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 How to Spot a Snail in the Library

It’s almost extermination time

Exam season is coming up, and so is the most wonderful time of the year: the period when only law students are allowed to study in the main (Fish Bowl) area of the Law Library. If you want to take the power trip that is being part of this rule’s enforcement, here are some ways to identify snails (students not actually in law school) infesting the library. These are based on my experiences and observations, so take them with a grain of salt. Also, be careful—you don’t want to try to kick out a fellow law student…or maybe you do? 

Snail Characteristics:

  • Lime green backpack
    • In case you don’t know, that’s the colour of this year’s med school backpacks. Why don’t law students get backpacks? We’re the ones with the big books! 
  • Youthful glow
    • Even the young people who are in law school have a certain haggard aura. Be suspicious of anyone who looks a little too vibrant or well-rested. 
  • Working on anything that looks remotely like math and/or using a fancy calculator
    • Apparently there are some courses in law school that require math, but from what I’ve heard, the math seems to be pretty simple. I don’t think law students are doing anything involving parabolas or linear algebra, so if you see that, it should be safe to assume it’s not math for tax law. 
  • Optimism in their eyes
    • Most law students seem to have accepted the harsh realities of life, but the same can’t be said for snails. 
  • Does not know what snail stands for
    • There are also lots of other law school acronyms that non-law students would probably be blissfully unaware of: OCI, PFO, and ITC, to name a few (to those who just finished up with the recruit, sorry for the trigger). 
  • Literal Faculty of Dentistry merch
    • PSA to snails: if you’re going to try to infiltrate our library when you’re not supposed to, don’t wear your non-law faculty’s branded merch. On the flip side, if you want a really effective disguise, you could easily run down to the bookstore and buy a law hoodie, just saying. 
  • Traveling in large packs
    • Law school is cliquey, but usually the cliques aren’t too bigor, if they are, their members’ schedules aren’t coordinated enough for a bunch of them to be together in the library all at the same time. Big friend groups whose schedules all seem to miraculously align is a red flag.
  • Watching what are clearly med school modules
    • While there are allegedly law school classes involving math, I feel certain that there are none involving the circulatory system, or anything along those lines. 
  • Has a shell and antennae, moves slowly, covered in mucus
    • Pretty self-explanatory, right? I never said we were ONLY talking about students not actually in law school…

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