The End (of school) is Near

I am going to be finishing my law school classes in the next couple of weeks. I cannot give you an exact date unfortunately, because I have not gone enough to really know when classes exactly end. I don't have a syllabus for any classes and didn't bother buying books. What a waste of time this semester has been, with the exclusion of one decent class.

I only have one final - this is huge. I have 3 papers, one of which I already finished (in other words, it's 20 pages of BS and footnotes pretending to justify the BS). The other 2 are for adjunct professors. For those of you not in the world of school and education, adjunct professors, are people with real jobs that come to your university once or twice a week for one of four reasons:

a. to make some extra cash
b. to humiliate and belittle students by showing them how much more they know than us
c. because they genuinely enjoy teaching, but would rather make a living than do it full time
d. because they like to be around young people

Now option 'd' is clearly what you are looking for when checking out which classes to take at the beginning of a semester. After that, 'b' is obviously a bad choice, with 'a' and 'c' being a crap shoot.

Let me digress for a second here and explain a little about the process of choosing classes for your upcoming semester (which I will not have to do again in law school).
Choosing your classes is the single most important factor in your final grades. Studying, going to class, homework, understanding the material and cramming for finals by doing practice tests are all highly overrated nonsense. If you choose the right professor for the right class, the rest will take care of itself.

Now, the most important part of this process is the professor. How does he grade? Does he take attendance? Does he care about missed classes? Does he call on people? Are his tests easy? Is he a nice guy?

You may have noticed at this point, if you are a women, or gay man, that I only used the word 'he' to describe the professor. This is not by accident. That's right - female professors are a huge no-no, unless there are dire straits. Female professors always have something to prove and usually have an agenda. This means, they want you in class and will be strict about attendance, and then they will use every opportunity to preach about equality or some other weak crap like that, and you have to be there to listen. This can make you miserable. I had a Con Law class second year that was not a choice class, but required, and we had some feminist up there yapping about all kinds of boring crap. Then of course she always calls on the males in the class to see their points of view, so she could make us feel stupid and dirty. This was not fun.

Back to choosing classes. The next thing to look into other than the professor is the professor's feelings about the class. The actual class itself does not matter at all. You should not care if it's an interesting topic or anything, because the idea is not to be there and to do as little as possible, while getting the best grade possible. For example, a professor that may suck for a required class, may be great to have when he's teaching a class he truly loves. Those professors tend to take things more lighlty because they are under the impression that anyone in the class loves constitutional theory or whatever crap they are 'teaching' as much as they do, and therefore tend to grade higher, excuse absenses and look for volunteers instead of cold-calling. This is good.

For example, I am taking a class called Mental Health Law this semester. I don't have any interest in it, nor will I ever practice mental health law as a profession. However, this professor fit into a category 'd' adjunct, and fit my acceptable schedule. He is a nice guy, rarely takes attendance and does not call on people. This translates into - I didn't have to spend $112 on a book, I don't have to read for class, I can do a halfassed job on the paper and even if I do go to class I don't have to worry about being called on. I can feel free to not pay attention, do other work or stare aimlessly into space.

Schedule is another key factor for choosing classes. Some people, like myself, work during school in order to have some type of income. Others have different commitments or plans and do not want to be in school every day, or at certain hours. This means choosing classes around times and days you do not want to be in school. For example, I did not want to be in school at all on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So I did not take any classes on those days except for one Tuesday night class which does not take attendance. Therefore, I am not in school on those two days. Understand?

Next, since I have to work on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I did not want to have to wake up early on Mondays or Wednesdays. Therefore, I do not start classes till after 2 on Mondays and after 1 on Wednesdays. That is why I am taking classes such as Mental Health Law and Estate Administration Litigation and Constitutional Rights. None of which I care about. They all fit into my schedule and passed the acceptable professor test. I will spend very little time writing 20 page papers for each of those classes, will never read for them and will not have to do any work besides the paper. I will spend lots of my 'extra time' laughing at the morons who read for those classes every day as if there is a final at the end, which there is not.

That is why my GPA will be better than some shmuck who works his/her ass off in Coporate Finance or Advanced Business Planning (with a tough professor) in order to prepare for his/her career in that area. He/she will pull a B- or C while I'm pulling A- and B+ in classes that don't matter. You know who will end up with a better job? That's right - me. Not only that, I will have more options to go into the career he/she has been preparing for than he/she will. Sucka!

Do you understand the humor here? I know JP does. This means, very simply, that there is right now a number of people who are much smarter than me, do much more work than I do, take school a hell of a lot more seriously than I do - and those people will still finish behind me in ranking, will have a tougher time finding a job, and when they do, it won't be as good as my job. This is because they chose to "challenge" themselves in more "challenging" classes. Meanwhile, I'm sitting at home watching the Yankee games on Tuesday nights while my Estate Administration Litigation professor, whose name I don't even know, is spewing garbage about wills and estates. G-d, I love America.

Back to adjunct professors. Adjunct professors are dangerous, but if you refer to the options above, can be a very strong choice.

The two papers I have left are for adjunct professors. One is clearly option 'd' - The best choice (the one who just likes to be around young people). This means his grades will be high, but expectation on the paper will be low. Perfect. Plus, he rarely remembers to take attendance, and NEVER calls on anyone without a volunteer. I have gotten so much non-school stuff done during that class. I feel like I should be paying the professor a salary for the amount of things I've gotten done in his class. Nice guy too, that's the best part about it.

The 2nd adjunct professor seems to be a mixture of 'a' and 'b' (doing it for the extra cash, and likes to show off his knowledge). This was more dangerous, but I did my research, and it turns out he's the best choice I've made. He likes to show off how much he knows, but not at the expense of the students. He does not take attendance, lectures the whole time (does not call on anyone - at least not the two times I went) and does not care about the 20 page paper at the end of the semester because "he doesn't really believe in grades, but the school makes me assign a paper." Priceless! This guy would get my vote for professor of the year... if I ever took interest enough in school functions to know when the vote for crap like that is held.

This will be the easiest, most full of crap 20 pages I will ever write. And, since I only have one final this semester, I will have a nice month off before graduation. I will be working, yes, but you get paid for work and it's a hell of a lot better than studying for finals for 3 extra weeks.