Right, so one month down and already there is a significant amount of reading to do. This course really, really expects you to hit the ground running, so I am beginning to regret not taking the pre-course reading more seriously. Yeah, I casually browsed at it...apparently nobody else on the course took that approach, so I'm feeling a little behind already.
The best way I can describe the amount of reading is that in a lecture, you're taught chapters one and two of a book, and are then expected to read chapters three, four and five in your own time, which in some of these textbooks can be up to 200 pages. This does not include all the additional reading that you are expected to glean from journals and cases, which you will be quizzed upon in the seminars. Multiply that amount of reading by the seven different topics you have to cover every fortnight, and you'll begin to understand what is expected of you. Personally, it is finding the time, as opposed to motivation, that is proving problematic.
However, it isn't just the reading and the essay writing now taking up my time. In an effort to turn myself from mediocre non-law student into dazzling potential solicitor, I blanket applied to every solicitor in the hope of getting some work experience, and with some luck, landed a one-day-a-week position at a tiny little solicitors nearby. So far I have got some great experience using the photocopier, and am now a dab hand at making teas and coffees. But, I now get to see the real sorts of legal problems people have, as well as drafting their statements, contacting barristers and similar, so it does feel as though this work will be worthwhile. I believe that in six/seven months' time, these experiences and the contacts I'll build up will be invaluable. Off my course I am the only person to land this sort of work, so I hope it'll give me that vital edge in the job market.
To add another string to my bow, I have joined the local Citizens Advice Bureaux as a debt adviser, which will hopefully expose to me more of the general work of solicitors, give me some useful training and get me some useful contacts, but that remains to be seen. At the end of the day, it puts me in a position to put my (soon to have) legal know how to good use, and help people who really need it.
The more you read about landing that precious training contract/pupillage, the more impossible it seems to be able to land a job on good grades alone, any experience, will hopefully prove invaluble, but finding the time for it all is difficult. Plus with all the reading that is required, this course is proving more full on than I had prepared myself for.