Bauer News - New Dean and Freeze of FT MBA

Academic Excellence
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Man, reading what you and KKumarcpa wrote, makes me realize that I either didn’t try that hard in law school or maybe just found it easy. I enjoyed my law school experience tremendously and had a great time (maybe too much :wink:). Iowa is sort of known for that. It could be related to the law school itself; Iowa is known as being big on collaboration and not overly competitive among students; in fact it is very frowned upon. Probably a midwestern thing.

The only class in law school that I truly found extremely challenging was Civil Procedure, mainly because it was boring as hell and my professor sounded like Ned Flanders.

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Well, for me, Civil Procedure was a first year class FROM HELL, because Seth Chandler, who is actually a brilliant legal mind, but a REALLY TOUGH instructor, was my Prof.

His final exam absolutely took “FROM HELL” to a whole new level.

Only consolation: I made a B+ on it, which was a lot better than I did in a bunch of other classes.

I’ll say this, I was NOT one of those people that was a natural at law school, and definitely did not find it to be “easy,” though I’ll admit that I aced my LL.M classes…something I didn’t do at the JD level.

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UH was definitely competitive, your experience was not at all like what I had.

I remember during the library tour portion of orientation, they warned us that people were hiding books to get a competitive edge and that such actions were frowned upon. That really set the tone about how things worked.

During the first couple of weeks people kind of formed small groups of 2-3 people they could trust/ share outlines with / study together. Everyone was friendly, but the competition was always apparent.

I took several tax law classes in my JD which were also LLM classes and I grouped up with two people that had done their JDs at South Texas. The differences between the two schools were stark. They said it was clear that UH students really cared, really wanted to be there, and wanted to be the best at what they were doing. They described South Texas as an extension of undergrad, people were there to have a good time and just get a degree and a job somewhere.

I’m just happy I got into UH…eventually.

The first time I applied I got rejected outright.

The second time I applied, I was waitlisted.

Then two weeks before classes were supposed to start I got an email saying I was accepted, ecstatic doesn’t come close to explaining how I felt.

Until later that night when I got an email from admissions apologizing because they accidentally sent the acceptance email to everyone on the waitlist. So back into despair until the next day when I got another email saying I was one of the lucky ones who actually did get accepted off the waitlist.

I always reflect knowing I was a second email away from not having the life I have today.

That’s why when they were building the new law school building, I donated enough to put my name on a locker lol. And I made sure they put all my credentials on there too, so if you’re ever in the new building look for a locker that says “Kausthub Kumar, CPA, MBA, JD, LLM” lol.

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I had David Crump for CivPro and he was a really laid back guy, I enjoyed his class a lot. Mainly because he had an assigned seating chart and went down the line calling on people in class, so I knew when I needed to be extra prepared.

The worst for me were Torts with Leslie Griffin and Con Law with Peter Linzer. Both of them literally told me that I should quit if I wasn’t going to be fully prepared in class.

With Griffin, it was just bad luck that she called one me on one of the days I focused on a different class instead of hers.

The Con Law one pissed me off because I had actually read the case Linzer asked me about. But his pace was so erratic that he asked me about it 2 weeks after I had read it and I forgot the details by then.

Agreed on the LLM, I went on to get an LLM in tax law from NYU which is the undisputed best tax law program in the country and it was much easier than UH.

Part of that was likely my background in tax, but another part of it was the professors. The NYU professors made extremely complicated topics easy to understand, with UH I had to take some time to really figure things out on my own before they clicked. This experience showed me why law school rankings matter so much.

I think with the MBA, rankings matter more because of the network you build with other students in the program. The higher the school is ranked, the higher level your network reaches and the more you can leverage that to succeed. It’s not really about the subject matter being taught, the name and prestige carries more societal and networking weight.

With law school, the rankings reflect the professors academic credentials and ability to convey topics and critical thinking skills. I think a student comes out better prepared and at a higher skill level from a higher ranked law school. The prestige obivously matters here too, but I really think there is a qualitative difference in the services provided.

All that being said, this board is awesome. Gives me a place to vent, reflect on things, and talk to people with similar experiences that can relate. I don’t post often, but when I do it’s a long rant lol.

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Yeah, my LL.M in IP Law was from Yeshiva U (Cardozo), and while the exams were tough, the instruction was more straightforward and the grading easier. Basically made all As, something that was NOT true for the JD at UH.

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My god, I know Prof. Linzer quite well. I have a story about that dude that I will share offline.

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I had that guy for Contracts.

Dude looked like Yoda, and could be a real jerk in class.

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Yeah he was an even bigger jerk outside of it.

Dude looked like the Yogurt character from Spaceballs!