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Advice on mature student interview for BCL/LLB place
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20-02-2012 12:30am#1Sorry if this has been covered before, I searched around and couldn't find anything that specifically referred to it. I'm 28 and am currently on the D.I.T mature student access programme. Long story short, I have applied through the CAO for law at both Trinity and UCD, I spoke to a woman at UCD who will be deciding which applicants will go to interview stage and she felt that, given the information I had provided her with, she would expect me to be called for an interview. I was just wondering if there are any other mature students who have been through this process and, if so, what topics should I be familiarising myself with pre-interview. Should I be getting a crash course in Tort etc or just be able to demonstrate an understanding of how the course is structured? Any help much appreciated.
p.s just to clarify, I have sent in the letters of rec, my personal statement and post-secondary exam results (incase anyone thinks I'm just waiting around for a phone call!)0
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It's more about the type of person you are rather than your understanding of the Law - they're going to teach you that!
Try and demonstrate:- Organisational Skills
- Logical and clear thinking
- The ability to work under pressure
- Knowledge of current events
- Some idea of social values - some basic understanding of human / constitutional rights
- If you know the difference between criminal and civil, tort and contract fantastic but I wouldn't go further than that
- Why you want to study law and what you've done to prep yourself for returning to study
Good luck!
EDIT: The ability to work on your own / self start is vital. You are going to be doing what is, outside of medicine, the hardest undergrad degree going. You'll be covering vast amounts of info with very, very few contact hours. (9 a week in trinners!). The ability to motivate yourself and form your own study groups with your peers will be paramount.
Last point - a focus area isn't a bad idea if you genuinely have one! I think UCD have a large criminology school if that floats your boat. I wouldn't fake it though as they'll see straight though any BS.0 -
GCDLawstudent wrote: »It's more about the type of person you are rather than your understanding of the Law - they're going to teach you that!
Try and demonstrate:- Organisational Skills
- Logical and clear thinking
- The ability to work under pressure
- Knowledge of current events
- Some idea of social values - some basic understanding of human / constitutional rights
- If you know the difference between criminal and civil, tort and contract fantastic but I wouldn't go further than that
- Why you want to study law and what you've done to prep yourself for returning to study
Good luck!
EDIT: The ability to work on your own / self start is vital. You are going to be doing what is, outside of medicine, the hardest undergrad degree going. You'll be covering vast amounts of info with very, very few contact hours. (9 a week in trinners!). The ability to motivate yourself and form your own study groups with your peers will be paramount.
Last point - a focus area isn't a bad idea if you genuinely have one! I think UCD have a large criminology school if that floats your boat. I wouldn't fake it though as they'll see straight though any BS.
thanks for the reply. Did you do an interview as a mature student? I've had a look at the sticky on mature students here on boards which has been pretty helpful, I suppose I'm hoping someone will tell me EXACTLY what they went through with UCD/TRIN (although the trinity application was a disaster so not much hope there!)0 -
Yep I did interviews with GCD, Independent and DBS.
My exact experience was as follows;
Q. Do you have, €6200, €4800 or €5200 respectively?
A. Yes I do.
Q. Will you be paying by credit card or cheque?
A. Cheque.
Welcome to Griffith :P
All joking aside I had some chats with the heads of Independent and Griffith - the rest is gleamed from my research before I joined GCD - I was going to go down the route of TCD, UCD or DCU but left it too late to apply. Now that I'm at GCD I've kinda fallen into a few things and moving would screw them up - I also like the idea of having the LLB done in three years (I'm getting on a bit!). Hopefully someone might be able to shed some better light on UCD for you.0 -
GCDLawstudent wrote: »It's more about the type of person you are rather than your understanding of the Law - they're going to teach you that!
Try and demonstrate:- Organisational Skills
- Logical and clear thinking
- The ability to work under pressure
- Knowledge of current events
- Some idea of social values - some basic understanding of human / constitutional rights
- If you know the difference between criminal and civil, tort and contract fantastic but I wouldn't go further than that
- Why you want to study law and what you've done to prep yourself for returning to study
Good luck!
EDIT: The ability to work on your own / self start is vital. You are going to be doing what is, outside of medicine, the hardest undergrad degree going. You'll be covering vast amounts of info with very, very few contact hours. (9 a week in trinners!). The ability to motivate yourself and form your own study groups with your peers will be paramount.
Last point - a focus area isn't a bad idea if you genuinely have one! I think UCD have a large criminology school if that floats your boat. I wouldn't fake it though as they'll see straight though any BS.
In relation to the sentence in bold. You are having a laugh yeah? I really hope so? Law is slightly above an arts degree in terms of work load and is as about as useful.
Degrees in engineering and medicine are the hardest in terms of work load and ability. There are a lot of Law students who love to think they are the masters of the universe. Just a culture within the the profession from students to those at the top.
The best advice to those wanting to be lawyers is to study something else in college. The Legal profession is probably the only profession that allows people to do a crash course (FE1's etc) to get into it. The only hard thing is getting a training contract and a job.0 -
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In relation to the sentence in bold. You are having a laugh yeah? I really hope so? Law is slightly above an arts degree in terms of work load and is as about as useful.
Degrees in engineering and medicine are the hardest in terms of work load and ability. There are a lot of Law students who love to think they are the masters of the universe. Just a culture within the the profession from students to those at the top.
The best advice to those wanting to be lawyers is to study something else in college. The Legal profession is probably the only profession that allows people to do a crash course (FE1's etc) to get into it. The only hard thing is getting a training contract and a job.
As I read somewhere before, "A well made, excellent point which you have clearly put a lot of thought into and researched thoroughly!". (Not)
I think it is a matter of opinion on what is the hardest area to study as some people might be excellent in maths and others might have a knack for literature and so may another area difficult.
All that aside although I know it's not necessary to have a degree in law to go on to be a Solicitor I do feel that it is a huge advantage. Also many people like Law and find it fascinating, I know I do myself, and I am glad I chose it.
At the end of the day if you feel it's what you want then go for it, and if it turns out you don't like it then drop it and find something else. Best of luck with the interview if you get it. Unfortunately I can't offer any advice as I went straight from Leaving Cert to Degree, and from Degree to Masters and didn't involve any interviews.0 -
The suggestion that a law degree ranks 2nd, or even in the higher echelons, or anywhere in the same ballpark as a medical degree in the 'hardness' league is utterly fanciful.GCDLawstudent wrote: »While I can't fault your argument of huge bold type - I wonder what the above statement is based on.
Your typical law degree consists of around about 8-10 hours per week. Sure, there is potentially substantial reading outside of that; but that is no different to other areas. The concepts are all relatively straightforward.
I did a full time law degree while working close to full time as a doctor - to be honest, I barely turned up to lectures/tutorials. A good few solid weeks of work before the exam to study & revise the entire course was sufficient to get either 1:1 or high 2:1s each year. There are very few degrees where that approach is even possible.
All of this is not to say that a law degree is a piece of piss, but the highest it would rank is around the middle area of the hardness league! Trust me when I tell you that there is absolutely no comparison to a medical degree (mind you, there shouldnt be either as the latter is a professional qualification in its own right).
I agree though that how hard any course of study is, is heavily influenced by the student's level of interest. Those who love law will probably find it easier; those unsuited to it, and those who simply do not like it, might find it quite difficult.0 -
Why quote a statement then ignore the question?
The rest of your points are perfectly correct in your opinion and perhaps correct in general but you don't answer the point about "best advice is to do another degree" so why quote it?
Any thoughts on it while we go completely off topic...0 -
Is that directed at me?GCDLawstudent wrote: »Why quote a statement then ignore the question?
The rest of your points are perfectly correct in your opinion and perhaps correct in general but you don't answer the point about "best advice is to do another degree" so why quote it?
Any thoughts on it while we go completely off topic...0 -
Hmm, quite the "how tough is law?" rant this has turned into, as far as I can make out from the many comment's on here and from friends who have studied law, it is basically a subject specific arts degree...what I'm more concerned with is what I'm likely to be asked and how long a wait between notification of an interview and it taking place?0
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Apologies AB I shall post no more off topic stuff!0
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GCDLawstudent wrote: »Apologies AB I shall post no more off topic stuff!
ha ha, sorry if that sounded unappreciative!I'm surprised actually that I can't find any definitive answers in any of the, multiple, mature law thread's on here.
what's your plan once you graduate?FE1's/KI?Or something in house maybe?0 -
Not at all I shouldn't have answered the first guy - who I thought was trolling but as it turns out when you look on the iphone his bold type comes up as a regular size.
To be honest, and I'm not slagging off GCD here, but you have to do something post grad if imo if you graduate a private college. To be fair to Mr. huge-text he is right that a law degree on its own from anywhere isn't much cop without some other experience etc. I suppose thats true of all undergrad degrees in Ireland given the good access to HE. I'd say we're both in a similar boat there though as I'm 31 and had a previous life, seems you have aswell.
Plan is to do the LLB, then the BL and maybe the first year devilling. Then wife and I are off to somewhere to do development work - she'd kinda in a holding pattern at the moment in the civil service with a PhD generally not being utilised very much. The info on professional side is brilliant on here if you wade though a few threads. I realise that's probably the last thing on you're mind at the moment!
The advice I've had from the various young barristers I happen across in the various extra stuff I do seem to think the BL is a good thing to have regardless of if you want to eventually practise and that there are a fair few people doing a BL who will never practise and are just doing them for job promotions etc.
If thats TL : DR! Yes KI after GCD lol!
At the risk of this turning into a pen pal thread what's your plan?0 -
GCDLawstudent wrote: »Not at all I shouldn't have answered the first guy - who I thought was trolling but as it turns out when you look on the iphone his bold type comes up as a regular size.
To be honest, and I'm not slagging off GCD here, but you have to do something post grad if imo if you graduate a private college. To be fair to Mr. huge-text he is right that a law degree on its own from anywhere isn't much cop without some other experience etc. I suppose thats true of all undergrad degrees in Ireland given the good access to HE. I'd say we're both in a similar boat there though as I'm 31 and had a previous life, seems you have aswell.
Plan is to do the LLB, then the BL and maybe the first year devilling. Then wife and I are off to somewhere to do development work - she'd kinda in a holding pattern at the moment in the civil service with a PhD generally not being utilised very much. The info on professional side is brilliant on here if you wade though a few threads. I realise that's probably the last thing on you're mind at the moment!
The advice I've had from the various young barristers I happen across in the various extra stuff I do seem to think the BL is a good thing to have regardless of if you want to eventually practise and that there are a fair few people doing a BL who will never practise and are just doing them for job promotions etc.
If thats TL : DR! Yes KI after GCD lol!
At the risk of this turning into a pen pal thread what's your plan?
Long term I'm not 100%, but leaning towards FE1's and associated hell. In the (relatively) shorter term, I'm very interested in doing one of the summer courses at the hague academy of international law. The wife is aware of the difficulties involved in pursuing law and the need to add to one's skill set and is, thankfully, very supportive. I have a few idea's but think it's best to keep an open mind. Jesus, listen to me...I haven't even gotten an interview yet, this is all a bit premature!0 -
anfield bound wrote: »Jesus, listen to me...I haven't even gotten an interview yet, this is all a bit premature!
Don't get too hung up on where you get the BCL / LLB from. It made a difference a few years ago but there are now so many people with Masters / Other reasons to employ - the traditional Trinners / UCD cred on your under grad degree probably won't be enough to get you a training contract.
There are some pretty switched on lecturers at NUI etc. You can even get away with a private college if you have the money hanging around. None of this is to imply you won't get in to UCD - I just hope if you don't it doesn't deter you.0
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