Your university experience

slum dog

i want to know how you guys found studying law at uni. im in my second year of a b.a. and managed to score about 55 on average last year. i went to most lectures but didnt really open a book till exam times. have you found law at uni difficult and did you put much effort in?

cheers

XxMCRxBabyxX

slum dog wrote: »

i want to know how you guys found studying law at uni. im in my second year of a b.a. and managed to score about 55 on average last year. i went to most lectures but didnt really open a book till exam times. have you found law at uni difficult and did you put much effort in?

cheers

B.A. in law? You're in Maynooth right? There is no B.A? I take it you transferred from arts into the BCL?

I love law. It's not necessarily easy, but if you like it and are interested you can get your head around it fairly quickly. I would have been the same as you but came out with a better average. Went to all my lectures, did all my assignments but took it easy enough until exam time. My trick has always been the way I look at cases. I avoid books and focus on cases as much as possible (obviously I do use them too!)

dublin daz

I done BCL and found it fairly interesting.

I think law is fairly easy to study. Its also easy to get a pass in. Its more difficult to do well in 70%+ etc.

Cramming doesn't seem to work. I went to my lectures and tutorials but found I had lots to do on top, to do well in exams.

Going to lectures and tutorials would get you a pass, I'd say. But to get higher you'd need to do extra reading.

Loads of areas I found boring, like everyone.

If you're in 1st year then I wouldn't worry about the 55 average.

If you're thinking of getting an apprenticeship then maybe try work throughout the year.

Saying that, 55 is nothing to be worried about either.

32minutes

slum dog wrote: »

i want to know how you guys found studying law at uni. im in my second year of a b.a. and managed to score about 55 on average last year. i went to most lectures but didnt really open a book till exam times. have you found law at uni difficult and did you put much effort in?

cheers

If your concerned enough to start a thread and look for advice like this (in September) your already on the right track so keep it up, if your genuinely interested then some hard work will show dividends in most exams.

Talk to people in your class, I always found studying alongside people beneficial (as long as its not distracting) but that's just me and those particular people.

I would also say that in law subjects in particular I think quality of study is much more important than quantity so don't be tempted to sit in the library all day getting nothing done just because you see others doing it, they're probably watching masterchef on rte player.

Contra Proferentem

I'm in a similar position to yourself OP.

My own experience has been largely positive, despite that perhaps unlike other Business or Humanities courses, there is a reasonably heavy workload in Law in terms of independent work and reading.

Certainly the exams in it are not the type that you can leave until the last minute, as I find the facts and cases to be "lumpy" when trying to cram them into your head. That said, you can cram the principles which apply to an area and therefore equip yourself with the basics needed to approach any question.

As has been mentioned, study needs to be of good quality. Otherwise I find you'll start confusing cases, rules, etc. and in one experience I almost blanked out on the Commerical Law exam but thankfully hauled myself back enough to achieve a mark in the mid-50s.

If your starting out in first and second year, I've known lecturers to admit that they generally don't want to give you a grade which might make you get too confident unless it's really a flawless answer, as it makes you work harder to try and constantly keep achieving higher marks.