For upperclassmen, October is the most tumultuous “calm before the storm” imaginable. It’s the buffer zone of the semester before many law students start locking down into exam study mode. But OCI, advocacy competitions, seminar writing assignments and great SEC football have us all bouncing between whirlwinds while grasping hopelessly for any moment of stability and serenity.
A common axiom one hears at PMH is “start studying hard after the Halloween party.” Most people can fit a “3-2-1” study plan into the weeks between the costume bash and exam season (as many know, my “6-5-4-3-2-1” plan started in August), and in this era of widely-distributed outlines, you are probably right to think that you can do just as well as anyone by starting to lock down at the beginning of November.
One thing I am disappointed about this month is the lack of story suggestions we’ve received from students. While I assume this is because The Civilian is doing a great job of providing coverage of all student interests, I think there is greater potential for the student body to be talking back to its student publication about matters of interest. Let me take this opportunity to remind you that you can always email or Gchat TheCivilianLSU@gmail.com. We get very few suggestions, so anything you send in will probably get some coverage. For example, 75 percent of the suggestions I got this month were about fashion (and, yes, we have that covered), but 80 percent of those suggestions came solely from Molly Ann Lawrence. My point is: if you suggest a topic, it is incredibly likely that we will cover the issue.
Another thing I want to focus on this month is increasing visibility for student organizations and opportunities for involvement. We have articles, photos and calendar information for events held by OUTLaw, PILS, the Environmental Law Society and CASA. One function of The Civilian is to increase campus and community involvement by increasing the visibility of those opportunities, so I encourage you to let us know about those, as well.
Finally, this issue includes the ever-popular scheduling appendix. We have tried to include reviews of as many professors and classes as possible from the submissions we received. We have also tried to include, when possible, information on the type of exam or paper typically offered and information on whether the professor usually allows the use of laptops in class. I personally think the information on laptop usage is a fact that should be highlighted on official scheduling documents, but since it does not, we’ll try to do our best to let you know in our reviews. I hope this helps, and I hope you all will continue to contribute reviews to this section in the future.
By: WIll Harris, Editor-in-Chief