A Day In the Life of a 1L
I've gotten several requests about my day-to-day schedule, and Iast week I decided - it’s time.
Of course, I’m publishing this on Wednesday, March 11. On Monday, March 9, I started writing about ‘A Day In The Life Of An Average Harvard Law Student’ based on my normal Monday schedule. I even took a few pictures to show off the classroom environment! Less than 24 hours later, Harvard decided to cancel on-campus classes and go completely virtual.
That, my friends, is what we call "irony.”
As you might expect, this is a pretty confusing time for the entire campus (to read more about how the students feel, check this out). I don't know exactly how my schedule will look in the coming weeks, but I still want to show off what it's USUALLY like.
To be fair, each day is slightly different depending on my class schedule. My Tuesdays are swamped this semester, Thursdays are empty, and Mondays are a nice middle ground. So Monday it is.
MARCH 9, 2020
5:50 am Ben's alarm goes off & the day begins. The 5:50 wake-up is based on Ben's schedule, but once I'm up, I'm up. However, I'd be lying if I said I got up immediately....I usually hang out for another ten minutes, envisioning the day in my head and making a mental to-do list. On tough days, I use those ten minutes to list the things I'm grateful for!
6:05 Draggggg myself to the shower and crank a great podcast - usually My Favorite Murder or This American Life.
6:20 Get my coffee brewing (good ole Trader Joe's dark roast with vanilla creamer) and blow dry my hair. I usually throw it in a ponytail; if I've got a little extra time, I might style it more. Then I sit down to coffee and hockey highlights before Ben heads off to work.
6:40 Make-up!
6:50 Finish my coffee & check the bus schedule on mbta.com. My first class doesn't start until 8:10 but I generally catch the 7:09am or 7:12am bus. The school is always empty in the morning and I enjoy having time to settle in & start some work.
7:00 Ben leaves, I try five different outfits. Why? No idea. It's a total waste of time. But the weather looks nice so today I end up in jeans, flats, t-shirt, cardigan & leopard earrings.
7:08 Grab my bag (complete w/textbooks, notebooks, computer and water bottle) and walk to the bus stop. It's right across the street from my apartment and today is BEAUTIFUL timing - I only wait for a minute or two before #78 rounds the corner!
7:10 It's about a ten minute bus ride to campus and I usually get a seat in the morning. I also use the time to work on a blog post or finish an instagram post if I've got one in the works. Then it's a three-minute walk from the bus stop to my academic building, Wasserstein Hall, right on Massachusetts Avenue.
7:22 I’ll admit, I have a favorite morning chair - I get quite perturbed when someone takes my spot. Not unlike the FRIENDS when their Central Perk couch is unavailable. Today I skim the cases we'll discuss in my first class, then open an application which is due on Wednesday.
8:05 Head to Round 1, Criminal Law. I prepped the Monday readings on Sunday and have both written notes and textbook for class. We aren't allowed computers in here so my notes are also hand-written!
9:10 Five minute break around the halfway point of class…thank goodness. Two hours is a long time.
10:11 We ALWAYS get out of Crim one minute late. My second class starts immediately so I have to roll on upstairs, put my things down, run to the bathroom, and fill my water bottle. That remaining nine minutes is barely enough time.
10:20 Constitutional Law begins - this class is an hour and twenty minutes long. It's not Wednesday so I can volunteer to speak in this class, but won't be cold-called. And luckily we ARE allowed laptops in Con Law, so I take these class notes on Google Docs.
11:15 Another quick, 5-minute break. My Con Law professor doesn't let us leave during the class so ALL eighty of us run to the bathroom/get coffee/eat a snack/mentally recover. Then we get back to it.
11:45 Class ends, FINALLY. My next class isn't until 3:20pm but I usually stick around campus instead of heading home. Unfortunately, it's not three hours of down time! I have a lot to do on this particular day so I skip lunch talks and walk to my favorite cafe in Harvard Square.
*Note - I only eat out for lunch once a week, max. Saving $$ = homemade coffee and leftovers at home & lunch talks 💃
12:00 I settle into a counter spot at Tatte (a local coffee shop) to do the following:
Work on my application
Re-skim the material/my notes for my afternoon class (which I read on Saturday)
Start to read and take notes for Wednesday's Torts class*
*I'm reading for Wednesday,'s class, not Tuesday, because I usually prep my Tuesday classes on Sunday. I've found that using the weekend to read for my Monday and Tuesday classes, and then skimming the material again before class, is the way to go - Tuesday is SO full that I can only prep for one new class on Tuesday itself. It sounds confusing, but basically I end up 'flush' by the end of each week.
1:45 Pack up my things and head back to the law school campus for office hours with my criminal law professor. Office Hours are a way to ask questions outside of class, one-on-one with a professor, and I scheduled a fifteen-minute slot to clarify a few concepts with her.
2:15 Wrap up my meeting and head back to Wasserstein Hall. For the last hour before my third class, I finish my reading for Torts and get working on a memo for my research and writing class.
3:20 My third and final class of the day starts, Comparative Legal Institutions. This one is an hour and a half with no break - it's also compromised of 1L, 2L, 3L and LLM students, and is a solid mix of cold-calling and volunteers. Computers are allowed!
4:50 FREEDOM!!!!! I walk five minutes to the bus, then wait another five or ten minutes for #78 to show up. This bus is always very crowded on the way home, standing room only. And the trip usually takes fifteen minutes instead of ten.
5:20 Get home, immediately change into sweats (duh) and start dinner if we don't have leftovers - tonight is Sloppy Joe's. Ben is already home but has schoolwork too, so we mix it up quickly and throw the whole mess into the crockpot. He goes back to studying and I get my yoga stuff together.
5:50 Take Ben's car and head to Corepower Yoga - I'm always a little crunched for time here but it works out! The yoga studio is close so I only need a few minutes of transit.
6:00 CorePower Yoga 2 at Fresh Pond, let's goooooooo. Hot yoga is more than a workout for me - it's a school-free meditation zone. No matter how much I have going on, or how stressed I am, yoga always helps.
7:10 Head on home, straight for the shower and dinner.
7:30 Housekeeping! This is where I a) clean up for the day and b) prep my things for the following morning. Wipe down the bathroom and put everything away, fold/hang my clothes and start laundry, clean up after the sloppy joes, etc. I'll also take my Monday stuff out of my bag and replace it with my Tuesday books - basically the same materials, with some swapping of reading packets and an additional folder for my fourth Tuesday class.
8:00 Settle back onto the couch with Ben; he sits and watches YouTube videos (or The Office) while I mess around on my computer. This is when I do "non-intensive" work - today was completing that application and doing a little work on the blog. Other days, it'll be working on essays. But not studying - at this point, my brain is shot.
9:15 Around this time, we'll start getting ready for bed. On my end, that's a three-step process; then finally - finally - hop in bed.
9:30 Fun Reading Time! Apart from yoga, this is my favorite de-stressing tool. I try to keep my reading material varied (My last three: I LOVED Educated, appreciated & struggled with So You Want To Talk About Race, and didn't care for The Rules Do Not Apply). Right now I'm reading an oldie called How to Win Friends & Influence People, which has been great.
10:00pm Not a hard and fast time, but the approximate 'lights out' point each night. I'm definitely more of a morning person than a night owl, and am exhausted by 10. After making sure Ben has his alarm set, we go to sleep and prepare to do it all over again.