Navigating Law School with a Science Degree: The Highs and Lows

Unlike other professional degrees, one of the greatest aspects of law school is that there is no prerequisite undergraduate path required to be admitted or successful. Law students come from various academic backgrounds, making for a diverse student body and an exciting culmination of experiences and world views. There are typically a lot of political science students and often many business or philosophy majors as well. From my experience, there is slightly less representation of students emerging from STEM backgrounds, whether biology, math, engineering, or kinesiology, like myself.

Indeed, no undergraduate degree will prepare you for law school better than another; however, your academic background plays into your learning strategies and how you best intake and process information. After four years of studying a specific subject in undergrad, you get accustomed to particular habits and studying routines. You probably know what works best for you when it comes to succeeding in school. Personally, I had everything down to a science, from note-taking to preparing my material for an exam, to my test day routine. And I was not ready to give it up.

The unfortunate reality is, most students have to start from a blank slate in terms of learning to learn. Law school is an entirely new language and comes with a pretty steep learning curve. On the upside, everyone has to climb that same learning curve, no matter where they come from.

Through this article, I want to share some key observations I have made about the differences between studying in a STEM field and studying the law. Although it may appear like the two areas are starkly different, if you continue to the end of this article, I try to bring light to some of the ways I believe a STEM degree can prepare you for law school.

Significant Changes in the Classroom:

From my experience in a heavily science-based curriculum, lectures were the primary source of course material. Going to class was crucial, and the weekly lectures are where students would learn and access the vast majority of the information required to know for exams. In lectures, professors would talk at the students, explaining complicated concepts or equations, while students would vigorously type down every word uttered. Textbooks were usually secondary to the lectures, and sometimes textbooks were not required at all. In lectures, there was a minimal conversation between the professor and students; students would hardly challenge the professor if they had their own opinion, though there is not much to have an opinion on when much of the information was strictly factual. For me, this became incredibly boring, and I did not feel like I was intellectually stimulated to my full potential.

If you enjoy interactive classroom discussions, then law school is definitely for you. In law school, lectures are a vital time to intake the course material, but they go hand in hand with the textbook as it is also a primary resource for students. Unlike undergrad, lectures are not intended to be an information dump for students just to show up and collect. Lectures are typically a collaborative time, where students are expected to have already done some reading on the day’s topic to help the professor explain and generate thoughtful conversations. Of course, the professors will still take time to explain difficult concepts and theories. Still, it is typically done through a question and answering system where the classroom audience is involved.

As a science student, this felt particularly unnatural to me as I was used to purely being lectured at and not be expected to have an opinion. However, the conversational nature of law school lectures allowed me to begin to form opinions and think about the world in a unique way I hadn’t before. Being able to immerse yourself in a topic and create rapport with your professor will help you more than you think.

Novel Approaches to Studying and Exams:

One thing that I started to resent about my science courses was that I was constantly memorizing information. Anatomy and biomechanics were just long lists of muscles and equations I engrained into my head for the exam, and later dumped right out of my brain. This worked fine as I was still able to perform well on exams, but I, like many others, was playing the short game.

A significant difference in law school is that you are always playing the long game. There are hardly any midterms in law school, so everything you learn from the beginning of the semester will be testable. The good news is that law school exams are usually an open book, so there is no need to memorize anything. That being said, you can’t just show up to the exam with your notes printed; your studying time and habits will be crucial to doing well on exams. Unlike science exams, professors don’t want to see you regurgitate the facts from a case on the exam. Rather, they want to know that you understand a case and what it stands for and apply the rules learned from that case to a new set of facts.

This may be one of the most challenging aspects of the transition from science to law because science students are accustomed to producing the one correct answer; you are either right or wrong. In law, the answer is usually ‘it depends,’ and professors aren’t looking for one specific answer. The law is often a grey area where creativity, moral debate, and philosophical interpretation are encouraged, which may strike some science students as a major obstacle. But with time, you will see that it is a much more fun and realistic type of subject to learn, as it brings up real-life problems that have big impacts on society.

STEM students may need to develop new learning strategies that help them understand the material at its core and not just memorize it for the time being. Ditch the cue cards and test banks- they won’t help you in law school. Make study groups and discuss the course material to make sure you can identify the nuances and grey areas that are embedded in law school material.

Advantages of having a STEM undergraduate degree:

Here is the part that most of you probably want to hear. Yes, in my opinion, there are some great advantages to having a science or STEM undergrad. My friend and fellow STEM graduate, Tommy Freidlich, and I often discuss our experiences and perspectives of law school, and he has help me come up with a number of things we believe are valuable to us as STEM kids in law school:

Firstly, if you are interested in IP law, you will have an automatic leg up when applying to firms. IP law has many technical aspects to it that make STEM students desirable as they will likely better comprehend this area of law or at least be more passionate.

Secondly, most undergraduate degrees in STEM fields have A LOT more class time than other majors. Engineers typically juggle 5–8 classes in one semester, and science students often have lab components for their classes, adding on more hours to a typical school week. From my experience, the quantity of time spent in class in law school is not too different from undergrad. In contrast, a major obstacle for many new law students is adjusting to the workload and the huge time commitment of law school.

Of course, we all have 24 hours in a day, but coming from a rigorous undergrad degree instilled in me great time management, which is one of the most critical skills needed to succeed in law school. I believe this was a significant advantage as the volume of law school work did not cause me additional stress that many other students may have faced.

Thirdly, STEM students are also reasonably good at linear problem-solving. This means that we are used to taking a process and breaking it down into steps or a checklist. Often in law, step-by-step processes must be followed when analyzing a fact pattern and science students may recognize this very easily. This is also beneficial on exams where you must be able to break down a complicated scenario into the relevant components and write an organized answer for the professor to read.

Lastly, I found STEM students differ from their peers in their ability to not overanalyze. This may not be seen as a great thing in its entirety, but let me explain why I believe this can be advantageous for law students.

In law school, you will be getting so much information thrown at you, and sometimes a concept will just not make sense! Some students will continuously ask the professor questions as some concepts can be very abstract. Coming from a science background, I found that much of what I learned, particularly in biology and chemistry, was very abstract and difficult to grasp conceptually. However, this allowed me to recognize that sometimes it’s best to just accept things for what they are and not get too tripped up by one obscure concept. I found this surprisingly helped me in law school because I didn’t waste my time worrying about every detail I didn’t understand. Instead, I made sure I was comprehending the bigger picture, which was more important for exams. Many of my other peers coming from political science or philosophy backgrounds, seemed to get hung up on things they didn’t understand which likely took away from their overall productivity.

Key Takeaways:

Looking at my transition to law school from a science undergrad at a birds-eye view, the three major takeaways are:

1. Law school has a major learning curve for everyone no matter what academic background you come from;

2. STEM students may have to unlearn and re-learn how to learn, study and write exams;

3. STEM students have a variety of overlooked advantages that can help them excel and approach law school in a unique way!