It’s exam season, so this note will be brief.
God, in his gracious mercy, does not let us see the future, for if we could, many of us would run from it. I know that would be true of me. For, if in August of this year, I could have foreseen all of the work that awaited me, all the reading, and sleepless nights (not to mention a myriad of personal challenges), I would have surely decided to just stay in bed and “skip it.”
But August became September, and September rolled us into October. October brought a change to the scenery as it ushered in November. And there is no stopping November from introducing us to December. Hours turn to days, days to weeks, weeks to months, and months to years. Somewhere along the way, I blinked, and the semester is over.
I know, though, that I lived every painful day of it—and every painful page. This morning, out of curiosity, I reviewed the reading assignments for each class this semester. Let’s see, in criminal law we read 896 pages. Constitutional law required of us to read 796 pages; Evidence included 848 pages of reading; and the Tax professor went easy on us, only requiring 787 pages of reading. We also had to read about 300 pages in Law Skills class, but mostly we prepared projects for that class.
If you’re doing the math, this equals (approximately) 3627 pages of reading over 14 weeks or 259 pages per week, which equals out to 51 pages of reading per night.
Of course, the “reading” is only part of the nightly assignment. After the reading is done, then the writing begins. There are notes to draft and outlines to prepare. You may also need to read a commercial supplement for a class (or two) to help you understand the 51 pages of textbook reading that you just completed.
All of this reading typically boils down to about a 100-page outline (which is far too much to manage) and a lot of memorization and practice tests before the big exam. And, that will be all that consumes me for the next two weeks of exams. Tis the season.
God, in his gracious mercy, does not let us see the future, for if we could, many of us would run from it. I know that would be true of me. For, if in August of this year, I could have foreseen all of the work that awaited me, all the reading, and sleepless nights (not to mention a myriad of personal challenges), I would have surely decided to just stay in bed and “skip it.”
But August became September, and September rolled us into October. October brought a change to the scenery as it ushered in November. And there is no stopping November from introducing us to December. Hours turn to days, days to weeks, weeks to months, and months to years. Somewhere along the way, I blinked, and the semester is over.
I know, though, that I lived every painful day of it—and every painful page. This morning, out of curiosity, I reviewed the reading assignments for each class this semester. Let’s see, in criminal law we read 896 pages. Constitutional law required of us to read 796 pages; Evidence included 848 pages of reading; and the Tax professor went easy on us, only requiring 787 pages of reading. We also had to read about 300 pages in Law Skills class, but mostly we prepared projects for that class.
If you’re doing the math, this equals (approximately) 3627 pages of reading over 14 weeks or 259 pages per week, which equals out to 51 pages of reading per night.
Of course, the “reading” is only part of the nightly assignment. After the reading is done, then the writing begins. There are notes to draft and outlines to prepare. You may also need to read a commercial supplement for a class (or two) to help you understand the 51 pages of textbook reading that you just completed.
All of this reading typically boils down to about a 100-page outline (which is far too much to manage) and a lot of memorization and practice tests before the big exam. And, that will be all that consumes me for the next two weeks of exams. Tis the season.
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