On the Importance of Course Selection in 2L!
Congratulations on finishing your first year of law school! Now you get to rest for a few short days before class registration for your second year opens up. The classes you select can impact your law school journey and expand your legal interests. Therefore, when selecting courses, you should always listen to your heart (or gut, whichever talks to you the most).
Apart from the mandatory courses you must take in your school as part of your degree; the course selection could be a stressful, confusing, and challenging part of your upcoming 2L year. In this article, I will tell you about the format of courses in 2L, the implications of course selection for your job hunting, and the time management required for studying in your second year.
Likely, your 1L year was similar to mine: the school selected your block of courses, you attended classes and some tutorial sessions too, you wrote 3hrs long exams, you got your grades and moved on to the following term with your cohort.
In 2L, the story is totally different. You must take some mandatory courses, such as Administrative Law, and you are free to select the rest. In addition to traditional lecture classes, now you see that you can take seminar courses as well. Seminar classes tend to be more academic or practical depending on the structure, requiring that you either work on some assignments, write final papers, or even both. The content of the classes could be very heavy as you will be required to read academic materials from a variety of sources rather than from just one textbook in most lecture classes.
Seminars also revolve around class participation and discussions where the students actively participate in their education. Seminars might look “easy,” but they can be a very demanding type of class (I had to spend double the time on readings, assignments, and online discussions for my seminar classes than the required reading time for my lectures). Therefore, it is a good practice to have a balance in the type of classes you are choosing for yourself.
Moreover, your course selection might have some implications in the recruitment process. In my talk with various law firms, they did not so much care about what classes you take rather than your grades, but some course selections might be a red flag to them. For example, if a student takes all criminal law classes and then applies to a business/corporate practice law firm, it raises the question of sincerity. Therefore, pay attention to the areas of the law you choose and the firms you want to apply to for a job.
In my 2L, for example, I took one course on different topics of the law, such as business organizations, Immigration law, Information and Privacy Law, and some practical courses like negotiations. During my interviews, I would emphasize that my course selection shows my desire to learn as much as possible about the law during my article year, that I am open to working on any files that the firm offers me, and that I want to expand my general knowledge first and build a strong legal foundation before specializing.
Time management in 2L is very important. We are taking classes that differ in the size of content and hours of teaching/learning. In addition, the required time for some exams may vary. For example, I have had some exams that were 2.5hrs, and some were 3hrs. Moreover, there might be a conflict of times in the final exam schedule where you might end up with two exams on the same day or all of your exams back to back in a week. All of these factors show the importance of your time management skills.
If you are not bounded by any constraints, I highly suggest selecting those courses with the final exam schedule in mind. You may want to choose classes with exams far from each other enough to give you the time you need to study. It might seem like you are invincible to the time crunch and you can handle back-to-back exams or same-day exams, but trust me that there would be some regrets if you choose to do so (I had back-to-back exams for a whole week, and I slept only for 15hrs during that week, I think I fell into a coma for a few days after they were done).
Your second year is going to be challenging. There is a reason why it is called the “2Hell” year because it is a very different year, and it tests you in ways you never imagined. But, do not forget to have fun, surround yourself with amazing people, to reach out to your faculty and staff in school to ask for help. With proper management, your second year could be a year to remember!
