Cambridge Law Students and Applicants

Original post by gethsemane342

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Thanks! I'm a bit worried about the workload so I'm going to focus on general survival first, hence my question. If I get the hang of that, I'll ask for advise on how to get a first (however lofty that goal may be). And yeah, I'm expecting that people hold themselves to high standards but I'm hoping that doesn't translate into being outwardly competitive - I don't see how that is useful.

Original post by wawa1906

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Thanks a lot. Won't plan on getting anything till I know what's available to me in the libraries and how accessible they are.

Original post by TimmonaPortella

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I really appreciate the specific and detailed feedback. Thanks.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 2063

Original post by zaidf

Hullo, I've been sent a reading list from Christ's College (where I'll hopefully be going in October), and I was wondering if anyone had any particular recommendations? I'm hoping to read a book or two from each section, but it's highly unlikely I'll go through them all (the letter says it's not compulsory to read them all).

Don't bother. You won't remember any of it. You don't need to bother with pre-reading for any of the 3 years. I tried doing some for 1st and 2nd year, didn't really help. Did nothing for 3rd year and still did well.

Has your academic sibling not told you this? Standards are clearly slipping - we all told ours not to do it and I think they told the next batch not to bother. But yeah, just take this time out to relax.

Original post by ratio

Thanks! I'm a bit worried about the workload so I'm going to focus on general survival first, hence my question. If I get the hang of that, I'll ask for advise on how to get a first (however lofty that goal may be). And yeah, I'm expecting that people hold themselves to high standards but I'm hoping that doesn't translate into being outwardly competitive - I don't see how that is useful.

The secret to the workload is to learn good time management. My method for 2nd and 3rd year (where the workload deepens) was to work ahead a bit at the beginning of every term. This meant that I was always a few days ahead of myself in termtime and so I had the time to do what I wanted. In first year, I tried just leaving things till they came up and immersed myself in loads of societies. Great fun except I spent a *lot* of nights working till 3 or 4am. When I became more realistic about what I had time to do, the number of long nights went down dramatically and my social life improved.
Tbh, in first year, you're gonna go a bit nuts and time management will be tricky. But just make sure your time management is flexible and you'll cope.

As for the thing about getting a first, I know a lot of freshers think they'll get one, and it causes a lot of stress. Whatever you want, DON'T compare yourself to everyone else and DON'T take CamCors to heart. That is a survival tip - if I'd followed that advice in first year, I'd have been happier and probably would have done better overall (I'm happy with my Part IA mark as I was expecting lower. But having graduated and now knowing what I'm capable of, I do believe I would have done better if I hadn't allowed my confidence to get knocked so much)

Also, experiment with textbooks. What book works for one person won't necessarily work for you. As an example, in land we were told to use Gray and Gray. I only started doing well when I used Dixon, which wasn't a set text for us but I found a lot better.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 2064

Doughnuts!!

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Original post by gethsemane342

The secret to the workload is to learn good time management. My method for 2nd and 3rd year (where the workload deepens) was to work ahead a bit at the beginning of every term. This meant that I was always a few days ahead of myself in termtime and so I had the time to do what I wanted. In first year, I tried just leaving things till they came up and immersed myself in loads of societies. Great fun except I spent a *lot* of nights working till 3 or 4am. When I became more realistic about what I had time to do, the number of long nights went down dramatically and my social life improved.
Tbh, in first year, you're gonna go a bit nuts and time management will be tricky. But just make sure your time management is flexible and you'll cope.

THIS THIS THIS a million times over. If there is a single piece of advice I would say that every incoming fresher should pay attention to, it's this.

I was constantly behind, constantly rushing (most) supervision essays a few hours before supervisions and had far too much to catch up on during the Easter holidays all because I simply did too much non-work stuff during term time. I worked 14 hour days for 3 weeks solid during the Easter holidays and still didn't learn everything I had to in time for exams. Needless to say, I did pretty badly in exams and ended up cramming the night before 3 out of 4 of my exams.

If I could go back and change something, I would listen to the advice that somebody told me and do only 2 or 3 things that you love doing outside of work. If you do this and don't leave things until the last minute, you should find that you'll be able to juggle everything well and still have time for socialising with friends/going out/whatever.

Reply 2065

wawa1906

The confidence thing that gethsemane mentioned and the potential it has to affect how you do is interesting. This sounds really depressing but don't panic if/when you have a mini-breakdown. A lot of my friends had them. I remember after one supervision with a particularly brutal/perplexing supervisor I walked around Sainsburys for about 25 minutes pondering how **** I was at law (pretty sure all I bought was a tin of beans or something :P). There are points where you think it's never gonna make sense, but eventually it does (in saying that I walked into most exams praying a few things didn't come up cos I had no idea how they worked).

Time management is a biggie. Something we were never told that might be worth noting, although I don't encourage it too much, is that supervisors are usually very accommodating if you have a legitimate reason for needing an extension. Some supervisors are really approachable, others not so much; I think in freshers' minds (or mine at least) they had some sort of scary demi-god status. They don't really. And they know how much pressure you're under. So don't drive yourself insane.

I'm ranting. I'll stop.

Reply 2066

icycreamy6

Hello everyone,

I've been looking through Oxbridge law course electives. Despite initially preferring Cambridge for various reasons, I've noticed that "International Trade" (something I'm interested in) isn't on on Cambridge's list. Is this topic included in another elective? Or is this simply not taught in Cambridge?

Thank you.

Reply 2067

Original post by icycreamy6

Hello everyone,

I've been looking through Oxbridge law course electives. Despite initially preferring Cambridge for various reasons, I've noticed that "International Trade" (something I'm interested in) isn't on on Cambridge's list. Is this topic included in another elective? Or is this simply not taught in Cambridge?

Thank you.

If you mean the undergrad course, no, it isn't as such. The internationalish topics you can do are:

- International Public law (i.e. who owns that pile of rocks in the middle of the ocean/should we go around invading countries)

- Conflict of Laws - this is private international law about jurisdiction, choice of law and application of foreign law. Probably the closest you'll get to International Trade

- EU law (obviously)

- There used to be a Competition Law half-paper but I don't know if it's still there. They cut it for my year as Dr Odudu went on sabbatical, I dunno if he's back or not to do it.

- I don't know if commercial law covers international aspects but I doubt it.

Reply 2068

Tortious

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Original post by gethsemane342

If you mean the undergrad course, no, it isn't as such. The internationalish topics you can do are:

- International Public law (i.e. who owns that pile of rocks in the middle of the ocean/should we go around invading countries)

- Conflict of Laws - this is private international law about jurisdiction, choice of law and application of foreign law. Probably the closest you'll get to International Trade

- EU law (obviously)

- There used to be a Competition Law half-paper but I don't know if it's still there. They cut it for my year as Dr Odudu went on sabbatical, I dunno if he's back or not to do it.

- I don't know if commercial law covers international aspects but I doubt it.

Competition's currently suspended. Apparently Commercial Law covers the Sale of Goods Act 1979 provisions in detail (and they form the main focus), so I doubt there's a lot of international law.

Reply 2069

a.byrnie

Original post by Doughnuts!!

THIS THIS THIS a million times over. If there is a single piece of advice I would say that every incoming fresher should pay attention to, it's this.

I was constantly behind, constantly rushing (most) supervision essays a few hours before supervisions and had far too much to catch up on during the Easter holidays all because I simply did too much non-work stuff during term time. I worked 14 hour days for 3 weeks solid during the Easter holidays and still didn't learn everything I had to in time for exams. Needless to say, I did pretty badly in exams and ended up cramming the night before 3 out of 4 of my exams.

If I could go back and change something, I would listen to the advice that somebody told me and do only 2 or 3 things that you love doing outside of work. If you do this and don't leave things until the last minute, you should find that you'll be able to juggle everything well and still have time for socialising with friends/going out/whatever.

Oh god, that's even more terrifying than my DoS-to-be's statement that "if you can knock out something like the leader column in The Times when the need arises, you will have no problems in writing a Cambridge essay". :s:

Reply 2070

Doughnuts!!

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Original post by a.byrnie

Oh god, that's even more terrifying than my DoS-to-be's statement that "if you can knock out something like the leader column in The Times when the need arises, you will have no problems in writing a Cambridge essay". :s:

Oh no, don't worry, you very quickly get good at bashing out essays! It's daunting at first but you do get used to it!

The quote by me was more of a reflection of just how much I missed out during the year and how I screwed myself over!

Reply 2071

TimmonaPortella

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Would anyone on here who has international law sup sheets for michaelmas be willing to send them to me, please? :smile:

Reply 2072

Original post by TimmonaPortella

Would anyone on here who has international law sup sheets for michaelmas be willing to send them to me, please? :smile:

Are you trying to work ahead? :s-smilie:

I've tried that before. It won't work if you do it this early. You'll just forget it all again. Either that or you'll do so much extra reading, you'll get bogged down in detail and miss the big picture (and international is a big picture subject)

Reply 2073

TimmonaPortella

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Original post by gethsemane342

Are you trying to work ahead? :s-smilie:

I've tried that before. It won't work if you do it this early. You'll just forget it all again. Either that or you'll do so much extra reading, you'll get bogged down in detail and miss the big picture (and international is a big picture subject)

Yeah, I'm going to do a bit ahead. I'm away a couple of weeks in september so I want to get started now. Don't worry, I won't overreach myself. I'm just going to get through a couple of supervisions, gradually, and hopefully make up some notes to save myself time when I want to moot. If I keep ticking over a (relatively) small amount of material, I figure I should be able to keep it in my head.

Reply 2074

ratio

Original post by gethsemane342

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Original post by Doughnuts!!

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Original post by wawa1906

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Thanks a lot everyone, that's all helpful to bear in mind.

Original post by Tortious

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Currently, re-reading "Letters to a law student". McBride sounds like an entertaining, and intimidatingly smart, DoS.

Then again, maybe most of them are like that - I felt the same about my DoS, who I'm actually excited to meet again. (Three minutes into my interview, he mentioned based off a point in my SAQ, that he admitted Virgo to Cambridge. I muttered "oh, so I'm screwed" under my breath but he was nice to me anyway. He also seemed like a no BS guy - he suggested I call him mad at one point when I tried to disagree with him politely.) *ends unnecessary rant about why JH seems awesome.*

Reply 2075

Forum User

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Does anyone have a copy of 'Per Incuriam' they could email me? I'm thinking of setting up a student law review at my university and wanted to get a look at an existing one for some ideas - not that my uni would be able to match the quality, I wouldn't think. I can PM any taker my email address :smile:

Reply 2076

Original post by Forum User

Does anyone have a copy of 'Per Incuriam' they could email me? I'm thinking of setting up a student law review at my university and wanted to get a look at an existing one for some ideas - not that my uni would be able to match the quality, I wouldn't think. I can PM any taker my email address :smile:

I don't. I was about to say yes but it was on my Hermes which has since been deleted.

Tortious

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Kid, I believe Per Inc is *your* forte?

Reply 2077

Illiberal Liberal