an early bird in need of guidance!!

well im currently a first year law student at the university in edinburgh. I cringe at the thought of practicing law, but LOVE the thought of going into academia. i would definitly want to do an LLM right after finishing (and hopefully a PhD after that)... would want to do it at either Oxford cambridge or LSE...so i had a few Questions

1) is there anything besides top grades that i can do to boost my chances at a top uni for a masters?
2) whats a masters like in law or in general?
3) im poor, so where can i get funding? btw im an intl student from turkey.

Reply 1

Angelil

19

I can't really help with the last 2, but as for the first one, I'd say the top 3 things you can do are:

a) try and subscribe to a leading journal in your field (oh yes, and read it :wink:

)
b) try and attend external conferences, even if they're only external seminars being held at your uni (e.g. the Classical Association holds seminars here in Exeter on a fairly frequent basis)
c) try and get an article or two published (again, even if it's only in an internal journal produced by your department, that will help)

Having said all that, though, I'm not sure how much all this malarkey helps - I've only just applied, so I suppose I'll see.

Reply 2

The Boosh

17

i think you need to focus on law things, like joining the law society, voluntering for legal aid (if you can do that so early in your degree?), trying to get work your work experience up as much as possible. There is a girl studying law at bristol who pops into this postgrad section - try going through the old posts about law and finding her name, she seems to know a lot.

I agree with Angelil but I wouldnt subscribe to a journal - they can cost hundreds of pounds a year, you need to simply use your library and online subscription. Infact, Id be suprised if you dont come across journals being a law student anyway - my degrees have always depended on recent research in the arts and social sciences. Internal conferences and internal publications (if they exist at your uni) are great - but I dont think you will get published in a well known law journal. my papers are starting to get published (im a phd student not first year undergrad) but the competition to get published is seriously fierce since your paper has to be of a good academic standard like the lecturers and profs at your uni (and plenty of lecturers and profs get their papers rejected each year!).

Good grades, work experience, become knowledgeable in your own field where you want to study a masters/phd, show you are enthusiastic and build your cv. 2-3 years is a hell of a long time to do this and many law students have a glowing cv on graduation (because competition is tough).

Reply 3

Angelil

19

re: journals being expensive to subscribe to - they can be, but they're not always. I subscribe to the Journal of Linguistics (published by the Linguistics Association of Great Britain) and it only costs me £52 a year - no more than you'd pay to subscribe to any popular magazine, really. It's only for institutions that it costs a bomb.

And when I say 'publish' I do mean this very loosely - I've had two articles published, but only in very small-scale journals (The Use of English, which you won't find in any university library as it's mainly distributed among teachers and lecturers rather than being used by students; and Pegasus, which is a Classics journal published internally by Exeter University and again, you won't find it in university libraries UK-wide or anything like that).

Totally agree with the Boosh though - even if you don't manage to do any of this, as long as you build up a decent CV and good grades there's absolutely no reason why you wouldn't get onto a Masters course :smile:

Reply 4

drmoney89

OP

1

cheers for the feedback guys! what kind of funding or financial help could i get when undetaking a masters or PhD as an international student? would it be possible to work at the uni tutoring students, etc to help pay for it?

Reply 5

Angelil

19

Teaching eh? You tend to only get PhD students doing this and getting paid for it; not sure if they'd let a Masters student do it on a formal basis (i.e. being employed by the uni) - probably not. On the other hand, if you wanted to give private language tuition (e.g. teaching Turkish to someone wanting to learn it, or helping another Turkish student with their English if you feel you're good enough), you could probably try and do that - I see signs up all the time with people advertising their services at a not unreasonable fee :smile:

an early bird in need of guidance!!

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