As you know I was recently offered a place to study the six subjects I need to qualify as a lawyer in Australia, yay! I am very relieved to have that worry of my mind and I am getting things ready so that I can start studying at the start of March.
Whilst I am relieved I am also very anxious about actually doing this studying stuff. I haven’t studied for an exam since I finished my post-graduate course in 2004 and I am sure I have forgotten how to sit down, study and learn things in a learning environment.
I have learnt heaps in the 18 months I have been in Darwin. In my first job I worked as a PA/Secretary as I found it really difficult to find a job doing legal work (thank you for giving me that chance guys), and had to learn those skills as well as what was required for completely new areas of law that I had never worked in and had only in some cases, briefly studied at university. I then became a Law Clerk and had to learn two new areas of law at the same time and it’s been one heck of a steep learning curve for me already but still I am nervous about being able to study, work full-time, blog (!) and try to have a bit of a life at the same time.
I know I have studied a degree and post-graduate course so I can do it but I wonder, can I do it now? Learning a subject for an essay or exam is quite different to applying the law to a scenario for work so I feel like I’m going to have to re-learn those learning tools again.
I can study up to 4 subjects at a time as a “part-time” student and I know I could never manage four at a time so one of the debates is whether I can manage 2 subjects and working or whether I should just try one for now. The only problem is I could probably get 6 subjects done in a year and a semester meaning I could qualify around July 2016 if I studied 2 at a time but if I break it down it’s going to be more like 2 years of studying and qualifying late 2016 or early 2017 and I really want to qualify in 2016.
Decisions, decisions! Of course one good thing from studying is that I won’t have time to spend money so may be able to save a bit this year! Also 2014 flew by so hopefully the studying will also fly by and before I know it I will be admitted as a solicitor in Australia 🙂
Have you ever been in this kind of situation before? How did you manage to fit in studying with the rest of your life? Any revision or studying tips?
Hi lovely, It is a tough one! I was in exactly the same position a few years ago when I studied Ilex. The course was over two years, but we were encouraged to try doing it in one. This meant studying in the evenings along working full time. I passed most fine, and only had to retake one module, which went really well in the resit. I say if you can, take them all in one year, it’ll be tough but rewarding! Worse comes to worse, you may have to retake one or more modules, but in the best case scenario, you’ll be done in 2016! 😀 xx
Thank you for your fantastic advice lovely 🙂
you’re welcome. What do you think you’ll do? x
I’m going to sign up and do 2 subjects at a time and just get it out of the way 🙂 I figure I just need to pass them not to crazy to get the highest marks so will just see how it all goes