Ask A Current Student

[Whist]

11 hours ago, ltmaverick25 said:

University of Alberta no longer costs half as much. It is a few thousand cheaper, but not enough to make a material difference in choosing between both schools, especially given the huge geographic distance between them. 

I'm not sure your comment is going to be particularly helpful for Renerik in making their decision, given the comment you responded to is 2 1/2 years old. The tuition hike news is almost as old. 

[ltmaverick25]

4 hours ago, Whist said:

I'm not sure your comment is going to be particularly helpful for Renerik in making their decision, given the comment you responded to is 2 1/2 years old. The tuition hike news is almost as old. 

Whoops lol. 

[Dghoul]

How important is note-taking in classes for success at law school?

Asking because I have never taken notes before, finding it counterproductive, and thus have no skill in this regard. However, reading online it seems that's an integral part of law school studying. Can anyone share some experience in this regard?

[Whist]

4 hours ago, Dghoul said:

How important is note-taking in classes for success at law school?

Asking because I have never taken notes before, finding it counterproductive, and thus have no skill in this regard. However, reading online it seems that's an integral part of law school studying. Can anyone share some experience in this regard?

Not a UWO student, but the same principles will apply everywhere. You'll have to learn to take notes. Even if you're the type to just use the slides when they're available, people generally write notes in the slide margins. For paper courses, you may not need to as much, but should have something on hand to write. Upper years who've already taken your courses will have CANs/summaries, but you can't always get your hands on a recent one (or at all), and even people who use them will take their own notes too. Being brand new to law school, your notes might suck at first, but will improve as you realize what you need to focus on. 

[LMP]

5 hours ago, Dghoul said:

How important is note-taking in classes for success at law school?

Asking because I have never taken notes before, finding it counterproductive, and thus have no skill in this regard. However, reading online it seems that's an integral part of law school studying. Can anyone share some experience in this regard?

I think success in law school can be distilled into a simple three part test.

If you can spot issues, understand the law and apply the law, you'll do well. 

Note taking often helps with the last two points. As you probably know note taking, for most people, helps with processing information. It is also sometimes helpful to have the verbatim words or thoughts of the professor when it comes time to write an exam (which remember, are almost always open book). 

However, if you can achieve the same outcomes of understanding without note taking, the by all means don't take notes. Maybe you're the type to do readings throughly and use the lecture just as a refresher. Or maybe you process better just by listening to what's said. No one can really say what will work for you, but note taking is a tool and you may choose to use it or not. 

 

[BlockedQuebecois]

As a general rule, taking notes will obviously result in better results than not taking notes. 

But it’s wrong to say, as @Whist does, that you absolutely need to do so. I didn’t take notes during my undergraduate degree, and although I tried to do so for a few weeks in 1L, I ultimately abandoned the practice in law school as well. I found listening to the prof more than sufficient to do well on exams (and by third year I had largely abandoned attending classes, as well). 

My general advice is that students should reflect on their study techniques from their undergraduate programs and try to build on those (while also reflecting on their approach as they move through law school), rather than adopt a completely different study technique on the basis it’s what everyone else in law school did.

[Mal]

I never took notes in law school because I wasn't good at multitasking. I decided to listen carefully during class and take notes on the materials later instead.

[Whist]

I'm going to push back a bit, because while I wholly agree that everyone's learning style is different and some may find note-taking doesn't help, you should definitely learn how to do it. Whether that's during class, or after, or based off the readings. The gist of my comment was that I don't recommend avoiding trying it just because you don't know how, because you probably will need to at some point. Law students also often figure out how to do fine without attending class - but this is not advice I'd give an incoming 1L to try right away, just like I wouldn't tell an incoming 1L that they won't need to take notes. What's going to get you good at law school is issue spotting and applying the law well, in whatever form makes sense for you. But even in the workplace, you're sometimes going to have to distil written information - Coles notes on new case law, client meeting notes, what have you. Learn how, and if it doesn't work for you for your own purposes, that's fine. I've done well in courses where I barely took notes because I was a natural or found the content intuitive, and I've done well in courses where I took lots of notes. (I've also done badly in the latter too.) The content - verbatim of a professor's lecture, just the tests, etc - is another topic and you'll also have to adjust that to your preferences. 

[scooter]

12 hours ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

My general advice is that students should reflect on their study techniques from their undergraduate programs and try to build on those (while also reflecting on their approach as they move through law school), rather than adopt a completely different study technique on the basis it’s what everyone else in law school did.

This is the most useful advice for taking notes (and anything else really). If you've had success doing something one way, don't change it just because other people say you should do it a different way. Especially if it seems to go against your own intuition.

Probably the most useful thing you can do in 1L is be extremely skeptical of any "advice" people give you. 

[123]

I think it depends a little on what's happening in any given lecture as well. If I understood the readings and the prof was just going through each one and explaining it, I was probably okay to not write all of that down. When profs worked through hypothetical examples and mentioned factors and issues they thought were important, that's the kind of thing that helps with writing their exam. So I generally wanted to make a note of what they were saying.