Top 15 Things I'll Miss about Law School at McGeorge

Law school has been a rollercoaster ride like no other. Through all the twists and turns, there have been many experiences, some I'd take back and some I wouldn't...but here are the Top 15 things I will certainly miss, or not, about law school...

(#15) Free food on campus
Whether you got a sugar rush from the CDO’s candy stand, ‘attended’ the speaker in classroom C - by attended, I mean grabbed the food and left before the speaker could begin his presentation, sniped a couple slices of pizza at the Wednesday Mentoring program when no one was looking, or vultured the Dean’s council events after all the big shots had left, free food was a’plenty to the vigile eye. If you were ‘in’ with the campus safety officers, they’d actually let you know where the next hit would be so you can plan accordingly (do they have a twitter account setup for this yet?). The free food was a great for the school to feed hungry students, which will probably come back in increased medical expenses for us in the future.

(#14) Hearing the phrase, "I just want to pass."

Growing up, I'd always learned to do my best and try to be the best...until law school. This phrase came up all too often when people described how they wanted to do in their classes. I tried to resist at first, telling myself, “this too shall pass,” but eventually I succumbed and I realized, I too… just want to pass.

(#13) Barrister’s Ball
I’m still not even sure why we have this event. The barrister’s club doesn’t even put it on and according to Wikipedia, a barrister is a ‘lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions that employ a split profession in relation to legal representation,’ whatever that means. I was introduced to this event as Law School prom, only we’re missing the naming of the prom king and queen and the best part (which ironically occurs only after prom is over). I have a feeling this event and the fact lawyers have their own alcoholics anonymous are somehow related.

(# 12) Prayer room
I don’t know a single person other than myself who actually visited this room. Yes, I visited…once. It was an interesting concept, but being in a dusty, abandoned closet is perhaps not the best place to ask the Lord Almighty for good grades or inner peace. I’d stick with the grassy knoll behind the pool area or a church.

(#11) Getting locked out of the apartment
No on-campus living experience was complete without coming to your door at 1:45 in the morning after a night on the town, feeling a little (or a lot) tipsy, and realizing you didn’t have your ID card to get into your apartment. Damnit. Another check in the wallet… nope not there. Thank goodness you stored the public safety phone number in your phone. You make the call, wake the guy up from his midnight siesta, give it ten minutes, and try to keep yourself from passing out on the front steps until he gets there. Oh, then you get asked for your ID to make sure you did in fact live there.

(#10) Bar reviews
No, this isn’t a class that prepares you for the bar exam. It’s a class that prepares you for the social exam! These Thursday night social gatherings at Sacramento’s local bars helped us to learn the city and interact with fellow McGeorgians. For my entire first and second year of law school, I may have missed only one of these prepatory gatherings (shame on me!). After awhile though, I realized that trying to get away from law school by continuously going out with law students may not have been the best approach.

(#9) “Why is the internet not working?”
Believe it or not, Colleta’s wills and trust exam was easier to figure out than why the internet wasn’t working. But you could be sure that on the day of that final, when you forgot what the ‘10th amendment’ elements are and you try and pull an outline online, the internet was sure to be out, probably much to the delight of either God or Dan Breuer…or both.

(#8) Walter and Stella
They’re like your parents away from your parents. They would always check up on us with a “How you doing?”, or support us with a “Good luck on your exam”, or make sure we had enough to eat with “There’s some free food over there, go grab some.” A meal at McGeorge wouldn’t be complete without a Walter and Stella sighting.

(#7) Waiting six weeks for grades to come back
What’s worse than taking a law school final, it’s beginning the next semester not knowing if you even passed the last semester (or studying for the bar, not knowing if you even graduated!). Take yourself back to Game 4 in 2002 when the Kings were playing the Lakers in the playoffs and Robert Horry grabbed the loose ball and took a shot from three point land. Remember the tension lasting for the 0.47 second span waiting to see if it went in? Now, draw that feeling out for 6 weeks. You get the idea.

(#6) “This week at Pacific McGeorge.”
Although I appreciated the weekly reminders of what was going on at McGeorge, I was always unsure if we were invited to the faculty staff meetings on Tuesday at 3pm or whether “Weight Watchers” event was designed for us students.

(#5) Raft Race
500 law students, six hours, one river. Who will survive? The most important thing to remember was that drinking on the shores of the river was illegal, but once you’re out on the river, it’s anyone’s game. There was no remembering necessary after this. The best part of the trip was seeing the faculty gathered by the Sac PD at the end of the river, waiting to grab and escort out any belligerent law student before the PD could. And who says our faculty doesn’t care?

(#4) Getting called on class
Although, the thrill can be exhilarating, especially in the first or second year, by the third year (and fourth for us evening students), hearing the professor call my last name so I could blunder on a case about why the couple moved out but didn’t file for divorce, was worse than the time my mother would yell my name after she found the vase I broke, except there’s no laundry room to hide in while in class.

(#3) McG Intramurals
“When the world is filled with darkness, God will send a beacon of light.” Ah, indeed the McGeorge intramurals were that beacon of light. What a great way to take out the tension built up during the week , than to go at it in a friendly game of flag (sometimes, tackle) football with a bunch of stressed out competitive lawyers-to-be (the courtroom competition doesn’t even compare). It wasn’t always friendly though, especially if you were the 14 year old girl who had to referee the basketball games (do they know curse words yet at age 14?).

(#2) TV in student center
This was a cool idea and thank you to the McG person who was clear-headed at one moment in their time at McGeorge to come up with this idea. “We who were about to die, salute you (that’s from Gladiator).” It was always fun to gather with other McG students here to watch tv; whether it be the NCAA final four, Obama taking out McCain in the debates, or to walk in on a group of girls watching their girly shows, and feigning an interest because… well, they’re girls.

(#1) Finals!
Oh my, this deserves an exclamation mark in and of itself. I’ll miss drinking the hot chocolate as my happy food of the day, but certainly not the tense looks on people’s faces, the desperation in trying to learn convoluted rules, and then walking into the exam and realizing the professor and I obviously don’t speak the same language.
And that’s my Top 15 thing I’ll miss (or not) about law school!