So...you've made it into law school. Forget about the degree progression guide your university tells you to follow, this is the *real* degree progression guide you need.
source // cyfe
First Year
You’ve received an offer to study law. Congrats, you’re going to be a lawyer! You dream about a world where you’re jetting between offices, perfectly-ironed suits, modern offices with marble walls as you save the world with one “I object!” at a time. You start peppering uti possidetis and ipso facto into your conversations because why not? You’re a law student now, you’re allowed to.
Second Year
By second year, most people would have left their romantic aspirations of fighting injustice and championing international human rights in the ICJ behind in their Foundies class. It’s not only about finding the ratio decidendi now. The textbooks are a bit thicker, the cases are a bit more challenging and you now have to remember the old common law position, the current legal rule, the exception to the rule, the exception to the exception AND the dissenting judgment.
Third Year
You’re quietly a seasoned professional now after having gone through two years of law school. The reality is that yes, though you look like you know what you’re doing, you really don’t. You watch as your friends doing single Bachelor degrees finish their degrees, have free weekends and earn a full-time salary. Then there’s you - leeching off $1 lunches from every society at uni, declining weekend plans with friends because you have to study even though you end up watching a whole season of The O.C. instead.
Fourth Year
Penultimate year - also known as clerkship year as you fight for survival, whilst at the same time trying to convince yourself that you’re commercially aware even though you find it difficult to care about the latest developments in securitisation. At this point, you’ve asked yourself one too many times why you’re studying law. Read. Cry a little and repeat. Live by pacta sunt servanda, die by pacta sunt servanda.
Fifth Year
Remember the days when you actually cared about what you wore to uni? Neither. Despite seeming like a never ending thousand year slog, you sit in your graduation ceremony wondering what you’ve learnt over the past five years apart from the fact that:
You can’t live without coffee;
Law school is expensive; and
You’re glad that you can finally understand all the lawyer jokes.
Au revoir law school.
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