Reality

I think I'm finally starting to realise that I'm in my fourth year of study. As I'm doing a dual degree, I'm essentially a third year law student.

At the start of my lecture today the course co-ordinator was outlining what he expects of us. He stated a few times that as the subject is a level 3 law course much more is expected than in previous courses. He outlined what is required for a mere pass and I was in absolute shock.

I have no doubt that there is a great deal more work that I could have done in the past, and that sometimes my assessment isn't as good as it could have been, but it seems like it's a rather large jump.

Perhaps the expectations aren't as high as the lecturer suggested. The jump between first year and second year was minimal and it seems unlikely to me that there would be too much of a difference in the grading schemes.

The Law Society at my University releases a 'guide' of sorts each year that compiles student feedback on subjects and includes a breakdown of the results. I usually forget to look at it until the end of the semester when I find valuable advice that would have been helpful 6 weeks earlier. I've had  a good look at both core subjects I am taking this semester and from what I can tell the marking last year was relatively lenient. I'm generally an optimist, so I'd like to think that the lecturer was just trying to encourage us to perform as well as we can.

Whether or not the lecturer was speaking truth, I'm stepping up my act. I doubt that I'll read every case, but I'm going to read as many as I can. I'm going to have a concise summary of my readings, lectures and tutorials completed each week.

I'm also probably going to complain about the unrealistic expectation I have of myself.