A day in the life of a second-year law student

Meet Eve, a second-year Law LLB(Hons) student, who shares an insight into what it’s like to study law at Brighton Law School in her own words.

A day in my life

Thursday is my busiest day at the University of Brighton with three sessions, all two hours long. I would say that Thursday is my favourite day of the week as I feel the most productive and get to enjoy studying my three modules for this semester.

On another day I usually begin my day at 6am and head to the gym for a morning workout or timetabled class, but on Thursdays I try to sleep in until at least 8am. After waking up I eat breakfast – either pancakes, yoghurt and fruit or toast – check my notes and do some final reading before my 11am Criminal Law lecture.

The law lectures are typically in Mithras House, which is currently under renovation, as the law cohort is pretty sizeable and needs a big room to deliver the information to more than 100 of us!

This week, we were taught about the ins and outs of homicide and involuntary manslaughter, which is really quite interesting.

Elm House atrium, home to the School of Business and Law

Afterwards, I had an hour-long break between 1 and 2pm where I caught up on notes for my next two modules, and treated myself to a pizza from Elm House café.

As a student who studies the Law M100 course, we are required to take two very practical modules in the first semester of the second year. I prepared my ‘skeleton argument’ for the Art of Advocacy module and revised my notes on mediation for my Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) module.

Art of Advocacy is a module in which the assessment consists of having to act as barristers in an active court room to advocate the case at hand. This is also known as a ‘moot.’ During the workshop, we went over the layout and structure of a ‘skeleton argument’ which confirmed my confidence in what I had already produced prior to the session.

At 4pm, I headed from Elm House (home to the School of Business and Law) to the Watts building for my workshop in ADR. In this module, we’re required to learn the skills of a negotiation and mediation in order to successfully complete a mediation scenario for our assessment. Whether it be to negotiate a hostage situation or a family matter, negotiation skills are essential to everyday life! Being a very practical module, it is nice to take a break from the screens and note taking to absorb the content and practice our developed skills in groups during the seminar.

Eve in the SU bar, The Venue

After uni, a few friends and I head over to the student union bar under the Mithras Halls to catch-up over a pint and order some decently priced food! We always find ourselves playing a very competitive game of air hockey or pool.