Thursday, March 08, 2007

I Don't Think You're Taking This Seriously, Young Man

Effin' T&E. The last real law class I'll ever take. The last class with a subject I care nothing about, in a room of about 100 students, called on at random to answer hypothetical problems. I intended not to attend class a single time after the first day, but Howie's instituted the 20% participation rule. Judging by previous exam scores I've (ahem) achieved, I can't really rely on 80% of my exam score, even to clear the pass/fail hurdle.

So I've been (more or less) attending the days that my section has been on call. I've been reading a little for those days, and working the problems to an extent. But I've also got the outline with the answers to all of the class problems with me, so if I haven't done the work and I get called on, I can just consult the outline. With that in my pocket, I've also been able to score points through voluntary participation by giving that extra answer that no one else mentioned, which I knew because...it was on my outline. I figure doing this enough will cover me for when, inevitably, I'm not there when I get called on.

Today I was supposed to be there at 3:30, but a freak occurrence (actually having work to do at LDP) kept me occupied until I realized it was 3:45, and I was not, in fact, at T&E. So I packed up my shit, since my group was on call, and hurried down there, not having read anything. I open the door, and some woman's speaking about who cares really, and I made eye contact with Howie. Brushing it off, I slipped into my seat. However, at that point the speaker began splitting the rooms into sections to discuss the problems in our reading. These were in additions to the work problems, apparently, and my outline would not help me.

So when my rows start assembling, and I'm all deer in the headlights, I look at a couple people and say "Actually, I can't stay," then duck out, smooth criminal style, after all of 25 seconds.

You know what sucks about being a 3L?

4 comments:

Kevin Lomax said...

Here is the advice I gave a pass/fail guy in my Howie T&E class who never came to class and thus missed answering when called on.

Mathematically, pass/Fail becomes problematic when 20% of the grade is participation and you honestly have no participation points.

However, you can write up one of his suggested law in action projects in ten minutes and get all the participation bonus points you need.

I emailed people on one of the suggested question topics and received all of two responses, none of which were helpful. I applied standard BS skills and turned that into a multipage paper within minutes. Howie was quite pleased.

I suggest you do the same.

Ismael Tapia II said...

Nothing!

Johnny Utah said...

Here's what I would recommend. (1) If you are a transformer, morph into the shape of a semi truck then let your engine roar a few times to remind Erlanger of your power. (2) If you are not a transformer, I would duck in, announce your name as [insert douchebag] and duck out.

Dangerous Mind said...

That class is ridiculous - and honestly, walking out after about 25 seconds yesterday might be the smartest thing anyone has said or done in there all semester. I've decided that I'm skipping every day my group's not on call until at least spring break...mostly because the NCAA basketball tourney trumps T&E (and the guy next to me keeps getting pissed when I try to watch sports in class). Plus, I'm really tired of listening to people answering a bunch of ridiculous questions - they interrupt my train of thought while I'm busy IMing my sister about whatever episode of "90210" SoapNet is showing that day.