School: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Blunt Force Trauma

Of all the classes I've taken in law school, my Forensic Evidence class has easily been the most visceral. After all, most law school courses are pretty dry, loaded to the gills with abstract legal principles and perplexing statutes. In Forensic Evidence, though, we've had lectures concerning gunshot wounds, search patterns, and even death by asphyxiation.

The class is taught by Bernard Raum, an adjunct professor here and a former Baltimore prosecutor. As you might imagine, Professor Raum has encountered some truly horrific crimes in his stint as a prosecutor, and he doesn't hesitate to present these crimes to us. In his words, "these kinds of things happen all the time - not pretty, but they happen."

The photos of the victims are the hardest part - it's only natural to squirm when you see the battered skull of a dead infant, or the markings on the corpse of a dead woman where she was tortured with a hacksaw. It can be hard to stomach, but it's a dash of reality inside the vacuumed halls of academia.