I'm going to school for paralegal is the actual work in the schooling process hard?

Prorkycake

I will start off with saying that your success in college is dependent on so many factors. I don't think anyone can accurately answer this for you.

First of all, it depends on what kind of school you are going to. Are you attending an ABA approved program that actually has standards, a community college program or are you attending an online program? I have heard that these online programs are ridiculously easy for people to pass, but remember that you probably won't get hired with that kind of education in this economy. Avoid the online programs and "Paralegal Institutes" and any program that seems too good to be true. Stick with your associate degree programs from community colleges and/or ABA approved programs.

The program I graduated from was 69 credit hours. Most classes counted at three credit hours. I had to take a wide variety of legal classes (military law, family law, tort and personal injury, criminal law, civil litigation, legal research 1 and 2, law office technology, introduction to the paralegal field and an internship), algebra, English 1301/1302, business speech, accounting, logic, US history 1 and 2...I am sure I skipped a few classes in my list, but you get the gist. The program I attended was ABA approved.

I was always a 4.0 GPA student, so the academics were easy for me. I was pre-med studying genetics prior to deciding that the medical field was not for me. How easy the classes are going to be for you is purely up to you. I can tell you what I observed from my peers. They were lazy. Pure and simple. They didn't read the material. Didn't ask questions when they didn't know the material. Always swarmed around me because they knew I knew the answers. I know it is judgmental to say they were lazy, but at the time, I was working full-time, single parent, and going through a divorce. I somehow managed to read my chapters, study and make an A in all my classes.

How hard these classes are going to be is dependent on how dedicated you are and no one can prepare you for that but you. Typically, I was the only person to make an A in the legal classes. A lot of people struggled, a lot of people didn't get it, and a lot of people just stopped showing up. The only real challenging class I had was criminal law. The professor would hold mock hearings to see if we understood the legal concepts presented in the book. It pushed me out of my comfort zone.

It is my opinion that the difficulty of any program you decide to attend is what you make it. Prepare for every class and ask questions. No assignment I ever received was pull my hair out hard. But then again, I was a genetics major prior to it. You might be able to factor some academic strength into that. I know a lot of people struggled with legal research for some reason.

Hope that helps.

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