School Sweet School

As we all know, I am a loud mouth who thoroughly enjoys being right. I admit that. But I do try my best to admit it when I’m wrong, as much as it may taste like acid coming out.

That being acknowledged, I take back everything bad I ever said about going to school at St. Mary’s.

I wondered why, when I came here to UT for orientation, we weren’t taken on a tour of the campus. I wondered why, when I inquired about coming to school here, I wasn’t invited to come to the school and meet anybody, or take a tour. Now I understand a little better. One would think, considering state funding, the hundreds of photos around the building honoring distinguished alumni and their generous donations, and my ridiculous tuition, that we would have classrooms with electrical outlet capabilities for all students to plug in laptops. Not so. I end up getting to class ridiculously early so I can claim a prime spot to reach the outlets that are few and far between. Without that, I’d even settle for a school with working clocks in the classrooms. Or how about not taking a class in a room so overcrowded, people are forced to just sit in chairs in a corner, without a desk or table to put their books or laptops on?

Only a choice few of the professors I have encountered seem to genuinely care about their students. Most of them just come in to class, speak their peace, and hustle out when class is over. At St. Mary’s, I knew a lot of the professors, and most of them had an honest interest in the success of their students. I know St. Mary’s was a smaller school and smaller community, but most of the professors I’ve seen here don’t make much of an effort to give a damn. Most of them just flounce around, proud of their own importance for teaching here. After many of my experiences here, I can attest that being a UT law professor isn’t necessarily something to brag about. One of my professors last semester made several callous comments about how UT students were the cream of the crop (I’ll get to this in a moment), and that students who went to “lower-tiered” law schools are less intelligent and less motivated. I suppose she didn’t realize that she had 2 LLM students in her class, myself and my friend Shannon, who went to one of these so-called “lower-tier” schools. We both shot hands into the air to contradict her. We may have gone to a “lower-tier” school, but we were motivated enough to continue our education with another degree here at her precious school, and I’d gladly put my skills up against most of the students here. My experience with a different professor has been another type of nightmare. At UT, 1L students are allowed to take some upper level electives in their 2nd semester, so there are several in this class with me. The professor has us jumping through a number of hoops that are totally irrelevant to writing my thesis paper, and is simultaneously supremely unhelpful in guiding the class through writing the paper our grade is based on. She has assigned students to each weekly class to “lead discussions.” It so turns out that what she really intended by this was for each week’s students to basically teach the class. Seriously, she expects us to read the materials, and then pretty much run the entire class period ourselves. It’s one thing to throw out some questions or topics or something and invite a discussion, but that’s not the case. So please, somebody explain to me what I, an LLM student who already has her JD and has already passed the bar exam, am supposed to learn in an advanced property class from a 1L who hasn’t even finished first year property, and how that is putting my tuition money to good use. No really, please, explain it to me.



I’ll wait.



Still waiting.



Exactly.



UT Law is regarded as one of, if not the best law school in Texas. Graduates are automatically given a high regard by potential employers. After almost a full year here, and putting UT in comparison with St. Mary’s, I am really just incensed by this. I have no doubt there are some incredibly intelligent students here, and I don’t want to discredit that. But several of the LLM students, who all went to school elsewhere, have been honestly surprised by the type and quality of legal education being afforded students here. In a class I took earlier today, for example, my professor requested we bring a copy of rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to class Monday. On the way out of class, I overheard a guy asking a friend where he could get it. Honestly? If you’re in an upper level law course and don’t know how to look up a law, get out, you have no business here. In the same class a few weeks ago, my professor asked who had read certain cases having to do with regulation of commercial speech. I was the only one who raised my hand. She asked which professor I had for Constitutional Law, and I explained that I had gone to St. Mary’s for my JD. She was shocked that the UT students hadn’t been exposed to these (fairly important) cases. In so many classes it has really surprised me how much basic legal knowledge is unknown by most of the students around me.

Again, I realize St. Mary’s was a much smaller school, but there was a great sense of community there. Like many of the professors I’ve encountered, most of the students here are too consumed with their own superiority to worry about any other students. It’s been appalling to me how uncaring, arrogant, and flat-out rude a lot of the people here have been. At St. Mary’s everybody knew each other and while we may not have liked each other, we at least conducted ourselves with respect. I came here expecting the same, and conducting myself in such a manner. But there’s no attempt for anybody to get to know each other or to give much value to anybody outside of their little cliques, or, God forbid, a student from a different school.

I fully comprehend that UT is a state school, and so it functions in a different way than the private St. Mary’s did. And I won’t get into discussions about admissions and grading (although the fact that almost all UT exams are take-home, floating, or open book is suspicious to me – what are you actually learning and retaining??) or any of that, or what numbers prove UT to be the better school. I can only speak to my personal experiences. I know how I’ve been treated, I know how I see others treated, and I can compare the information that is being taught in both places. I take back my (now seemingly trivial) complaints about how expensive St. Mary’s was, or delays in getting loan refunds, or how disgusting our parking lot was every April after Oyster Bake. I take it all back. If I ever (and that’s a considerably large “if”) pay off my mountain of student loans, any alumni donations I ever make will go to St. Mary’s. It had its faults, for sure, but overall, knowing what I know now, it was a positive, valuable experience.

Sarcasmo

Currently VERY Excited About: I bought tickets today for my sister and I to see Rock of Ages in May! It’s one of my favorite musicals, second only to Rent. And that’s saying something, because I love a lot of musicals. Don’t judge.