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.
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Why You Should Take Classes Outside of Your Comfort Zone
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” — Maya Angelou
Gaining control of your class schedule is one of the most exciting aspects of leaving 1L behind and moving forward in your law school journey. Aside from the anxiety it induces as everyone gathers around tables in the yellow room or library to sign up for classes at the exact time that the registration window opens, the chance to pick all your courses is one of the most fun parts of law school. But not enough people take full advantage of this freedom. I understand the temptation to use your future career path as a guide for course selection. Yet more students should utilize their time in school to explore various areas of the law. Studying at Boston College Law School means we have access to some of the sharpest and most thoughtful legal minds across a wide variety of subjects. Take advantage of that bounty of intellectual acumen while you can. Doing so will make us all better lawyers and students, and, more importantly, more well-rounded people, regardless of our future professional track.
Continue readingFive Key Tips for the Transition From 1L 1st to 2nd Semester
Happy (belated) new year everyone! While it may be cold and stagnant outside, there is a lot of change going on at the school right now. I remember my second semester of first year and it was a messy start. I have some tips for the first few weeks back from winter break.
Continue readingA Tale of Two Newtons: Life as a Freshman and Law Student
Before I ever stepped foot onto the grounds of Boston College, I learned that I would be living on the Newton campus my freshman year.
I did not think much of it at first, but as I descended the hill to Duchesne Hall for the first time, I prepared myself for an entire year of living in the lowest place on campus, both figuratively and literally. Although I had some challenges adjusting to my new living situation, I came to love Newton campus and defend it against anybody willing to talk poorly about it. I met some of my best friends in Duchesne and on the Newton bus, and I would not trade those experiences for anything. Only on Newton campus will you see people being hurled down a hill of snow and ice in a trash can and call it “sledding.” Only on Newton campus will freshmen buy BC Law sweatshirts to try to study in the Law Library.
Continue readingFour Tips for Navigating Grade Disappointment
Once again I am directly addressing the 1L class, and also airing out my dirty laundry. Everything I write below—like all my Impact posts—is what I wish someone could have told me before coming to school. As always, all opinions and experiences are my own, as I can only speak to what I endured during my 1L year.
“Endure” will be the theme here. It’s a strong word I typically find only in my romantasy books. Merriam-Webster tells us it means “to remain firm under suffering or misfortune without yielding.” Very dramatic. But to say a student endures his or her 1L year does not fail to satisfy Merriam-Webster’s definition. Some of you may feel like you’re hanging by a thread, trying to go through the motions of law school one day at a time. You are enduring.
Continue readingRealistic Resolutions for a 1L (That I Might Actually Keep)
By January of 1L year, the idea of a “New Year’s resolution” feels ambitious at best and slightly delusional at worst. After surviving fall finals and learning, the hard way, what doesn’t work, I’m setting a few resolutions for second semester. Nothing revolutionary, just realistic enough that I might actually end up doing them.
Continue readingFor the 1Ls from the 2Ls: Last Minute Exam Advice
It was not until I started my 2L year that I realized just how much I have grown since first walking into BC Law in August 2024. I feel like I lived 20 years in one, but I remember my first class––Critical Perspectives––like it happened a week ago.
In my short time as a 2L, I have been lucky enough to have two amazing mentees with whom I can grace with my law school wisdom. I also learned a lot from them about what it’s like being a 1L in 2025. Each year recruitment moves up, and more pressure is added to the exam period.
While I give all the student-experience advice I can to my 1Ls, I realize my experience is just that––mine. In law school, perhaps the greatest lesson I have learned so far is how individualized it is: students learn material differently, do readings differently, and prepare for exams differently. I asked 3 friends the same set of questions about their exam prep and for any advice to the 1Ls heading into their first exam season. They came from each of the Fall 2025 1L sections, and all performed well on their first exams.
Continue readingWhat the Heck is Futtitinni? An Approach to Law School
Sicilians have an approach to life they call “futtitinni.” The term translates to “don’t care,” “don’t worry about it,” or “let it go.” As a 1L trying to juggle academics and career decisions at the same time, this seems like an impossible mindset to maintain. However, futtitinni is not simply about an indifference to life; it refers to focusing on what truly matters. Obviously, grades take significant precedence at this point in the year. I also do not intend to say that we should all take a lot of time for ourselves or relax for the rest of the semester. We are all in the trenches, and that is precisely where futtitinni can play a beneficial role. The term arose out of hardship and daily struggle, not out of periods of prosperity. Nobody expects finals season to be easy, but joy can still exist within this final push.
Continue readingEscaping the 2L Doldrums (A Tortured Sailing Metaphor)
“Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion:
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.”
‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, (1834)
Growing up in southeastern Pennsylvania, I remember learning about the so-called ‘age of exploration’, probably an aged moniker today, but hey, this was *gasp* the late-90s. One thing that stuck with me from all those lessons about Christopher Columbus’s supposed ‘discovery’ of the new world, Ferdinand Magellan’s unceremonious demise in Southeast Asia, and Henry Hudson’s ill-fated attempt(s) to uncover a waterway that linked the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and so on, is a rather minor aspect of wind-based sea travel: getting stuck in the doldrums.
Continue readingWant Some Great Advice for Finals Prep? We’ve Got It
We have a special edition of the Impact Blog today: two bloggers for the price of one! I teamed up with 1L blogger Isabella Calise to discuss some common 1L questions regarding finals (I not only survived my 1L finals, but I volunteered as a proctor with the Student & Academic Services office during my 1L year).
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BC Law: Impact 