Masters in Commercial Law?

Charlie

Hey,

I am in my final year of a law degree and am interested in doing the commercial law masters programme at UCD. A couple of questions if anyone could help me:

-Has anyone completed this progaramme? If so, what is it like?

-I have generally taken well to subjects like Tort, Contract, Company, Land and Constitutional Law. Would this programme suit me?

-So far my grades have been solid, in the mid 60's range. Dos anyone know what the entry requirements for the programme is or any other masters in law programme in UCD.

I have looked online and cant find any answers to these questions, and when I tried ringing UCD I got the run around so, being knee deep in a Jurisprudence assignment with little time to spare, I thought I would post the questions here. Any insights would be greatly appreciated.

Stirling

Well Charlie whats the craic?

I'm actually in the middle of doing it at the moment.

This year the format and structure of the course has gone under dramatic changes so talking to anyone who has actually finished the course won't give you as clear an impression as you might normally expect. The reason for this is a response to semesterisation more than anything else together with the thesis becoming mandatory, the weighting of credits changing and the introduction of new courses. Just to give you an idea:

Old Course:

Had to do 90 Credits made up of either 4 full subjects weighted at 22.5 credits each or 2 full subjects and 4 half subjects worth 11.25 credits each. The thesis was optional and if you did it it was the equivelant of one full subject.

New Course:

3 seperate elements: 60 credits to be obtained by course work over the first and second terms
and the remaining 30 credits coming from the dissertation which is now mandatory and done over
the Summer.

As regards whether or not you will like it based on the subjects you have been interested in I had similiar interests and have enjoyed it so far and there is a good mix of options so you can diversify pretty easily within the course so I would encourage you to do it based on my experience so far but remember I have a long way to go yet!

As regards your grades I think you'll be fine the way you're going. Once you have a decent enough 2H1 most taught Law Masters Programmes will be open to you so I wouldn't be too worried about it.

As regards contacting UCD about it ask to speak to Justine McCann - she's the programme manager for the LLM in Commercial Law. She might be able to put you in touch with someone who completed the programme aswell.

I don't know if thats in any way useful to you but the best of luck with what you decide to do

Charlie

Striling that's great info, cheers. Just one question though. I was looking at the course online and it listed some subjects as being worth 5 credits and some worth 10. Is the difference in credits proportionate to the work or difficulty?

Stirling

Again a question I can't answer I'm afraid!

The list of courses you see online doesn't split them up according to what semester they are available in and the 5 credit ones you're talking about are only offered in the second semester so nobody in the current course will have taken them until next semester.

If it helps in any way throw up a comment into next year again and we should be able to give you some idea what they're like.

Did you have any luck getting through to Justine?

Charlie

No I haven't rang her yet, I have been finishing off a 7000 word Jurisprudence assigment that I have just handed in..... (sigh of relief).

Thanks a million for the info.

snb

Justine has been promoted AFAIK and does not deal with course queries anymore. There is a relacement for her, not sure of name. If you ring the Law Faculty though Im sure they will put you through.

UCD 01 716 0000

Charlie

Sorry to bump, but I was wondering if anyone with any experience with this programme could post details as to how it is going, re: difficulty (maybe in comparison to Law degree), the hours involved, the dissertion, exams etc.