I know you see this a lot, but..

SeanyboyQPR

I'm a 6th year student looking at at studying Law next year, I was just wondering if anyone could hand a few pointers? I'm really caught as to where to put top of my CAO.. can anyone here offer any insight as to why you chose UCD over say, trinity? What do you like most about the place? What should I expect? Thanks in advance

errlloyd

I am just about to graduate UCD Law and I couldn't recommend it enough.

You can probably run a search on this board and see me answer a ton of questions on law over the last few years, but I guess I don't mind doing it once last time

UCD Law is a great course, career wise, socially and in terms of providing rounded learning, and the best part is it's getting better every year.

You never really have more than 12 hours a week lectures, (usually less in fact) and that is 6 doubles, so you only touch on each topic once a week. It keeps the variety up. The classes are big, but they have an excellent peer mentor program and smaller tutorial groups in first and second year (tutorials are like groups of 10-15 people instead of lectures).

UCD Law is excellent at practical learning, we absolutely dominate national moot court (which are mock trials). The Advocate moot court competition is considered the toughest Irish one, and I think we've provided 10 out of the last 12 semi finalists. We have proper dedicated modules on practice skills, like advocacy, court practice, legal writing, so you're not just learning law you're getting up on your feet and doing it.

In terms of starting I believe we have the largest range of options.

Pure Law,
Law with French, Politics, History, Social Justice (new), Economics, Philosophy, French Law
Business and Law
BCL Matrisse (Joint Irish and French law qualification)

And from your point of view we have a brand new building opening for September. It's going to have world class facilities, don't underestimate the impact it will have on your education, I am very jealous.

Anything else just ask.

Chris

SeanyboyQPR

errlloyd wrote: »

I am just about to graduate UCD Law and I couldn't recommend it enough.

You can probably run a search on this board and see me answer a ton of questions on law over the last few years, but I guess I don't mind doing it once last time

UCD Law is a great course, career wise, socially and in terms of providing rounded learning, and the best part is it's getting better every year.

You never really have more than 12 hours a week lectures, (usually less in fact) and that is 6 doubles, so you only touch on each topic once a week. It keeps the variety up. The classes are big, but they have an excellent peer mentor program and smaller tutorial groups in first and second year (tutorials are like groups of 10-15 people instead of lectures).

UCD Law is excellent at practical learning, we absolutely dominate national moot court (which are mock trials). The Advocate moot court competition is considered the toughest Irish one, and I think we've provided 10 out of the last 12 semi finalists. We have proper dedicated modules on practice skills, like advocacy, court practice, legal writing, so you're not just learning law you're getting up on your feet and doing it.

In terms of starting I believe we have the largest range of options.

Pure Law,
Law with French, Politics, History, Social Justice (new), Economics, Philosophy, French Law
Business and Law
BCL Matrisse (Joint Irish and French law qualification)

And from your point of view we have a brand new building opening for September. It's going to have world class facilities, don't underestimate the impact it will have on your education, I am very jealous.

Anything else just ask.

Chris

Thanks for taking the time to reply! I just worry that due to the lack of integration with other students in modules and isolation to the new building, ill find it hard to branch out socially! Whats your experience of social life in the university? 609 on the accomodation waiting list so ill hopefully be living in Belgrove!

kilrush

I'm studying engineering so cant talk with experience of law but just being involved in societies and living in residences is a great way of meeting people in all faculties. I've plenty of friends in law and medicine and arts and everything else and if anything Engineering is as isolated if not more so over in the Eng Building so don't worry about being socially isolated because of what course you are in... just being you will be enough !

errlloyd

SeanyboyQPR wrote: »

Thanks for taking the time to reply! I just worry that due to the lack of integration with other students in modules and isolation to the new building, ill find it hard to branch out socially! Whats your experience of social life in the university? 609 on the accomodation waiting list so ill hopefully be living in Belgrove!

We've always had our own building. The last one was a solid 5 minute walk from the centre of campus, this one is effectively in the centre of campus, so it's actually an improvement. Your big lectures will still be in arts ect.

My personal experience with socialising was probably too good (to the detriment of my study). Law itself doesn't have a great insular community (vet and architecture are two courses with famously close communities), but law students tend to get involved in societies, and there is a certain "pro-active" urge to get involved. I dunno if it stems from the fact we're all desperately building our CVs or something.

Law has it's own society (LawSoc) traditionally it is one of the biggest on campus, it also has SLS (Student Legal Service) and Law Review. So even within law there is a pretty active society culture.

If you're living on res (Belgrove in particular) you'll find it hard not to develop a wicked social life.

SeanyboyQPR

All sounds brilliant to be honest! I saw on a sample timetable something about an elective in sports management, surely only included to beef up a usually scanty timetable. But what is the idea of electives? What are they and how do you choose them?

Maldesu

An elective is a module is a module that you can take from any subject within UCD (unless restricted) eg. you do law, but you could take something in Irish just to fill the gap. For most courses you will have 2 electives you can use per year.

beardedmaster

You have 60 credits of modules a year - modules are usually (but not always) 5 credits apiece - so you do 30 credits in Semester 1 and 30 in Semester 2, which are 6 modules each.

Most degrees allow you to have 10 credits a year for electives. People tend to take 1 elective each semester. These can be basically anything you like, so long as it doesn't clash with the Core modules of the degree you are actually doing. People I've known have taken all sorts of modules as electives - the history of Opera, computer programming basics, introductory Japanese - all sorts of things!

Of course, you can always spend those 10 extra credits a year doing 2 extra modules in whatever your degree subject is, if you so wish - so in your case, more Law modules.

You pick your Elective during registration at the start of the year, and again after Christmas if you can/want. There's a big list, or you can go searching for a particular module you have in mind.

errlloyd

Yeah, I should warn you about electives, if you do Law you can take 2 a year, if you do "Law with" you can take 1 a year and if you do Business and Law or Matrisse you can't take any.

An elective is any class, in UCD pretty much, some people use them to broaden horizons, some people just take piss easy ones to bump up their GPA.

It is possible to take "in law" electives and if you do that you'll graduate having done almost every law module (by my maths). During my time in Law I took a 1 elective in development, 1 in sports legislation and 3 in social justice.

Taking 3 in social justice gives you a kind of secondary cert to go with your degree.

Elective are really good, they help you break the mould a little.