More Grade Anxiety
You know, I was talking to a prof, and I was told that I should relax about grades. I started thinking about it... I want to know why it is that I'm so worked up about them. I think there are two reasons:
1) By being near the top of my class last semester I raised the bar so high that I feel like I'll be letting myself down if I don't get a 3.8, and
2) As a law student, I think we're all self-selected to be douchebag grade-whores. Seriously, everyone wants to be the best, even if nobody will admit it. Second semester people's goals start to change... those who talked about wanting to work for Big Law Firm X at the begining of the year suddenly have much more modest public interest goals, as they now realize that their GPA 1st semester pretty much precludes them from being the best. The people who did well on the other hand... they retain their gradewhore nature, but now it's more pronounced, because 75% of the class has renounced it. It's also worse because of the pressure of increased expectations I talked about earlier.
3) By being in law school, I think we are groomed to be anxious. Think about it, in law school, you never study what happens when things go "according to plan." In torts you study the most bizarre and improbable freak accidents imagineable. In contracts you study every conceivable way parties try to screw each other over in business dealings. In crim law, you study crimes that are both amusing and grisly. Basically in all of your common law courses, the worst case is consistently beaten into you, so that's all you look for.
Anyway, I think this plus the fact that I *know* my grades are done and are just waiting to be released to me are responsible for my anxiety... You can say that it's because I'm a gunner, or that I'm a tool, but really, any person in the first year class who got my grades last semester would be acting the same way. And for good reason, I'm at the point now where an A- lowers my GPA, a B would make a major dent in it. Of course I'm going to freak out, I've got a shot at law review, transferring, the plum jobs at OCI next year... I have everything to lose here.
1) By being near the top of my class last semester I raised the bar so high that I feel like I'll be letting myself down if I don't get a 3.8, and
2) As a law student, I think we're all self-selected to be douchebag grade-whores. Seriously, everyone wants to be the best, even if nobody will admit it. Second semester people's goals start to change... those who talked about wanting to work for Big Law Firm X at the begining of the year suddenly have much more modest public interest goals, as they now realize that their GPA 1st semester pretty much precludes them from being the best. The people who did well on the other hand... they retain their gradewhore nature, but now it's more pronounced, because 75% of the class has renounced it. It's also worse because of the pressure of increased expectations I talked about earlier.
3) By being in law school, I think we are groomed to be anxious. Think about it, in law school, you never study what happens when things go "according to plan." In torts you study the most bizarre and improbable freak accidents imagineable. In contracts you study every conceivable way parties try to screw each other over in business dealings. In crim law, you study crimes that are both amusing and grisly. Basically in all of your common law courses, the worst case is consistently beaten into you, so that's all you look for.
Anyway, I think this plus the fact that I *know* my grades are done and are just waiting to be released to me are responsible for my anxiety... You can say that it's because I'm a gunner, or that I'm a tool, but really, any person in the first year class who got my grades last semester would be acting the same way. And for good reason, I'm at the point now where an A- lowers my GPA, a B would make a major dent in it. Of course I'm going to freak out, I've got a shot at law review, transferring, the plum jobs at OCI next year... I have everything to lose here.
posted by Snubligent at 2:32 AM
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