes, you still may fail to do well in law school.  Although knowledge is crucial to success, the goal of legal education is to teach you skills.  In other words, what you need to learn is how to apply the knowledge you acquire and how to effectively do so in writing.  This point is often overlooked by new law students.  Your law school exams will require you to demonstrate your skills in applying your knowledge of the law to new situations.  Acquiring new skills requires you to practice those skills over and over and requires a large expenditure of time by you (and does not necessarily come easily or quickly).  Keep your focus this semester and allow the time necessary to develop these important skills. 

Adapted from Expert Learning for Law Students by Michael Hunter Schwartz.

Don't Do Your Reading Too Far in Advance:  The more you remember from your reading assignment, the more you will get out of class.  If you do your reading too long before a class meets, you will remember so little of the material that you will lose the benefits of working ahead.  As a general rule, try to complete your reading one to two days before class.  This, together with a five-minute pre-class review, will maximize your classroom learning.