CANing

When I was little and my mother was in a domestic mood (which didn't happen very often, let me assure you), we would go to one of the many berry patches in Richmond and stuff our faces and baskets full of berries. We'd then go home and my science experiment of the week would be learning how sugar and berries can solidify into jam. This is the only canning that I know, so you can imagine my surprise on the first day of Orientation Week last year when everything was "CAN" this and "CAN" that. People in my small group were bragging about the amazing CAN they received from a brother's cousin's uncle's friend who got an 80 in this class or that. It was both overwhelming and annoying because everytime the word CAN was mentioned it made me crave my mom's strawberry jam which has become a thing of the past.

CANs in law school are not full of berry goodness. Instead, they are full of classnotes, which aren't quite as delicious. CAN is an acronym for Condensed Annotated Notes. Only law students would come up with such a prestigious title for something that a lot of us have done in undergrad.

CANs essentially take the class notes for the year and shorten them to key points. Some sets of CANs are immaculately edited, with glossaries and indexes. Others, (mine especially) are simply ugly blocks of key notes. If you want to get really fancy, you can find or make a condensed CAN AND a larger CAN for the same course.

Throughout the year you will hear about the pros and cons of using a CAN from the year or four before. I won't even begin to touch on this highly contested subject of "to CAN or not to CAN" but I will provide this key piece of advice that I sadly learned the hard and REALLY embarrassing way: when using a CAN from the year before, ensure that you went over all the same cases in class to prevent your prof from writing "are you using an old CAN?!?!" on your exam...

CANs can be found from upper-classmates, the Law Student Society's website and your uncle who did law school here in the 70's (yes some of the profs are the same). They are usually professor specific but sometimes a CAN from another prof may work for your course if the reading material was the same.

A lot of the professors here will let you use your CANs during an exam. If being able to have all your notes in front of you during your exams sounds too good to be true that's because it really is. If you're relying solely on your CAN to be able to write the exam and haven't studied efficiently, you will run out of time. That's why the best part about CANs is the actual making of them. By making a CAN you are boiling (somewhat like the berries) down your notes to the key facts that are important to remember and know for the exam. If you're relying on someone else's CAN, you won't be able to remember these key facts as efficiently and quickly (and rule number 1 about law school exam writing is that time is of the essence).

During the year there will be plenty of time to learn about the fine art of the CAN, but for now at least you'll be one step ahead of me and not wondering why the law school cares so much about jam during your first day of Orientation. If you have any questions abouts CANs, Orientation Week, strawberry jam or anything else be sure to give me a call (604) 827-3552 or email: orientation@law.ubc.ca