Exam Prep Musing

3 weeks from today I will be done with my winter exams. At UC we're on the quarter system and thus taken more classes and more exams than anyone else. I'll get a whole new set of classes when we get back from Spring Break. I hate the quarter system with a fiery passion and I have NO idea how I was tricked into believing that taking more classes/exams than other schools was some sort of privilege- a semester's worth of info is crammed into 10 weeks and at the end of this year I will have taken as many rounds of exams as a graduating 3L.

Two weeks is the earliest I've ever started preparing for exams, and that was for fall quarter 1L year. Those were two of my least impressive grades (until secured transactions), so I decided starting early was not for me (I also learned that my understanding of the class and my grade rarely correlate.) Now I start 2-3 days before each particular class's exam or about 7-10 days before the exam period begins. Another painful effect of the quarter system is that our exams are very squished together- this quarter I have one every day, for three days, and then I'm done. So when you're a last minute person like me this makes things a little tough. Because securities regulation is very rule/time intensive and admin is a complete disaster (and really commercial transactions isn't going to be easy either), I think I'm going to have to change my usual study plan. In the past I've read all my notes and made an outline in about 2 days and then I look over old exams/answers (you should absolutely work through those old exams, I just never have the time or self-discipline). I never use outside outlines or hornbooks- I'm sure they're helpful, but I've done quite well basing things off my own class notes and case briefs and once again, there's the time issue- if I can barely finish reading my own notes, I certainly can't read things other people have written.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do this quarter. I spent this afternoon cleaning out my pre-pregnancy clothes from my closet and the wet suitcases (now dried) and putting them in a new waterproof container. My birthday is Sunday and my next doctor's appointment is Tuesday, so those days will be completely unproductive. Securities is going to take so much work it makes me tired (btw, I thought the pregnancy exhaustion was supposed to get better in the 2nd trimester- I have NOT found that to be the case). Admin might as well be taught in a foreign language; it make sense when I read it and then my professor messes it all up. Commercial transactions is not too bad, but I definitely have a lot of work to do in learning the appropriate UCC provisions and caselaw. (I also have a seminar, but that paper isnt due until spring). The best thing would be for this quarter to spontaneously end and the next quarter (where I have selected ALL interesting, non-practical classes) to begin. Yes, I think that would be the perfect solution...