Due to restrictions in mobility put in place by governments all over the world, classroom learning -- from preschool all the way to post-grad -- has shifted online. Schools and universities have suddenly turned quiet as teachers and students now comb through the daily rigor of learning in front of their laptops and/or gadgets in the comfort of their own homes.
This trend naturally includes law students.
For many, this abrupt shift to digital learning is a novel concept that is particularly difficult to adjust to. This is more pronounced among law students, where daily physical interactions with classmates and professors are necessary in fostering a robust academic experience.
Studying law couldn't simply be done alone, or could it?
With the COVID-19 pandemic still raging in most parts of the world, and with the return to normal being all but an impossibility in the foreseeable future, many law students are now at a crossroad of sorts: Is it worth it to continue studying law through web-based learning or is better to wait for things to calm down before resuming to learning the law the traditional way?
As with almost every aspect of life, there are advantages and disadvantages should a law student decide to take a leave of absence and wait out the pandemic.
Here are some of the pros:
- As many law students have noted, learning in front of a laptop just doesn't make learning the law as interesting or rigorous. When you wake up in the morning knowing you have to contend with tons of readings and the possibility of being humiliated in front of everyone else in your class, you get extra motivated to study even more. The fact that you have to dress up, complete chores, and do other things on top of your regular law studies also allows you to have an effective time management strategy.
With web-based learning, much of the dynamics described above are eliminated. There is no extra push on your end to do better and be better.
As such, maybe it's best to just put your law studies on hold rather than go at it and end up with a half-baked degree.
- The pandemic has exhausted and continues to exhaust people all over the world not only physically, but also emotionally and mentally. The taxing state of affairs of a world in complete disarray can be too much to handle, more so when done simultaneously with the hardships and exhaustion that law school brings.
If there's anything this pandemic has underscored, it's the need to step back, evaluate your life, and take things slowly. Having too much on your plate in uncertain times is not healthy. - Taking a leave of absence from law school will allow you to concentrate on the most pressing matter at hand -- surviving the pandemic along with all the complexities and difficulties it comes with.
On the contrary, taking a leave of absence from law school at this point in time may not be a good idea for the following reasons:
- The web-based digital learning ushered in by the pandemic is the future of education. On top of this, going all digital is also the wave of the future in general.
The digitalization of the practice of law has no doubt been fast-tracked by the pandemic. Web-based study of law offers an invaluable opportunity for law students to get acclimatized to this kind of "new normal," and hopefully help them be better prepared with the future of lawyering. - The most obvious effect of taking a leave of absence from law school is not being able to graduate on time. Along with this, you lose your momentum once you suddenly stop from the daily law school grind and may find it difficult to regain such a semester or two later.
In sum, the COVID-19 pandemic has radically altered the way we do things. Among its most immediate impact is the abruptness by which the world shifted to the digital way of doing things.
For law students, the strain of a raging pandemic and the heavy load that comes with law school can be very tough to balance out. In this sense, the option of taking a leave of absence from law school is something that should be at every student's disposal.