What comes to mind when you think of Law School and Residential College (RC)? Probably the 12-hour study days that one would have to do on the daily, or the many activities you would have to participate in, whilst living on campus. There has been a canon of films and television series surrounding how intense Law School can get, from the recent K-drama Law School to cult classics like Legally Blonde. However, the reality might be further from the depiction of law school in the media. Follow Calista Tan (NUS Law, Year 1), a fellow Year 1 Law Student and Tembusu Resident through a day in her life.
Starting the Day
Calista usually wakes up at around 7 am to get ready, go down and have breakfast. The Tembusu breakfast offers staples like toast and muffins.
Breakfast at Tembusu
Due to long bus intervals of the Bukit Timah Campus (BTC) loop, Calista usually catches the 7.15 am bus in order to reach school at 7.40 am. Although her classes usually start at 9 am, she uses this time to catch up on her readings and prepare for her lectures and tutorials in the Law Campus.
Curriculum Hours
After that, she normally attends a lecture and a tutorial (2 hours each) from her 8 modules that she has to complete. In Singapore, the law system is modelled after the British common law that is established through cases. Consequently, most readings from NUS Law are cases that have helped ground the Singapore Law. These cases are judgements that provide a framework for students to learn more about judgements in the Singapore Law System. Each case is usually a 10 – 30 page transcript and there are approximately 10 cases assigned for one module. If you do the math, you would realise that minimally, a Law student is assigned 800 pages worth of readings in a week, which is quite daunting especially as a year 1 student. She ends her curriculum hours at around 12-2 pm, depending on how busy her day is.
Law School Lecture and Tutorial Classes
After Curriculum Hours
After that, unless she needs to stay on campus, Calista usually goes back to UTown, where Tembusu is, to study. If she’s feeling productive, she squeezes in a gym session at the Utown gym. Normally, she would study 3-4 more hours to finish her readings and her revision. However, during the mid-term period, she puts in 6-7 hours of revision a day to ensure that she is on top of her academic work, as academics, doing well in Law School is her top priority in University. Despite having a heavy workload, Calista takes steps to mitigate this by finding summaries of ‘unimportant’ cases on the Internet in order to be more efficient when studying, and focus on the ones that matter the most. Calista would find it impossible to read 800 pages and have a life anyway. Hence, doing this can help her study smarter at the same time.
In NUS Law, there are Co-Curricular Activities (CCAs) for students to join. Calista is currently in Pro Bono where they help students hone their lawyering skills whilst serving the community through legal work. She is also in Collaborative Dispute and Resolution Club (CRDC) where she learns negotiating skills that can be a major presence in business deals in a legal context. All these experiences would expose her to different skill sets of being a lawyer and are helpful in exposing her to the law practice in different contexts.
Staying at an Residential College (RC)
In the midst of Law School, Calista has chosen to stay in an RC as it gives her a variation to her life. Besides studying, she participates in various non-obligatory CCAs like boxing, coffee-making, yoga and pilates as she is in her “healthy girl era”. Other activities that she participated in include, Acai workshops and Latte Art workshops provided by the RC. Normally, RC activities are held at night, which takes up quite some time. Therefore, Calistas’ day usually ends around 1-1.30 am and then she wakes up at 7 am to do it all over again. For Calista, staying in an RC comes at the cost of her sleep and perhaps study time, but all of it is worth it because of the community forged in the RC.
Calista’s bedroom in Tembusu
Coping With Law School
Despite its rigour, one major misconception is that Law students would have to memorise “the entire constitution” or everything in the book. Truth is, according to Calista, most exams are open book and frameworks are given for certain judgements. Hence, you may not necessarily need to memorise everything all the time. That being said, time management is key in Law School. For Calista, organising tasks a week beforehand is crucial in surviving such a fierce environment. She normally sets out to do daily tasks, time-block and plan her entire day, which helps her manage her workload.
Setting boundaries is also key for surviving Law school, according to Calista. Oftentimes, she has to reject socialising opportunities like supper in order to study and this stems from knowing what to prioritise in university life and setting boundaries for that.
Adjustment Period
Coming from the Junior College (JC) Curriculum, adapting to Law school is not an easy feat. The JC Curriculum culminates in the A-levels, a qualification based on a one-time exam that determines your scores entering into university. However, in University, it is based on a Grade-Point Average (GPA) based on different shapes of assignments, essays, group projects and even presentations. One of the main struggles of university is adjusting to the GPA grading system through being consistent and finishing the mountain of readings she has to do.
Conclusion
Law School does have a reputation for being harsh and competitive, and it is within reason that this is the case. However, Calista has proven that with good boundary setting skills and time management, she can juggle staying in an RC and Law School together. Calista thinks that university at the end of the day, is about what you want to get out of it and what you want to sacrifice. If you are considering Law, it may seem intimidating, but with good discipline, you can pull through and survive Law School. You can also stay at an RC if you learn how to set good boundaries and say ‘no’ to things that may not benefit you in the long-term.
Tembusu pictures are taken by Calista Law School pictures are taken from NUS Law