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Law school exams are the worst. They boil a semester’s worth of information down into a single test, which also happens to determine your future career prospects. The pressure is mounting, 22.5 of the last 24 hours have been spent in the law library, you would start sobbing, but that’s been banned. It’s the perfect recipe for… everything to go completely wrong.
We asked you to tell us some of your final exam horror stories, and boy, does this one qualify. Imagine sitting down to take your very first law school exam, butterflies doing a tango in your tummy, when every student’s and teacher’s worst fears are realized: there’s a report of an active shooter on campus. That’s exactly what happened at the University of North Carolina Law School last semester. Fortunately, the report turned out to be a false alarm, no one was hurt, and the campus was quickly cleared, but I can’t even imagine worrying about Civ Pro in those circumstances. Here’s how it all went down:
This Fall, 5 minutes before the first exam of 1L year (Civ Pro) was scheduled to start one of our Assistant Deans bursted into our classroom to tell us that there was a reported shooter on campus. We were ordered to get away from the windows, and the doors to the classroom were locked. Most students were physically panicking. Outside we heard dozens of cop cars rushing past the building– and a few news helicopters. The story made it on CNN as “breaking news” and we all started to receive dozens of calls/texts from family and friends. Most of us turned to twitter to try and figure out where the shooter was. It was pretty much an absolute panic in the classroom….
After 45 minutes of that we got the “all clear” and there was another 30 minute break where administration met with professors to decide what to do about the exam. We were ultimately given the choice to either take the exam that day, or on a “make-up” day. The test was scheduled to start at 9:00 and it ended up starting about 2 hours late. Most of us decided to go ahead and get it over with. While it was terrifying, a lot of us felt like it put the pressure of law exams in perspective.
But seriously could there be worst timing….. Just imagine if it had happened 10 minutes later after the exam had begun…
Kudos to this 1L class for making it through an absolutely terrible situation. Cheer up, after that the property final exam will be a piece of cake.
Kathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).