Winter 2021 Law School Study Tips
Matt received his JD from Osgoode Hall Law School in 2018 and was called to the Bar of Ontario in 2019. He finished in the top 8% of his graduating year, was a Dean’s Fellow, and offers tutoring services for Osgoode students. You can find more about him here!
The Winter Term is a great opportunity to build upon the skills and understanding you’ve developed over the course of the Fall Term, and a concerted effort to improve the way you approach your habits will help you get to the position you want to be in when your Winter Term exams arrive. Regardless of how the Fall Term went, the Winter Term is an opportunity to start fresh and develop some targeted goals for improvement. Here are a few suggestions to enhance your studies and your law school experience to position yourself for success during the Winter Term!
Build your study network: Getting to know your colleagues and upper-year students is undoubtedly more difficult this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the benefits of connecting with other students are worth the extra effort. Some of my most fulfilling memories of law school were working together with my study group (who later became some of my best law school friends) to consolidate our knowledge, and this helped all of us understand the material and prepare for exams better. This, along with guidance from upper-year students, was a crucial bit of support to get through the stresses of 1L and was worth the initial effort in trying to find people I clicked with.
Review your previous exams: Take advantage of the opportunity to review your exams, speak to professors if you can, and analyze the feedback. The exam will still be relatively fresh in your mind, so this is the best time to try to dissect your performance and determine how you can improve for the Winter Term exams. It’s rare in law school to have access to a professor’s direct thoughts on your exams, so this will help you get a realistic understanding both of what you did right and what you can improve on. Additionally, consider reviewing your preparation strategies. Consider if you gave yourself enough time to study, studied the right things, and did enough practice exams. Making a concerted effort to analyze your performance is the best way to improve your performance on future exams.
Get involved: Now that you’ve settled into law school, it’s the perfect time—if you have not already—to get involved with an extra-curricular activity. You can find something that matches the time commitment that works for you. Even simply joining a club is a solid start, giving you the opportunity to meet other students and learn about an area you are interested in. Employers also like to see that students are engaged in their legal studies, so taking on at least one extra-curricular is a great way to demonstrate that engagement while also investing in your own personal and professional development.
Get started now: The best time to start preparing to succeed in the Winter Term is right now. The Winter Term is fast paced, with summer job applications and numerous assignments coming due. Starting your preparations with the end goal in mind is the best way to give yourself the chance to be successful when the end of the term arrives. Begin your summaries, analyze your previous performance, start a study group, and engage deeply with the material. Make sure to also prioritize your own mental health and well-being in all of this and know that you’re not alone. You are a capable person attending school with some of the most fantastic colleagues one can find.
Please feel free to reach out to me to chat! I’d love to meet you and offer support or answer questions as you continue your law school journey. You’ll find that other alumni are also very happy to help out; we all had people who were gracious with their time and helped us succeed as we went through the journey you are about to embark on.