Most of my friends were shocked when I advertised that I was selling my law books online. They know how much I love hoarding books, and it’s so unlike me to get rid of them just like that, especially because the first semester has not ended yet. It had always been my dream to own a huge library someday, but there came a point in my life when I became so stressed out about seeing my law books occupying so much space in my shelves.
The obsession with going paperless started with a couple of chance encounters with the 2018 iPad on Youtube. A lot of student vloggers were using their iPads to take notes in class and to annotate books. After a few weeks of research, I finally decided that I wanted one. I convinced my dad to buy me the iPad and then sold my books the minute I got it. I was ecstatic. I only had to carry a small bag to school, and it was so easy to study with such a small device. The iPad made it easy to turn books into pdf and collate reading materials. Everything was there, my shelves took a breather, and I was happy. I ended the first semester using only my gadgets to make it through.
When the second semester started, I did the same thing. I was making notes using my laptop and reading books through my iPad. That system got me through pre-midterms, midterms, and pre-finals. Then my dilemma came when we approached finals week. I realized that I couldn’t understand criminal law that well when I’m not able to easily flip back to the pages to compare certain crimes as I was learning new ones. My digital notes were also becoming a problem when it came to recitations. When I was called for my first recitation in criminal law, I was asked about a particular crime and to provide its elements. I was able to do so because those were in my notes. Then our professor asked me to discuss two cases cited in the book and to compare them. Now that information was not in my notes because those cases were only examples and I didn’t deem them to be so important. I frantically flipped through my iPad to search for them, which was not an easy task because I had to go through the pages one by one to check if the information was there. Luckily, my seatmate saved me by shoving her book in my direction with the page opened on the cases I had to discuss. Ethel, if you’re reading this, a million thanks to you for saving my sorry ass.
I finally caved and decided that law school would not be as easy without having hard copies of the books to study. What the paperless system lacked is the ability to easily flip through multiple pages. Even if you had bookmarked them, it would still be hard to access those bookmarks quickly because you might have to scroll to get to there.
So I purchased the books for the second semester and repurchased the books for the first semester. Stupid move selling them in the first place, I know. But I guess I just had to experience that to find the balance and to discover the study mediums that work for me best. I still use my iPad, especially for cases because those are usually too many to print out. I still consider it a smart purchase because it provides me with the convenience of having a big enough screen to annotate files I have to read and don’t have the time to print out.
In summary, my journey to becoming a paperless student was a failure. Try as I may, there are just some things you learn better with good old actual paper.
It's a Ping Thing 