Have you been injured in a conversation with a law student that wasn’t your fault? Have you been unnerved by their coffee habits, worried about their hobbies, and uncertain as to whether they actually want to do their subject? Have you watched the light leave someone’s eyes as they hear the phrase ‘commercial awareness’? You may be entitled to compensation from Law Moderations. These exams, taking place in Hilary of first year, contribute to the subject’s pupils being unable to relax, cut off from other subjects, and distant from friends. The University should move Mods to Trinity, for everyone’s sake.
Disclaimer: every subject at Oxford is incredibly stressful. I’m not saying here that law is more difficult, more prestigious, or more impressive than any other. It’s not. I’m saying that making students take exams after 16 weeks of learning does some strange things. Specifically, the isolating nature of Mods creates lawyers who cannot escape their subject, but can’t enjoy it either. I’m also aware that Classicists do Mods in second year. I know nothing about the experience of sitting them, nor about their peculiarities. That’s for someone else to write.
If you don’t take a gap year, there’s just over a month between A-Level results day and starting at Oxford. You’d better have taken advantage of those brief days. The moment you sit down in the week 0 lecture, the only time the Gulbenkian will be standing-room only, you’re plunged into another ice bath: exam season. There are 16 weeks of term between matriculation and the first Moderation. Good luck thinking of anything but that ticking clock.
Immediately, your outlook is skewed. Instead of considering university an opportunity to explore different interests over time, there’s a brick wall on the horizon. Long-term plans never enter the picture when the short-term is so acutely urgent. Get the content down as quickly as possible, churn it into flashcards, write it out as essay plans, repeat. With so much content and so little time, the issues have no space to breathe.
Oxford prides itself on the philosophical elements in its law course. We call it Jurisprudence, after all, and make it a BA rather than an LLB. The beauty of studying law is in the broader picture: stepping back and seeing a tapestry of logic, philosophy, and humanity. You can’t step back when you’re scared you’ll fall. If you’re not given a chance to fall in love with the subject, if the importance of grades is reiterated at every turn, why would you see it as anything other than a means to an end? Great legal minds could be lost or stifled through bad habits they adopted from unnecessary stress.
Extracurriculars provide that long-term thinking, with a progression through the ranks of societies and a real feeling of achievement in a space untouched by jurisprudence. The workload in Michaelmas is enough to obliterate any hope of them. Tutors cover exam content until week 7 of Hilary, so anything in that term would be madness. And at that very point in the term when applications for Trinity open, you aren’t going to be thinking about joining a committee or a newspaper – you’re going to be trying to bash the Offences Against the Person Act into your head. First year dashes by, with nothing but law to show for it.
It’s a pity, because extracurriculars can provide such vital interdisciplinary thinking. I do student journalism, and am interested in other subjects like history. But watching how my peers solve problems, approach writing, approach thinking, have all made me a better lawyer. My essays have changed since my term as a News section editor. My writing is less meandering, more defined.
First year law is a lonely one. No one goes to lectures and no other subjects are doing exams at the same time. During ‘Trinifree’, your friends have their noses to the grindstone. What’s left but law? There’s pressure to apply for first year days and vacation schemes from the moment Mods ends (if they wait that long). If you’re already used to a structure where you achieve first and ask questions later, practice is a tempting route. It just might pose a problem in an interview when you have no answer for why you want to pursue law. For me, having other options on the table gave me much richer consideration in making my choice. But not everyone has the benefit of that position.
The worst thing about the placement of Mods isn’t that it turns law students into sleep-deprived caffeine addicts with tunnel vision, although none of that’s great. Law is relatively unique in being a subject most people can’t study before undergraduate. The first two terms of the degree are the very point when the spark of learning could be ignited, but the stress of exams threatens to stifle it forever. I’ve been told by friends that I’m the only lawyer they know who seems to like their subject. Sometimes I wonder if that’s because I started it at A-Level.
So, to any first year lawyers reading this – don’t forget why you wanted to study this subject in the first place. Don’t forget that it isn’t your only option. And hey, if you need a new hobby, Cherwell is always looking for new contributors.
