November 14, 2013
I have attempted to write this blog post on new beginnings, several times during the last month, only to leave it incomplete. I couldn’t bring myself to write it because for me, it didn’t feel like the academic year had actually begun. Yes, I had selected the subjects for the year, registered online, and even downloaded the subject guides but I didn’t have any hard evidence to pull me out of my prolonged holiday bliss.
Then I came home last evening to find the now familiar cardboard box marked University of London. For a moment I just stood there looking at it. My books had arrived. Procrastination was not an option anymore. The new academic year had indeed begun.
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LLB | Tagged: Academic term, Bachelor of Laws, contract law, Distance Learning, independent study, Law, LLB, Motivation, new academic year, Procrastination, Sri Lanka, study guide, study independently, Textbook, University of London, University of London International Programmes, UoL, UOL International Programmes | 
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Posted by sandarenua
August 5, 2013
The well-deserved break is almost over and the next academic year is just around the corner. The break has been pure bliss which is why you haven’t had a blog post from me for a while. With what is left of the precious holiday, this is how I plan to make the best out of it.
1. Spend time with family and friends
My family and friends have suffered while I had my head buried on the books so I’ve made sure I have spent quality time with family and friends. I’ve taken trips with family, spent time giggling and gossiping with my girlfriends and not missed a single event I was invited to. It’s refreshing to spend time with your loved ones and makes up for all the times you’ve had to take rain checks because you were too busy attending lectures or cramming for exams. Besides, we have another academic year ahead of us, we need them to be patient and understanding while we are busy earning our degrees.
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Posted by sandarenua
May 1, 2013
One lesson I learnt from the last academic year is to plan better. I had this fool proof study schedule for this time; at least I thought I did. It had the number of hours, the areas to be covered and exactly what I hoped to achieve each day. I had planned the specific chapters from study guides to revise, pages I’d read from text books, cases I needed to find and read online and past paper questions I would attempt.
I had considered that I take longer to read Trust Law material than Tort Law, when allocating time for the subjects. I had tried to be as specific and practical as possible. I had considered all my personal and professional commitments. I was all set for the exams. Except there was one thing I had forgotten to consider in my schedule; Life. I had not realized that sometimes when we have a plan for life, life can have a different one for us.
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16 Comments | LLB | Tagged: Bachelor of Laws, contract law, Distance Learning, Exams, independent study, Law, Learning strategies, LLB, planning, Reading, Sri Lanka, study independently, study schedule, studying, torts, University of London, University of London External System, University of London International Programmes, UoL | Permalink
Posted by sandarenua
March 5, 2013
LLB blogger Sandaranu of Sri Lanka
I thought the LLB was going to be easy. I was 25 when I made the decision to start my LLB with the University of London International Programmes in Sri Lanka. By this time I already had my Bachelor of Business and MBA. I was working full time as a teacher, an examiner for a local examination body and an entrepreneur. Surely it had to be easy for me, I thought, with my experience as a teacher and examiner.
I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Before I knew it was in the deep end of the pool without a life jacket. Not only did I realize that studying law required an entire different mindset to studying management, I also realized it demanded self-discipline, commitment and most of all; time. As a management student and teacher I was used to short notes, video clips, calculations, challenging theory, bypassing text books, and last minute studying. None of those was going to work with a LLB. LLB required sitting down and reading, memorizing, thinking and then some more reading.
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28 Comments | LLB | Tagged: Bachelor of Laws, contract law, Distance Learning, Exams, independent study, Law, Learning strategies, LLB, Reading, Sri Lanka, study independently, University of London, University of London External System, University of London International Programmes, UoL | Permalink
Posted by sandarenua
February 21, 2013
Hello. My second post is about the struggle of squeezing the dough of learning material into the more or less clear patterns to get some structured knowledge in the end. I am a law student so my point of view is affected by that fact, but hopefully other people find the ideas useful to them too.
My first serious encounter with the difficultly of grasping new law concepts occurred when I finished reading the Contract Law textbook by Richard Stone, 5th edition. I wasn’t enrolled in a course at the time, but I wanted to learn English contract law so I read it almost every day for about 5 months while commuting to Moscow from my suburbs. I remember this funny feeling of emptiness in my head when I turned the last page – I could not recall much of what I read. I remember asking myself what do I know about the English law of contracts now, when some 500 pages are done and I clearly remember thinking something like “not much, really”. To say that this was frustrating is to say nothing. I felt like a little kid who was tricked by some elder bad guys into a scheme where all my lunch money was somehow taken away from me and there was no one to turn to now because people would laugh at me if I tell them what happened.
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Posted by legumstudent
