One and Done

One and done is a bar exam motto that I am adopting to get my mindset ready for the summer.  It also represents the efforts underway to help the graduating class and future classes pass the bar on the first try. It invokes one of the most important parts about preparing for the bar exam and that is believing in yourself.

So in a break from my usual SBA update blog post, this will focus on the bar exam. I provide some updates below on what McGeorge students, faculty, and admin are doing to prepare for the July 2015 bar exam. I also share some personal thoughts at the end.

Upcoming Events at McGeorge

Bar Passer Panel: Recent Alums Candidly Discuss What it Takes to Pass the Bar Exam (open to all students)
Tuesday, February 24th | Classroom D | 12-1pm and 5:30 – 6:30pm

I am working with the school to bring some of our recent bar passing alumni back to offer advice to students and answer questions on how they prepared for the bar exam. This will also be recorded for students to view on the McGeorge SBA Blog at a later time.

MBE Boot Camp
Saturday, March 7th and Sunday, March 8th | Lecture Hall | 10am-1pm

This weekend training will be focused on how to approach this portion of the bar exam and will be run by the school in partnership with a MBE training expert.

Simulated Bar Exam
(Required for PPLW students, but open for all seniors)
Saturday, March 14th | Lecture Hall | 8:30 am (just like the bar exam)

This is required as part of the PPLW course (highly recommend everyone take this class), but it is open to all graduating seniors. Use this as an opportunity to assess your strengths and weaknesses. The goal being to give students a chance to get a feel for what it will be like to take the actual bar exam in terms of time and materials presented.

Other Bar Exam related items

If you haven’t seen this link yet, here are the past bar exams with model answers. This will give you context of how the exam is designed in terms of the essay portions and performance tests.

Also, I am working with the McGeorge admin on assembling a contact list of faculty for bar tested topics. This will be a resource for graduates who need to ask a professor for help during their studies over the summer. Informally this has been always been available as a resource, but I don’t think enough students know about it and plan to formalize it.

These are just first steps. If you have additional ideas, do not hesitate to share them. Just keep in mind the question you are trying to answer is, “what are things I need to best prepare to pass the bar exam on my first go.”

The Power of Belief, Some Personal Thoughts

During the campaign for SBA President, one of the things I offered the student body was leveraging my experiences in the professional world to better serve you in the role. My personal thoughts below is my attempt to fulfill that promise.

The bar exam intimidates many because so much energy is spent (wasted honestly) on how many people do not pass. I can tell you right now, if you adopt this “doom” mentality, you increase your chances at not passing the first time. Here is why.

Self Fulfilling Prophecy

Basically when people adopt a mindset of an outcome, they take actions (inadvertently) to see to it that their view becomes reality. This has been studied and proven in a lot of psychological research.

To give a real life example, during my summer internship at Google, the company regularly emphasized the importance of adopting a “moon shot” mentality for projects. Meaning never hold yourself to low expectations or even status quo but rather always shoot for the moon. The company encouraged people to use failure as a learning opportunity. To embrace your weaknesses rather than run away from them.

They excel at their work because they are taught to believe they can excel. The power of belief coupled with a willingness to invest effort make for a powerful combination.

Now applying the self-fulfilling prophecy to the bar exam, the very first thing I need you to start doing right now is believe you will pass the exam. Know that McGeorge students at every class rank have passed the bar exam in the past. That is a fact. Yes, if you’ve struggled so far in law school, you will need to work harder than folks that were able to learn the subjects with ease, but that is all it means. It has absolutely no connection in your ability to pass the bar exam.

You are in law school. That means you are able to pass the bar exam with the right combination of preparation and willingness to seek help when needed.

Why do I believe?

I have lived a life of academic struggle in the past and have seen the difference in myself when I finally rejected the belief that I was not smart enough.

When I started college, I absolutely bombed my first quarter and went on academic probation. I still to this day remember my mindset back then. I’m not smart enough, it was a mistake that I went to college, the school must of made a mistake accepting me, my family will be disappointed in me, the teachers were unfair, and so forth. Every day was a struggle and I had an incredibly pessimistic view that just fed on itself.

Juxtapose that to my professional work that followed and you would never know that about me. In fact, I kept my under-performance in college a secret for years while working in hopes of reinventing myself. I was ashamed mostly because in retrospect I understood that I just was not applying myself to my fullest.

I am sharing this with you now though in hopes of proving a point. When I started working, I discovered that when I had a cause to believe in, I was able to bring out my potential. I transformed myself little by little from the person who thought they were mediocre to someone that believes they have the power to chart their own future.

I came to law school because I want to be better at the professional work I temporarily left. I use my passion for my work as my motivation to keep on trying my hardest here at school, but I’m also honest with myself about my weaknesses (I’m looking at you contracts!). But being weak at a subject only means one thing to me. I just need to invest more studying time to compensate. It does not mean I am incapable of mastering the subject. I did not have that mindset in college. I just believed I couldn’t do it.

So starting today, tell yourself unequivocally that you are going to pass the bar exam because you are going to invest the effort necessary to do it. When you need help, you are going to ask for help from faculty and your friends. Figure out what you need help with and ask for that help. If I can help in my final days as SBA President, let me know.

We are in this together.

Make the bar exam one and done.