1/16/07 - Academic Ace Mike Tatarko Now Attends Law School
Former IUP student-athlete Mike Tatarko is currently attending Duquesne University Law School in Pittsburgh, PA. Mike is a 2006 graduate of IUP and four year baseball letter winner.
Listed is a summary of his academic career at IUP:
Graduated Summa Cum Laude
(3.89 GPA)
Criminology Major (4.0 GPA)
One of six IUP graduates in the spring of 2006 to earn a 4.0 GPA in the
Criminology major.
Economics Minor (4.0 GPA)
Pre-Law Concentration (4.0
GPA)
Chacivity Award Winner
(2006)
Baseball Team
Captain (2005-2006)
Baseball Letter Winner (2003-2006)
Mike
Tatarko gives his first-hand experience as a law student at Duquesne University
The difference between undergrad and law school: In undergrad, you are frequently quizzed and tested which allows you to monitor your work and enables you to improve your habits or, in some cases, keep on doing what is working. In law school, you have two tests, sometimes one FOR THE WHOLE YEAR. Here is my course load for this year:
Full year 2006-2007 courses:
Contract Law (6 credits)
Property Law (6 credits)
Tort Law (6 credits)
Legal Research and Writing (3 credits)
Criminal Law and Procedure (4 credits)
Fall 2006
Legal Process and Procedure (3 credits)
Spring 2007
Civil Procedure (3 credits)
There are no grades besides the midterm, taken in December, and the cumulative final in May. The grade you receive is based solely on your performance on these two exams. It is "blind grading", which ensures fairness in the exam. “Blind grading” is when the teacher doesn't see your name, just a six digit code.
As you can imagine, having only two grades puts an extreme amount of stress and pressure on the student to do well, because there will be no other chances to improve the grade. You also have to remain disciplined to keep up with the readings and cases in class because law professors have a unique way of teaching, the "Socratic Method", in which they don't lecture, rather you do the readings and material before class and they randomly pick a student off of the roster and bombard them with questions regarding the material and do not stop until the student gives the answer that they are looking for (quite stressful).
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"At the time, student-athletes will feel stressed and overwhelmed with the schedule that they have to keep to excel in both the classroom and the diamond, but what it's really doing is making the student-athlete more efficient, disciplined, and dedicated to what they feel is most important." - Mike Tatarko |
This has some relevance. Student athletes, especially baseball players because of the lost class time, have the same type of stress of class, baseball practice/games, school work, and making up for the missed school work. At the time, student-athletes will feel stressed and overwhelmed with the schedule that they have to keep to excel in both the classroom and the diamond, but what its really doing is making the student-athlete more efficient, disciplined, and dedicated to what they feel is most important.
There is no doubt that maintaining this type of schedule for four years at IUP allows me to keep up with the workload of law school. What people do not realize with the "WinwithClass" program is the unbelievable numbers that the IUP baseball team put up. Not only are they succeeding in college courses (as shown by the teams GPA and the Dean's List), but they are doing this while playing a college sport.
Some people may not
appreciate it as much as others, but one thing
is for sure, the students
who are representing the IUP baseball program
so well in the classroom
will be rewarded in the future.
That is the type of hard work and
dedication that is needed in the
real world, and the athletes are
learning it before they get
there, while the other 99% of the students
will learn on the job.
I
really do feel strongly about the
student-athlete and their commitments
to both the school and the team!
Mike Tatarko
Profile
Hometown: Twin Rocks, PA
High School: Bishop Carroll
Parents: Lori & Michael Tatarko
