My tips for students: Take Good Notes Dont rely on the professors power points when studying.

We dont give everything away in the power points. Otherwise, why would you show up to class? You must still take scrupulous notes. How to Take Good Notes My tip for notekeeping, which I learned from Conrad: type out your notes in class or after, print them, three-hole punch them, and keep them together with loose leaf rings. It makes them easy to read and transport. Be Resourceful That being said, resourcefulness is everything in life why not school as well? If you are one of those people who is not so good at taking notes and needs to pay complete attention in class, make friends with someone who takes good notes. Or, if it is ok with the professor, record the class and transcribe it later. Also, if you dont understand something, short of meeting with your professor, look up the subject independently of your study materials. Wikipedia or Google the concept that you dont understand if you have to. If you are completely lost, I hate to say it, but buy a study guide. Sometimes, we all need to read the [Insert subject matter] for Dummies manual. Heck, every morning, I read Theskimm. I really hated evidence class in law school. I thought I would love environmental law and it was too technical for me and I couldnt get the big picture. I bought a study guide think of a cliffs notes for the subject, to help me get through it. Be Respectful in Class Yes, you are paying for the class, but professors are human and are subjective when grading. Professors also write letters of recommendation and have a network of other professionals who may be hiring, or may need interns. Refrain from joking around in class and surfing the web. The professor is watching you! You will also give your professor a better impression if you sit in the front. Pay Attention in the Review If your professor gives a review, most likely he or she is going to review what is going to be on the final. Sometimes 80-90% of the review is what will be on the final. Dont skip the review, or if you cant make it, be resourceful and get someones notes. When Studying, Remember my Anatomy Professor Conrad and I had a memorable and inspiring anatomy professor in college, Professor Marian Diamond. She carries a human brain around in a hatbox and still plays pickup basketball. Conrad told me her tips for studying and I have been following them ever

since. Professor Diamond said that to help put things in your long-term memory, you should use as many of your senses as possible your sight, sound, touch, hearing. Keep clean, well-organized typed notes (touch), record yourself reading them aloud (sight and hearing), later, you can read them while listening to your recording. Ive even listened to the recordings while going to sleep. I also refer to this as my version of landesque capital intensification. I had an anthropology professor who talked about the rice terraces in the Philippines. It took the builders years (I cant remember how many decades) to build the rice terraces. However, once they were built, it was easy to harvest rice and the terraces became their own ecosystems. The point is that there was a lot of labor initially invested, but then harvesting rice could become sort of passive work. It is the same with Conrads method of making the effort to take good notes and record, read and listen to them it later becomes easy to recall an amazing amount of information in an exam because the information is put into your longterm memory. I used this study method in late college, later on in law school, and especially for the bar exam. For the bar exam, I recorded myself reading the entire set of review books. It would initially take some effort, but then I could review somewhat passively. The bar exam is just review of what one learns in law school, anyway, so I found it to be the perfect study method. Make Your Work User Friendly With anything in life, if you want people to help you, you have to make it easy for them. Make your professors life easy by being organized with your exam answers. Use paragraph headings and topics, and underscore concepts. Underscoring concepts and issues that you spot is especially important in bar exam essay questions, where volunteer attorneys are grading exam after exam. If your professor asks specific questions in essay exams, answer the questions asked. If the professor asks questions in a numbered format, answer in the numbered format. As a law professor, I am also looking at whether I would hire someone as an associate. I am looking at how this associate would do if given a task such as writing a memo providing a legal opinion. I am looking to see if the person gets it. If I write an essay question with the background information but then ask questions 1-5, I expect them to be answered 1-5 and not as a big disorganized mess. Learn by Teaching If you are having trouble understanding, or really grocking something, it helps to pretend teach. First, be resourceful and see what information you can find online to define a concept. Second, try to explain it as if you were teaching it. Having to articulate concepts and issues forces you to learn it. Write Well This may not necessarily work for creative writing, but for academic writing, remember that you are making an argument. As an English major, it was called a thesis, and as a

law student or lawyer, it is your argument. Put it simply, What are you trying to say? Your thesis or argument should be concise and something that you can articulate in one sentence. It may take work to get to that point. The rest of your writing is to defend your argument and that is where you can expound. The essay, brief or memo can be broken down as subarguments with subheaders, or with topical paragraphs if you are writing more of an essay. There is also the clich, Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what youve told them. Basically, state your argument, explain it, and then recap your argument. As for writing style, simple and straightforward is better. There is a quote attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci: Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. This is true with writing legal or otherwise. In law school, we learned legal terms of art, or legalese, which is good shorthand for lawyers and judges. However, we were discouraged from trying too hard to write like a lawyer. When I receive a letter or email from a client saying herewith submitted, I actually think that he or she is less savvy a client who simply and clearly states Hi Grace, here is _____. Dont Whine or Expect to be Spoonfed If you do, your professor is secretly judging you and will lose respect for you. This will impact your grade. You may not lose points, but you will not be given the benefit of the doubt and gain them. Your professor wants you to be resourceful. We understand that you may not be interested in the subject, but at least be respectful. Your professor wants you to get it. Not just the material, but get that you are already networking. Networking well or networking badly, you are networking. An employer is not going to spoonfeed you and pay you dream on. You will not have a manual or sample memo when the managing attorney asks you to research an issue. You will just have to do it. Your professor wants you to succeed in the real world. That is why we teach we do not just want students to learn a subject. We want them to succeed in life. 2013 by Grace Alano