Hello again! Today I thought I would share some more details about the law program offered at the University of Surrey. As I have mentioned previously, I am currently enrolled in the Law (JD Pathway) LLB (Hons) at Surrey which is a popular option for Canadian students that are interested in returning to Canada after their law degree. What I wanted to talk about in particular for this post are the tutorials.
One big difference between the tutorials here at Surrey and the ones I had during my undergrad is the size of them. During my undergrad the whole class of 200-400 students would be assigned to either the same or two separate tutorials which made for really large groups. At Surrey, we are about 8-12 students per tutorial which allows for a really intimate setting.
In preparation for tutorials we are given tutorial work or homework which mainly consists of reading articles, cases and/or textbook chapters and then answering different questions. We then share and correct our answers during the tutorial.
As JD students, we are placed with our fellow “post-undergrad” students and are often placed with the same professor that teaches the lecture portion of the class. This has been an amazing learning opportunity for me as you truly get one-on-one interaction with your professors and you get to build relationships with your fellow students. I can confidently say that I do most of my learning during my tutorial sessions. I think this is in part because we are given an opportunity to ask our questions directly and in part because of the close setting you almost have to be prepared in advance to answer questions or participate in the discussion. This last part was intimidating at first for me but I have grown to appreciate the pressure of being placed on the spot at times with questions I might not have prepared properly or might not have thought of preparing for.
In all I would say that although tutorials require a lot of work, I believe it has been really beneficial and almost crucial to my academic journey at Surrey thus far.
Cheers!
