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How to Be Sort of Happy in Law School
Taschenbuch von Kathryne M Young
Sprache: Englisch

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Each year, over 40,000 new students enter America's law schools. Each new crop experiences startlingly high rates of depression, anxiety, fatigue, and dissatisfaction. Kathryne M. Young was one of those disgruntled law students. After finishing law school (and a PhD), she set out to learn more about the law school experience and how to improve it for future students. Young conducted one of the most ambitious studies of law students ever undertaken, charting the experiences of over 1000 law students from over 100 different law schools, along with hundreds of alumni, dropouts, law professors, and more.

How to Be Sort of Happy in Law School is smart, compelling, and highly readable. Combining her own observations and experiences with the results of her study and the latest sociological research on law schools, Young offers a very different take from previous books about law school survival. Instead of assuming her readers should all aspire to law-review-and-big-firm notions of success, Young teaches students how to approach law school on their own terms: how to tune out the drumbeat of oppressive expectations and conventional wisdom to create a new breed of law school experience altogether.

Young provides readers with practical tools for finding focus, happiness, and a sense of purpose while facing the seemingly endless onslaught of problems law school presents daily. This book is an indispensable companion for today's law students, prospective law students, and anyone who cares about making law students' lives better. Bursting with warmth, realism, and a touch of firebrand wit, How to Be Sort of Happy in Law School equips law students with much-needed wisdom for thriving during those three crucial years.

Each year, over 40,000 new students enter America's law schools. Each new crop experiences startlingly high rates of depression, anxiety, fatigue, and dissatisfaction. Kathryne M. Young was one of those disgruntled law students. After finishing law school (and a PhD), she set out to learn more about the law school experience and how to improve it for future students. Young conducted one of the most ambitious studies of law students ever undertaken, charting the experiences of over 1000 law students from over 100 different law schools, along with hundreds of alumni, dropouts, law professors, and more.

How to Be Sort of Happy in Law School is smart, compelling, and highly readable. Combining her own observations and experiences with the results of her study and the latest sociological research on law schools, Young offers a very different take from previous books about law school survival. Instead of assuming her readers should all aspire to law-review-and-big-firm notions of success, Young teaches students how to approach law school on their own terms: how to tune out the drumbeat of oppressive expectations and conventional wisdom to create a new breed of law school experience altogether.

Young provides readers with practical tools for finding focus, happiness, and a sense of purpose while facing the seemingly endless onslaught of problems law school presents daily. This book is an indispensable companion for today's law students, prospective law students, and anyone who cares about making law students' lives better. Bursting with warmth, realism, and a touch of firebrand wit, How to Be Sort of Happy in Law School equips law students with much-needed wisdom for thriving during those three crucial years.

Über den Autor
Kathryne M. Young is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she teaches courses on social psychology, criminal procedure, and sociology of law. Young holds a JD from Stanford Law School, a PhD from Stanford University, and an MFA from Oregon State University. She and her wife live in Northampton, MA.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Contents and Abstracts
Introduction: Why I Wrote This Book
chapter abstract

Why would someone who didn't always like being a law student write How to Be Sort of Happy in Law School? In the introduction, Young explains her motivations for writing the book, describing how working toward her JD and PhD concurrently gave her a new perspective on law school and detailing the design and data sources underpinning the book's mixed-methods study.

1You Are Not Alone
chapter abstract

Law students find themselves dissatisfied for a whole host of reasons, including debt, occupational uncertainty, a high-pressure workload, mental health challenges, difficult peers, or a sense that the student's former self is slipping away. This chapter details the myriad reasons students tend to feel unhappy or out of place in law school, using data from dozens of law students to illustrate the breadth of forms the sense of nonbelonging takes. At the same time, law students are good at pretending that everything is fine, which makes people feel even more individually isolated. But although law school is supposed to be hard, and although some angst doubtlessly comes with the territory, law school need not wreak havoc on students' well-being.

2You Are Good Enough to Be Here
chapter abstract

The first section of this chapter addresses how impostor syndrome-the persistent sense that you are not really good enough to be where you are-constantly plagues law students. This chapter describes the social and psychological dynamics of impostor syndrome, detailing the thought patterns that characterize it and ten practical strategies for combating it. Using data from current law students, Young explains why law school is often so difficult for people who come in with a track record of academic excellence and how law students can shift their outlook away from thinking in terms of what they "should" do. Lastly, this chapter argues that law students take a needlessly Sisyphean approach, overvaluing self-reliance in realms where it would be to their advantage to enlist others' help. While many alumni Young surveyed wished they had asked for more help in law school, no alumni wished they had sought less help.

3Why Are You Here?
chapter abstract

This chapter first asks law students to perform a critical, honest assessment of their own reasons for going to law school. It lists many common reasons people choose law school and provides an exercise to help readers identify their own. The chapter then asks students to perform a similar assessment of the passions that brought them to law school. Young argues that law students need to understand the bulk of their training as that of technicians, not inventors, and to reconcile this training with the goals they hope to achieve. Finally, this chapter connects the research literature on subjective well-being (SWB) to the social psychological notion of flow and explains why law school is not a flow-optimizing social setting. It explains that flow and SWB will be critical concepts in the remainder of the book and offers ways that law students might begin engaging with both concepts.

4Understanding the Storm
chapter abstract

Life course research suggests that people's 20s can be a particularly challenging time, and Young uses data from current law students to describe the ways in which law school amplifies and exacerbates life challenges in a way that increases anxiety and depression. Courses' emphasis on detailed interpretations, precedent, and incremental change can frustrate students who hoped that law school would equip them to effect sweeping reform. Young urges law students to use this frustration to stay in touch with their own sensibilities rather than interpret it as a sign that they do not belong in law school. This chapter then details the differences between law school and other postgraduate education, offering several strategies for law students who crave more intellectual engagement. Finally, this chapter reminds the reader that a JD can be a means to many different ends-only one of which is legal practice.

5Should You Drop Out?
chapter abstract

Young's research suggests that one in three law school alumni considered dropping out at some point during law school. Even though it's not widely discussed, the possibility is on many law students' minds. This chapter offers good and bad reasons both for staying in law school and for dropping out, emphasizing that staying and leaving are both choices. It leads wavering students through the decision process and uses data from law school alums to advise current students. Next, the chapter addresses the financial aspects of dropping out, including the sunk-cost problem and debt-repayment timelines. Young then shares stories from law school dropouts she interviewed, pointing out that as long as they stay true to their passions and interests, both dropouts and non-dropouts report being happy many years later. The chapter ends with nuts-and-bolts advice for law students who are seriously considering dropping out.

6Don't Just Follow the Crowd
chapter abstract

Creating a life you truly love is harder than simply striving for the most prestigious accomplishments, because it requires introspection and self-knowledge. This chapter helps students recognize when their choices are motivated primarily by risk aversion and suggests that students should think carefully about taking advantage of opportunities such as law review membership or on-campus interviews simply because they confer prestige. The chapter's final section, "Take a Stand," argues that although law students are willing to argue hypothetical positions, they are often reluctant to take actual positions on important issues. Young argues against this capitulation to risk aversion, quoting Professor Pamela S. Karlan that "Sitting on the fence is not practice for standing up."

7Identity Matters
chapter abstract

Drawing on data from current law students, Young details the social processes and patterns within law school, as described by law students who embody minority and intersectional identities of many different types. Specific sections of this chapter are devoted to the identities law students described as most relevant to their law school experiences, including gender and sex(ism); race, racism, and racial identity; social class and cultural capital; sexual orientation and gender nonconformity; political beliefs. The chapter emphasizes the importance of understanding the challenges and strengths presented by one's own identity, as well as the importance of receptivity to other people's identities in law school and the open discussion of all identities in law school more generally.

8A Law School State of Mind
chapter abstract

Law school is an extremely difficult setting in which to keep one's perspective. Finals, interviews, and other rites of passage are subjectively experienced as make-or-break moments, which raise student stress and lower tolerance for ambiguity. This chapter draws on several different literatures to help law students develop a more balanced outlook. Young teaches law students how to capitalize on psychological research about fixed and growth mindsets, explaining how cultivating a growth mindset will help them not just in law school, but in legal practice as well. Additionally, the chapter describes the key principles of mindfulness: the practice of systematically paying attention to what's going on in one's own mind. It explains that there are many methods of practicing mindfulness, ranging from meditation to cognitive behavioral therapy. Young shares six mindfulness exercises that she developed for law students with the help of a Buddhist priest.

9The Art of Alleviating Stress
chapter abstract

One of the survey questions Young asked current law students was, "Describe the time in the past week you've felt the happiest." This chapter shares some of their answers, drawing both on these students' experience and sociological and psychological research to detail several strategies for time management and stress alleviation. These include "wasting" part of your summer, exposing yourself to poetry or art, and avoiding "stealth time vacuums." The chapter ends with special advice for creative law students who have lost touch with their creative selves in law school-a pattern documented in the literature and one Young finds can be particularly harmful to law students' well-being.

10Finances and Physicalities
chapter abstract

This chapter is an extremely nuts-and-bolts guide to some of the most practical parts of law school life. It begins with finances, outlining fundamental guidelines for spending and saving money while accumulating debt, living on law school loans, and trying to cobble together a reasonably comfortable life. The chapter then turns to various physicalities. Using data from her study of current law students, as well as previous research from multiple disciplines, Young identifies common obstacles to law student happiness and suggests ways-often counterintuitive ones-that law students might adjust their lives and schedules to improve their well-being. The key areas discussed are physical exercise, sleep, eating habits, living arrangements, and choosing the most effective study spaces.

11Mental Well-Being
chapter abstract

This chapter, co-authored by law school mental health expert Dr. Katherine M. Bender, sets out a compelling case that law student mental health is in serious crisis. Depression, anxiety, alcohol abuse, self-harm, and prescription drug use are all serious problems among law students and among...

Details
Erscheinungsjahr: 2018
Fachbereich: Internationales & ausländ. Recht
Genre: Recht
Produktart: Nachschlagewerke
Rubrik: Recht & Wirtschaft
Medium: Taschenbuch
Seiten: 312
ISBN-13: 9780804799768
ISBN-10: 0804799768
Sprache: Englisch
Einband: Kartoniert / Broschiert
Autor: Young, Kathryne M
Hersteller: Stanford University Press
Maße: 225 x 152 x 22 mm
Von/Mit: Kathryne M Young
Erscheinungsdatum: 07.08.2018
Gewicht: 0,444 kg
preigu-id: 121097392
Über den Autor
Kathryne M. Young is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she teaches courses on social psychology, criminal procedure, and sociology of law. Young holds a JD from Stanford Law School, a PhD from Stanford University, and an MFA from Oregon State University. She and her wife live in Northampton, MA.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Contents and Abstracts
Introduction: Why I Wrote This Book
chapter abstract

Why would someone who didn't always like being a law student write How to Be Sort of Happy in Law School? In the introduction, Young explains her motivations for writing the book, describing how working toward her JD and PhD concurrently gave her a new perspective on law school and detailing the design and data sources underpinning the book's mixed-methods study.

1You Are Not Alone
chapter abstract

Law students find themselves dissatisfied for a whole host of reasons, including debt, occupational uncertainty, a high-pressure workload, mental health challenges, difficult peers, or a sense that the student's former self is slipping away. This chapter details the myriad reasons students tend to feel unhappy or out of place in law school, using data from dozens of law students to illustrate the breadth of forms the sense of nonbelonging takes. At the same time, law students are good at pretending that everything is fine, which makes people feel even more individually isolated. But although law school is supposed to be hard, and although some angst doubtlessly comes with the territory, law school need not wreak havoc on students' well-being.

2You Are Good Enough to Be Here
chapter abstract

The first section of this chapter addresses how impostor syndrome-the persistent sense that you are not really good enough to be where you are-constantly plagues law students. This chapter describes the social and psychological dynamics of impostor syndrome, detailing the thought patterns that characterize it and ten practical strategies for combating it. Using data from current law students, Young explains why law school is often so difficult for people who come in with a track record of academic excellence and how law students can shift their outlook away from thinking in terms of what they "should" do. Lastly, this chapter argues that law students take a needlessly Sisyphean approach, overvaluing self-reliance in realms where it would be to their advantage to enlist others' help. While many alumni Young surveyed wished they had asked for more help in law school, no alumni wished they had sought less help.

3Why Are You Here?
chapter abstract

This chapter first asks law students to perform a critical, honest assessment of their own reasons for going to law school. It lists many common reasons people choose law school and provides an exercise to help readers identify their own. The chapter then asks students to perform a similar assessment of the passions that brought them to law school. Young argues that law students need to understand the bulk of their training as that of technicians, not inventors, and to reconcile this training with the goals they hope to achieve. Finally, this chapter connects the research literature on subjective well-being (SWB) to the social psychological notion of flow and explains why law school is not a flow-optimizing social setting. It explains that flow and SWB will be critical concepts in the remainder of the book and offers ways that law students might begin engaging with both concepts.

4Understanding the Storm
chapter abstract

Life course research suggests that people's 20s can be a particularly challenging time, and Young uses data from current law students to describe the ways in which law school amplifies and exacerbates life challenges in a way that increases anxiety and depression. Courses' emphasis on detailed interpretations, precedent, and incremental change can frustrate students who hoped that law school would equip them to effect sweeping reform. Young urges law students to use this frustration to stay in touch with their own sensibilities rather than interpret it as a sign that they do not belong in law school. This chapter then details the differences between law school and other postgraduate education, offering several strategies for law students who crave more intellectual engagement. Finally, this chapter reminds the reader that a JD can be a means to many different ends-only one of which is legal practice.

5Should You Drop Out?
chapter abstract

Young's research suggests that one in three law school alumni considered dropping out at some point during law school. Even though it's not widely discussed, the possibility is on many law students' minds. This chapter offers good and bad reasons both for staying in law school and for dropping out, emphasizing that staying and leaving are both choices. It leads wavering students through the decision process and uses data from law school alums to advise current students. Next, the chapter addresses the financial aspects of dropping out, including the sunk-cost problem and debt-repayment timelines. Young then shares stories from law school dropouts she interviewed, pointing out that as long as they stay true to their passions and interests, both dropouts and non-dropouts report being happy many years later. The chapter ends with nuts-and-bolts advice for law students who are seriously considering dropping out.

6Don't Just Follow the Crowd
chapter abstract

Creating a life you truly love is harder than simply striving for the most prestigious accomplishments, because it requires introspection and self-knowledge. This chapter helps students recognize when their choices are motivated primarily by risk aversion and suggests that students should think carefully about taking advantage of opportunities such as law review membership or on-campus interviews simply because they confer prestige. The chapter's final section, "Take a Stand," argues that although law students are willing to argue hypothetical positions, they are often reluctant to take actual positions on important issues. Young argues against this capitulation to risk aversion, quoting Professor Pamela S. Karlan that "Sitting on the fence is not practice for standing up."

7Identity Matters
chapter abstract

Drawing on data from current law students, Young details the social processes and patterns within law school, as described by law students who embody minority and intersectional identities of many different types. Specific sections of this chapter are devoted to the identities law students described as most relevant to their law school experiences, including gender and sex(ism); race, racism, and racial identity; social class and cultural capital; sexual orientation and gender nonconformity; political beliefs. The chapter emphasizes the importance of understanding the challenges and strengths presented by one's own identity, as well as the importance of receptivity to other people's identities in law school and the open discussion of all identities in law school more generally.

8A Law School State of Mind
chapter abstract

Law school is an extremely difficult setting in which to keep one's perspective. Finals, interviews, and other rites of passage are subjectively experienced as make-or-break moments, which raise student stress and lower tolerance for ambiguity. This chapter draws on several different literatures to help law students develop a more balanced outlook. Young teaches law students how to capitalize on psychological research about fixed and growth mindsets, explaining how cultivating a growth mindset will help them not just in law school, but in legal practice as well. Additionally, the chapter describes the key principles of mindfulness: the practice of systematically paying attention to what's going on in one's own mind. It explains that there are many methods of practicing mindfulness, ranging from meditation to cognitive behavioral therapy. Young shares six mindfulness exercises that she developed for law students with the help of a Buddhist priest.

9The Art of Alleviating Stress
chapter abstract

One of the survey questions Young asked current law students was, "Describe the time in the past week you've felt the happiest." This chapter shares some of their answers, drawing both on these students' experience and sociological and psychological research to detail several strategies for time management and stress alleviation. These include "wasting" part of your summer, exposing yourself to poetry or art, and avoiding "stealth time vacuums." The chapter ends with special advice for creative law students who have lost touch with their creative selves in law school-a pattern documented in the literature and one Young finds can be particularly harmful to law students' well-being.

10Finances and Physicalities
chapter abstract

This chapter is an extremely nuts-and-bolts guide to some of the most practical parts of law school life. It begins with finances, outlining fundamental guidelines for spending and saving money while accumulating debt, living on law school loans, and trying to cobble together a reasonably comfortable life. The chapter then turns to various physicalities. Using data from her study of current law students, as well as previous research from multiple disciplines, Young identifies common obstacles to law student happiness and suggests ways-often counterintuitive ones-that law students might adjust their lives and schedules to improve their well-being. The key areas discussed are physical exercise, sleep, eating habits, living arrangements, and choosing the most effective study spaces.

11Mental Well-Being
chapter abstract

This chapter, co-authored by law school mental health expert Dr. Katherine M. Bender, sets out a compelling case that law student mental health is in serious crisis. Depression, anxiety, alcohol abuse, self-harm, and prescription drug use are all serious problems among law students and among...

Details
Erscheinungsjahr: 2018
Fachbereich: Internationales & ausländ. Recht
Genre: Recht
Produktart: Nachschlagewerke
Rubrik: Recht & Wirtschaft
Medium: Taschenbuch
Seiten: 312
ISBN-13: 9780804799768
ISBN-10: 0804799768
Sprache: Englisch
Einband: Kartoniert / Broschiert
Autor: Young, Kathryne M
Hersteller: Stanford University Press
Maße: 225 x 152 x 22 mm
Von/Mit: Kathryne M Young
Erscheinungsdatum: 07.08.2018
Gewicht: 0,444 kg
preigu-id: 121097392
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