Semester A is over. Who knew? Not me...

It would have been a good idea to start blogging right at the beginning of Semester A but I hadn't started this. However, perhaps we could see this as revisiting all that happened in the past 3 months? Well I'm not looking forward to this...

The last 2 weeks of September marked the beginning of my life as a student of Law. I met lots of lovely new people and got used to the new system and new surroundings. It also pleasantly introduced me to countless viruses which will be making regular appearances in my life for the next 3 years, all thanks to London Underground...

October brought the start of Semester A which consisted of Contract Law, the English Legal System and Skills for Academic Learning in Law (which I still never completely figured out..).

ELS reminded me a lot of Politics until I remembered that I had flopped it at A-Level.Contract Law was easy to start of and then I managed to confuse myself after Promissory Estoppel.. And please don't get me started on skills. It seemed like just another way of filling up our timetable, but kudos to Skills for teaching me how to use online resources like Lexis Library and Westlaw.

One thing I'm still kinda lost on is how to use a Law library. I doubt I'm cut out for this course if I can't understand the legal texts, but I'm sure I'm not alone.. Ok maybe by this stage in the course it should be easier but the thing you don't understand is.. I don't have a brain.. I'm too scared to do any task in the library because of all the intimidating crumbly dusty books :'(

November is supposed to be the best month in the world but this was the month a lot of us were dreading. Uni was very thoughtful and considerate when deciding how much coursework they wanted us to do, as well as set and exam for the day before the coursework deadline. None of us were impressed by the grim amount of work that was being heaped on us slowly but surely..

So, the assignments consisted of:

1) A court visit observation.
2) 3 questions on different topics of ELS, though we were to pick only 1 question and answer.
3) Hardcopy research on cases, Acts and legislations.
4) Online research on cases, Acts and legislations.
5) A reflective essay- reflecting on skills that we have gained since the beginning of the course.
6) Researching and solving a problem


And then there was general revision for the Contract Law exam...


December brought snow and mayhem, and most of all, revision and the general coursework rush before Christmas. It wasn't much of a Christmas break after I found myself doing work on New Years Eve and Christmas Day! I have to be honest, I do not enjoy coursework. This may sound terrible coming from a Law student but I just don't feel committed enough to do coursework. I feel like I shouldn't be trusted with heaps of coursework because I can already predict the amount of effort that I'll put into the work..zilch! At least with exams I feel more capable of revising. 

But the fact that I had both coursework and revision to attend to, I made a bit of a sacrifice. I spent 90% of my time on coursework and the rest on revision. I could see it coming. I completely neglected my revision and focused totally on the coursework. I honestly had so much but I guess that isn't an excuse. So anyway, I successfully handed in all my coursework 20 hours before the deadline because I couldn't trust myself that I'd make it to uni for 9am or before that! I'm extremely proud about that considering my relationship with past coursework deadlines... (Like the time we were told to submit our A-Level English Literature coursework to our teacher via email on Monday. That's all we were told; Monday. So obviously I took advantage of this as I was so behind on my work. Most of my classmates submitted theirs by 5pm at the latest, but me being me, I submitted mine at 11.45pm exactly. Yes I took the biscuit but I was desperate. I was dreading turning up to class the next day because I knew she wouldn't be impressed. I survived the sarcastic comments and gained myself an average grade.)


So anyway, what I'm taking away from my mistakes of Semester A are that I need to be serious about time management. No faffing around, I need to get my act together. This isn't GCSE stage, this is serious University stage.

Over and out, love from a very bad Law Student xx