I had the [wonderful, rare, tragic] opportunity to experience the first day of law school as a freshman twice. I was previously enrolled in a state university in our province in Mindanao, and I stayed there for three months before my father decided to transfer me to another island. He has reasons for doing so, but I think the turning point was when he realized he had to fetch me from school every night for the next four years if I stayed in my hometown. I never thought he’d agree to enroll me in a private university because the cost is about a hundred times more especially since I would be living away from home. But here I am in arguably the best law school in the Philippines today, still unsure if it’s all gonna be worth it in the end.
I had graduated from 1L without failing grades or, as we say in USC, way samad [no wounds]. If not for the grace of God, I wouldn’t have been able to do so. I entered the University of San Carlos not really prepared for what’s to come. Sure I had read most of the required readings for class, and reading cases was not new to me. But there’s still a certain scare that you get from knowing that a bigger challenge is ahead of you and that this is your second shot at finding your place in the world. (Engineering was not it for me. Told yah, dad!)
I was looking for a place called Gansewinkel Hall, which I thought was a really fancy name. I was used to rooms designated only by numbers. As I entered the hall (that turned out to be the AVR), there were still a couple of seats that I could choose from so I wouldn’t have to engage in small talk with anyone. I looked around and saw that almost all of the students came in pairs or in groups. Everybody looked like they knew they deserved to be there. Meanwhile, I was busy looking at the ceiling, contemplating my choices in life, wondering if I would ever fit in. The demographics at the new school is very different from my previous one. In the latter, most students had jobs and were significantly older, whereas in the new school, a lot of the students are fresh from college, diving head first into graduate school. This was a more idealistic group.
The orientation started, and I saw Dean Largo for the first time in person. She is someone I look up to, and prior to entering USC, I had watched some of her videos online. It was like meeting a superstar. She told us that we were the biggest batch of freshmen so far. It was the first time that they had to conduct two separate classes for intro to law. I didn’t know how to feel about that. San Carlos was gaining popularity because of its performance in the bar exams. Its graduates had dominated the coveted top places, earning the school a good reputation. This can easily mean that the administration is going to decrease the mesh size of the strainer some more to retain only the best students in the program.
We were promised that we had the most dedicated faculty. We were promised with enthusiastic teachers who were passionate about what they did. So far, that promise has been kept well. To be completely honest, I had been absent more times compared to my professors. To be fair, I was sick a lot during the first semester. (I have no excuses for the second semester, though. Does watching Ipaglaban Mo recaps on Youtube count?)
Recitations are my biggest enemies in law school. I can write decently, and I have no problem with written exams because I’m confident when I’m writing. But with recitations, you have to memorize a lot, and looking at your notes is a big no-no for most professors. In Criminal Law I, for example, we had to stand in front of the teacher without bringing anything with us. The recitations made up 20 percent of the grade, and you’ll be called only once during the whole semester. So if you mess it up, you’ll have to work your butt off to get really high marks in the written exams. That thought was enough to make me vomit every time we had a class for that subject. I thought it wasn’t that bad at first, but one afternoon, as I was preparing for class, I suddenly vomited right there at my table. (Praise the Lord that I wasn’t in the library that day!) The reaction came out of nowhere. That was when I realized that no matter how much I tell myself I’m okay, my body knows that I’m not.
The semester came and went in a blur. I had learned a lot, and I enjoyed the journey so much, but everything was just happening so fast. Frankly, I was mostly just surviving each day, curling up on my bed for a while, then preparing for the next battle. I wasn’t like most of my classmates who go on a study frenzy when they panic about their grades. Whenever I feel overwhelmed about law school, I clean. The level of anxiety can be quantified by how clean my room was. If all I did was tidy up a bit, that means I’m confident I’ll survive the day. If I did all the laundry in one go, that means I’m really anxious. But when I move the furniture around, that’s bordering on the I-can’t-do-this-I-wanna-go-home level. There are scuff marks on the floor because of how often I repositioned my bed.
During the second semester, I decided that I wanted to be nearer the teacher so I could concentrate more. Boy, was that the wrong move to take! I was seated so close to the teacher’s table that I was practically my teachers’ seatmate except that they were facing me. This was a nightmare for recitations because I could hardly dare sneak glances at my notes because that would be too obvious. I could practically see the wrinkles on my teachers’ oh so beautiful but really intimidating faces. To alleviate the problem, I talked to the board most of the time. This torture went on for a whole semester. Also, the university was not holding back on the expenses for electricity because I think they were trying to freeze us all in our classrooms. Back that up with scary questions and you’ve got a law student who’s shaking externally as much as internally.
Aside from the dreaded recitations, the task of checking grades was another source of anxiety for us poor beings. Looking at grades is an activity not meant for the weak at heart. The good thing about USC is that they give out midterm grades halfway through the semester, which makes it easier to see where you stand in class. Failure makes you work harder, and a passing mark makes you breathe easier.
Now that I think about it, it’s interesting to note the hand positions of law students whenever they’re checking their grades. Most of the time, we’d grab our chests. It is also common to hold on to a classmate’s arm after opening the exam booklet. We need the support. We’re literally holding on to someone and bracing ourselves.
Throughout the academic year, I did question my abilities a lot. Because of the difficulty of the materials and the standards set by the university, it’s easy to feel small and incapable. There were quite a few students who already left law school during the first few months. Those who stayed had to constantly remind themselves of the reason why they took this path in the first place.
I have yet to face the biggest challenges in the university, though. Our upperclassmen say that the first year is really the easiest one. If this were true, good luck and God bless to us hopefuls!
It's a Ping Thing 