There’s a version of your first 1L finals season that exists in your head: You wake up early. You review your attack outlines one last time. You calmly sip coffee. You walk into the exam room steady, composed, and frighteningly well-prepared. And then there’s real life.

The Morning I Chipped My Tooth Before Contracts

The morning of my Contracts final, I chipped my tooth.

At 5 am, hours before sitting down to analyze offer, acceptance, consideration, promissory estoppel, and the UCC, I was staring into my camera on my phone trying to figure out how the cap on one of my front teeth could just break in the middle of the night. My brain, which should have been running through expectation damages, was instead spiraling:

Is it noticeable? How much will this cost to fix without dental insurance? How do I even find a dentist in Boston? Can I even focus like this? Is this some kind of joke? 

Law school trains you to anticipate risks. To think in terms of foreseeability. But nowhere in my outline was there a rule for “unexpected dental damage on exam day.” You don’t get extra time because life decided to test you too.

So I went. I sat down. I wrote about material breach while hyper-aware of the tiny edge of my tooth every time my lips brushed against it. And somehow, the world didn’t end. The exam clock kept moving. My analysis still flowed. Definitely not perfectly, and definitely with a distracted mind, but I did it. 

(By the way, I was able to get this fixed about four days later – the day before my civil procedure exam).

Two Days Before Torts: A Shooting at My Alma Mater

If the tooth felt absurd and inconvenient, what happened before my Torts exam felt heavy.

Two days before I was supposed to sit down and write about negligence, proximate cause, and strict liability, there was a shooting at my alma mater, Brown University. The campus that had once felt like home was suddenly on the news.

Instead of reviewing negligence defenses, I was refreshing updates. Texting friends. Checking that everyone was safe. Sitting with that strange mix of distance and closeness—no longer there, but still deeply connected.

It’s surreal to outline intentional torts while thinking about actual violence. To memorize “duty,” “breach,” “causation,” and “harm” while real harm has just occurred somewhere you love.

In class, violence is packaged into hypotheticals. It’s filtered through case names and procedural posture. “Defendant.” “Plaintiff.” “Injury.” The facts are tragic, but contained. You analyze them with intellectual distance. You argue both sides. You debate foreseeability.

But when the place in the fact pattern is a place you spent four years feeling so safe, when the “scene” is a campus classroom you’ve taken multiple classes in, the language stops feeling academic.

Suddenly “foreseeable risk” isn’t theoretical and “zone of danger” isn’t a doctrinal phrase.
“Harm” isn’t a line in a rule statement. 

The law seeks boundaries. It draws lines. It limits liability to what is “within the scope of the risk.” But emotionally, there are no boundaries. The distractions aren’t compartmentalized. There are no “superseding causes” that cleanly cut off the shock and sadness and let you focus.

And still, the exam clock didn’t adjust.

That’s what finals season rarely acknowledges: life doesn’t suspend itself for academic milestones. The world keeps happening. Tragedy doesn’t consult your syllabus.

So I walked into my Torts exam carrying a weight that was much heavier than my outline.

What I Learned (That Wasn’t in My Outline)

1. You can perform without perfect conditions.

I didn’t feel composed walking into either exam. But competence doesn’t require calm—it requires preparation. The work I had done before the chaos still carried me.

2. You are not a machine.

It’s okay that your brain can’t instantly pivot from real-world tragedy to res ipsa loquitur. It’s okay if you feel the weight of things.

3. Law school exists inside real life—not outside of it.

You can’t pause everything around you during a time in which you wish you could. It’s about how you respond. 

If Your 1L Finals Didn’t Go According to Plan

Maybe you were dealing with something invisible. Maybe you were exhausted. Maybe you were grieving. You are not alone. 1L finals don’t always go as planned. But sometimes, showing up anyway is the real victory.

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Rebecca Carcieri is a first-year student at BC Law. Contact her at carcierr@bc.edu.