Sleeping Makes the Mind Remember by Timothy

Sleeping Makes the Mind Remember by Timothy - January 2016 Scholarship Essay

One New Year’s Resolution that will help me become a better student is Sleep. It is a known biological fact that sleep helps improve memory. As I am in Law School, the amount of case information and rules of law I need to memorize is ever increasing. During my first semester, I had the habit of staying up late at night to read ahead and learn more than just what the professor required. This resulted in being overly tired for class the following day, which prevented me from staying completely awake and focused on what the professor may have said and would sometimes miss an important fact or statement. Then, as a result, I would have to spend more time reading and researching cases and statutes in order to catch up and less time sleeping. This cycle continued for a couple of weeks between the times I had Midterms and when I had my Finals for the Fall Semester. The problem was that the closer the time got to finals, the less time I spent sleeping and the more time I spent with my head in a book. Similarly, it so happened to be that my finals all started at 9AM in the morning, which put me at an even bigger disadvantage because I was already exhausted and my memory was becoming clouded and classes/lessons and cases became almost inseparable.
Needless to say after I finished my finals, I slept for about a week. In the end, I passed all of my finals with high marks, but the effect on my body and mind was tremendous. Had I more sleep, I most likely would have done far better than I had. Therefore, my New Year’s resolution is to sleep. I believe that what I need more of in order succeed in my Law School classes is sleep. I figure most students in undergraduate schools would say something like “quit partying” or “stop drinking,” but fortunately (or unfortunately) I neither drink nor party. I believe that those kinds of resolutions would not be wholly productive as both require an extra resolution or step in order to “become a better student” for example: “stop drinking and study more” or “quit partying and pay attention in class.” Sleep more, on the other hand, presumes that an individual needing more sleep in order to be a better student is already studying heavily and/or paying attention in class, rather than staring at the clock or being distracted in general, all whilst remaining conscious.
Like in most Colleges and Universities, good grades are a prerequisite to doing well, regardless if it is an Undergraduate course or a Law School doctoral class, sleep is primal. In order to survive in Law School and reduce the cost of expenses for you or your parents, you must have good grades to progress onward and doing so without the proper rest will benefit no one, possibly your client. Less sleep equals more risk in any endeavor, except for testing personal performance without it.

Hopefully, my essay puts you to sleep and perform better once you calmly awaken.

Respectfully,
Timothy O’Dwyer
New York Law School ‘18