Hi again! A BIG thank you to all who read my first post and shared some thoughts on which university to choose for a JD programme. Your comments were much appreciated and really helped me get through the decision-making process more efficiently. So, after much thought and consideration on both personal and professional fronts, I have decided to pursue my JD studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong!
The Chinese University of Hong Kong (or CUHK) is a reputed university worldwide with high placements as delivered by the QS and Times Higher Education Rankings. For example, it is currently part of the "Top 10 Universities" within Asia overall, with its Law School ranking in the "Top 20." With its state-of-the art facilities and faculty, CUHK is surely not an opportunity to miss out on. In fact, it is the first university I've come across to separate its Graduate Law Center from its main campus in Shatin, Hong Kong. In other words, instead of mixing its Graduate law students with the rest of the student body in Shatin, the university has them appear for classes in a wholly separate office-style campus in the Bank of America Tower in Central Hong Kong; the heart of the business hub! I believe this is a very clever technique to intellectually enrich the minds of future lawyers while they study the subject!
Hence, with the outset of my decision, I have completed all the formalities, registered for the JD programme and even got a conditional offer for graduating with a First Class Honours and a 4.0 GPA in Accounting & Finance. Now that this degree is well-over, I am all set for selecting courses and starting this new adventure in law very very soon! I have to select courses such as "Principles of Constitutional Law", "The Legal System", and alike- courses that are very different from the typical "Corporate Finance" and "Advanced Accounting" I took in undergrad. Moreover, the teaching system in classes is very different from what I've experienced so far. For example, instead of regular 1-2 hour lectures that take place 2 times a week, I have to attend 3-hour seminars for each course every week. Some of these seminars take place in the late evenings, something that I am not used to since I mostly attended morning and afternoon lectures during my undergraduate studies.
On top of this, I'll have to complete a big dissertation in law in order to graduate with a JD. This is very different as well since I have only been writing essays and papers for my courses till now, not writing a piece that equals to a whole course!
Keeping all this in mind, one thing I have come to understand is that my study style for the JD will have to be very different from the one I undertook for my Accounting & Finance. This is because, unlike Accounting, the field of law is not a bunch of formulas and equations that must be memorized in order to debit and credit properly. The field of law is not limited to certain principles or case studies. Instead, the field of law is like the ocean, vast and endless. Maybe this is the reason why people often relate law to big, heavy books; simply because there is no stop to it. Laws are developing and changing every day, in every jurisdiction and in every case worldwide. Hence, as lawyers, we can never claim to know “everything” and rather strive to know the most we can in order to reach solutions.
Overall, even though I have not formally started my JD studies yet, this journey is already bringing many changes to my life. Some are exciting, some challenging, but that's what makes it interesting! Stay tuned for more details in the next blog!
Cheers,
Raveena
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