Heyy, I’m Aba and I study Law at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. I can’t say Law is something I always wanted to study since I did 3 sciences at A-Level, as well as Philosophy and Ethics, however after taking part in legal competitions and reading about law as an academic subject, I realised it was something I really enjoyed.
Due to the pandemic, our lectures are recorded and sent two weeks before the designated supervision, so I don’t have a set structure as to how many I watch a week. However, I aim to watch at least 2 a day, totalling 8-10 hours of lectures a week. As a first year Law student, you can expect to have 2 supervisions a week (each approximately 1 hour long) with one Legal Skills seminar every other week for first term (Michaelmas). The modules you do are Civil Law, Criminal Law, Constitutional Law and Tort law. The work for supervisions varies from supervisor to supervisor, but typically, you will have textbook reading, case reading, articles, supervision questions and potentially an essay/problem question. Problem questions are my favourite as here, you are really tested on how you apply the law which is essentially what you will be doing if you choose to pursue a career as a solicitor or barrister. The Legal Skills seminar will prepare you for a 3000-word piece of coursework that is due at the start of second term (Lent). Just to pre-warn you, the workload is very different to A-Level, however it is a process of learning what you do and do not need to read in depth and what you can save for the holidays.
Interviewing at Cambridge seems a lot more daunting than I actually found it to be. The 2nd and 3rd years who were helping out were so kind and re-assuring which made the whole experience a lot less nerve wracking. Interviews differ from college to college so what I had experienced may be very different to another applicant. I had 2 interviews and the Cambridge Law Test in-between them which made my day feel a lot more spread out. In one of the interviews, I got given a piece of legislation to read beforehand which would be discussed in regard to different situations where the legislation would need to be applied. My second interview was more of a general discussion about legal problems and scenarios and I was not asked about my personal statement at all. My one piece of advice for interviewing is to ask for a moment to think before answering any questions. This is so that you can formulate an argument in your head and speak coherently as opposed to saying the first thing that comes to mind as it might not necessarily make sense. You do not need any prior legal knowledge for the interview as they require an application of common sense, unless you have talked about a particular area of the law in depth in your personal statement. Your interviewers aren’t there to trip you up, they will help you of you get stuck so just ask!
The Cambridge Law Test requires you to write an essay or the answer to a problem or question on a topic or idea that is related to the law in 1 hour. However, the questions will not require that you have any prior knowledge of the law as admissions tutors will be looking to assess your critical reading and writing skills.
The law is at times a complex and confusing concept, however that’s what makes it so enjoyable. Working your way through complicated legal ideas and decisions and formulating arguments about what you may or may not agree with and why allows you to build skills that are not only useful for academic study, but the wider world, no matter what career you eventually choose!