Law Schools

And Now We're Into Full Finals Freak-Out Mode

Finally people are freaking out because of finals.

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Maybe it took the snowstorm. I really felt like law students were keeping it together even in the face of impending finals. But it snowed over the weekend, and was very cold in other places, and maybe that wintery snap reminded law students and professors that finals are here and it’s time to go nuts.

This week, we’ve had our share of final exam stories, but they’ve been of the legitimate mistake or concern variety. Today… we’ve just got some weird crap that happens around campus during finals period…

They do things a little differently in the heartland. They’re a little more old school. Technological change comes slowly, but I didn’t know how slowly. The Indiana University Law Library is having a problem I thought went away with the Bobby Knight era. Hoosier law students received this email yesterday:

Dear students,

The Law Library’s hole puncher went missing from the library yesterday and has not been seen since. If you have taken it, could you please return it a.s.a.p. to the Law Library since other law students have been asking for it and need to use it.

Is hole puncher, like, code for something? Surely you can’t be talking about a student needing to punch holes in paper documents so that they can be included in a binder of multiple rings? Don’t these kids have Dropbox? Is there a librarian wondering where the school’s copy of the Yellow Pages got off to? I’m so confused.

Apparently this is a re-occurring problem at IU. A tipster reports that this is the second time the puncher has gone missing this semester. I now have this mental image of one IU student showing up to exams with a bookbag full of immaculately collated binders, another one showing up with a bookbag of loose, unorganized papers, and 20 kids with laptops who don’t know what the hell is wrong with their classmates.

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Then again, bookbags and notes might be the old-school way they have to roll at Rutgers-Camden Law. Because apparently that school can’t get internet. From a tipster:

Rutgers Camden School of Law has been having internet connectivity problems all year. Without fail, when the 11:00 am classes started connectivity would drop for the majority of students. This problem has now been taken to a new level.

With the administration of web-based finals, intranet connectivity is obviously vital. Furthermore, the ability for students to access internal pages from off-campus is just as important. Today, just before finals started, the internal network went down. Compounding the problem is that the internal web was also inaccessable to external connections. This meant that for all students, regardless of location, they could not access their anonymous test ID number. Furthermore, any web based exams that became available at 10:00 am could not be downloaded in a timely fashion.

The only response from the administration and IT? “We’re working on it.”

Thanks Rutgers, thanks a lot.

So… Rutgers is going with the Healthcare.gov approach to finals. “We want everybody to take their exams on the web, but we were not prepared for everybody to take their exams on the web. Don’t worry, most people will be able to take the exams they are required to take in or around the time we said that they are required to take them.”

Law school finals are always fun kids, but try not to take them too seriously. It’s only your future on the line.

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