In my life I’ve had more than average legal experience, besides a key passion for all things law, my mother is also a lawyer so discussions on the difference between Actus Reus and Mens Rea were common dinner conversation. However, nothing prepped me for my first official law assignment – which I’ve yet to finish might I add.
Picture the scene – fresh into University, finally achieving the big goal I’ve had for several years now, sitting in the zoom call thinking to myself “Wow, this is amazing” to be told my first assignment worth 60% of my overall grade is a case comment…
Now, naturally, I assumed this to be a fancy term for an essay, or even a small report based on a specific case. Easily done, find some facts report on the situation.
OH HOW I WAS WRONG!!
A case comment, for those that don’t know, is a mix of the two. You have to report key facts, even relevant arguments and your personal thoughts, but at the length of an essay. This particular case comment must be 1,000 words. The case that was presented to us, of course, isn’t an easy close shut case. It’s an appeal, joys, and has some questionable ethics regarding use of evidence. So automatically, thrown into the deeper end of things.
Yet my mothers phrasing, ‘they seem to be making it easy for your first assignment!’
My educational career hasn’t been plain and simple, I left high school in 6th year and went to college for two years studying social sciences before taking a night-class at my current university last year before attending university full-time, so naturally the term ‘self-study’ isn’t totally inhumane to me but being only provided a 4 page document as support for an assignment worth more than HALF my OVERALL grade is slightly scaring me.
Reading books, searching case law and perusing the hand-out for some time wasn’t helpful so I called in the cavalry and sought out the one person to make some sense of the task in hand, my mother. A 40 minute Whatsapp call later and I had a…basic understanding on what I was being asked of me.
As said above, I’ve yet to finish this task. This is one case comment of two I’ve do to along with an essay all due before December, during my exam diet.
I can assure you now, this will be the first of MANY rambles and tales of my University stress induced blog posts. Enjoy!
I can’t keep calm I’m studying Law 