daredevilkink | Discussion/Off-Topic Post #1

This is driving me CRAZY in fics, and I know it's because law is an undergrad degree in most of the British commonwealth...but not in the United States. Matt and Foggy would have had to get a four-year bachelor's degree in something else (political science + English is a really common pre-law combo, and THEN gone to law school for graduate school). The scene where they meet in the dorm is almost certainly undergrad, because law schools only contain law classes, not things like Punjabi. Also, although some law schools have student housing, the vast majority of law students live off campus (which would probably include NYC natives like Matt and Foggy).

Foggy's course registration screen says Fall 2010, but there's no way that timeline works out. Even if they went straight from undergrad to law school, they would've needed a minimum of 7 years so their freshmen year would have been 2008 at the earliest.

You can't take electives in law school?

Yeah, that whole scene is just a hot mess. Columbia does have housing for students in its graduate/professional schools, but it's apartments in the neighborhood, not dorms. Not sure what percentage of the law students take advantage of that, but I'd expect the numbers to be much lower for locals.

Law students can petition to cross-register for classes at Columbia's other graduate schools. "Conversational language courses" are specifically excluded from being approved (seeing as they're not graduate-level courses in any event). I'm not sure where that leaves translation/reading language courses, but it's pretty obvious that Matt and Foggy are talking about conversational classes. The debate over "are you taking Spanish or Punjabi" is a very undergrad freshman interaction.
(http://web.law.columbia.edu/academic-rules/academic-procedures)

So.....it's a mess.

The comics always showed Matt and Foggy meeting in law school but treated the campus and culture like undergrad, probably because Stan Lee and Jack Kirby did not go to law school (I don't think either of them completed undergrad but I'm not 100% sure). There's a lot of media on campus culture for undergrads, but not so much for grad students, who have a wide range of experiences depending on what school they go to and what they're studying, so from a writing perspective that's probably why their source material was off, and by Waid's day it's too late to change it.

Some graduate students do live in dorms if the university offers it and it's inexpensive, though it's usually singles. I believe Columbia does. I did my graduate work at City College (20 blocks north of Columbia) and there was no graduate housing. I was only on campus for classes and to use the library.

Also, a lot of grad students are working full-time, or part-time. I worked part-time in grad school (for creative writing) and now that I'm in Rabbinical school I'm actually working full-time and taking night classes. A lot of law students take night classes. MBA students are almost always working full-time when they go for their MBA. If you're working, that means you're probably not spending any extra time on campus unless you have a job in that area.

There's also less of a drinking culture, because you're over 21 and you can drink legally, in bars, so a lot of the mystique is gone. And it's a time crunch. Grad school is for professionals (and some people who want to put off being professionals for another few years) and less about tossing frisbee around the college green because your parents are paying for a four-year summer camp.

okay my buddy please tell us about rabbinical school i am so eternally fascinating with the workings of elder jews (i am but a humble minor jew. also headcanon foggy secular jew y/n?)

Yes please seconded

All of the non-language classes that Foggy is registering for in 2010 are 1st year law classes.

Columbia Law DOES have dorms: "The Law School housing available to students enrolled in the Graduate Program includes dormitory rooms, studio apartments, one- and two-bedroom apartments, and apartment shares (two or three students in each apartment). Most, but not all, of these units are furnished." - http://www.law.columbia.edu/llm_intro/grad_studies/Housing

And language classes are one of the few (possibly only? I'm not 100% on that) non-law-related classes that you can actually get law school credit for at Columbia. While it is incredibly improbable that both of our boys would be taking conversational language courses as first year law students, it is not impossible.

One thing they definitely got wrong though is Columbia Law does not award Latin honors (cum laude and summa cum laude). This is a longstanding MCU snafu, as they had Stark graduating MIT with Latin honors, and MIT doesn't do that either.

The arguable timeline here is 2010-2013 for law school (though that likely puts them several years older than the average student there - considering that Stick left Matt "20 years ago" at presumably no later than age 12) followed by a 1-2 year internship at L&Z, then on to their private practice in 2015.

Regardless of the timing being 2010, I am choosing to ignore that and in my headcanon they met in their freshman year of undergrad.

It's the only thing that makes sense not only with the type of courses they're taking and type of dorm they're staying in, but also with how Foggy looks and acts when they meet, and how young they seem like they're both supposed to be.

All of their classes but one are law school classes (not possible in undergrad), and the dorm is completely consistent with their canon Law School, but that's what headcanons are for.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, this has been driving me nuts. Particularly because I've felt that the whole language thing was very undergrad, too.

But now I know it's supposed to be law school, not undergrad, in Marvel's messed up universe. (I would have headcanoned them being juniors or something, even if they were undergrad; some of us still get randomly assigned roommates even junior or senior year, particularly after a gap year.)

Still, it really sounds like they're discussing required languages, when they get into the Punjabi vs. Spanish discussion, and that's just weird. Stupid MCU.

Discussion/Off-Topic Post #1

Law school is not undergrad

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