Congrats to Grads -- Of the First Year

Walking out of the Brooklyn Law School building yesterday I saw a large group of the first-year section I taught Con Law to, milling around.  One of my students told me they had just finished their last exam of the year, though from their faces I didn't really need to be told that.

I don't think we recognize how big a deal finishing the first year of law school is.  This is odd, since anyone who's gone through it probably recognizes how significant first year is.  It's probably one of the most intense experiences we go through in our professional lives, and, for students, it may be the most intense thing they've ever done up to that point in their lives.  As we know, students learn an entirely new vocabulary and maybe even an entirely new way of thinking.  And they're doing it in with a group -- their section -- with whom they usually bond quite closely, probably more closely than any other group they'll connect with in school or even beyond.  And my guess is that if you get through the first year the odds of you dropping out or failing out drop significantly.

Obviously, this doesn't take anything away from the achievement of graduation.  But finishing first year is a pretty big deal.  So congrats to all those who now find themselves 33 1/3 % -- and in some sense, far farther than that -- along the road to becoming a lawyer.  (And of course to all you new JDs too!)