There are many reasons why you might want to study Law. Law is as often the choice of the person who likes debate, trying to solve practical problems and trying to get to the best solution, as it is the choice of the abstract thinker who likes to ponder the meaning of words and concepts. It’s very likely that, whatever your reasons for being interested in Law, there will be others who share them in Cambridge.
At Trinity, we treat Law as an academic discipline with a wide range of political, social, philosophical, historical and international aspects, not simply as a preparation for the practising lawyer. Reading the subject for three years at university, however, does provide an excellent grounding for those considering a career in Law. After graduation, many of our law students go on to become either barristers or solicitors.
Trinity’s Law Fellows have strong links with many legal practitioners and are therefore well placed to advise on entry to the professions. We also have an active association of alumni, former students at Trinity who lend a hand in helping the current generation of students to understand and succeed in the world once they graduate.
Trinity’s Law Fellows will teach you for many of your subjects. That teaching will take place in small group sessions in the Fellow’s rooms with on average three students. These supervisions, as they are called, take place for all your subjects every fortnight, so a first year student (who takes four subjects) will have two a week. These provide an amazing opportunity to sharpen your thinking and stretch your mind, an opportunity almost unparalleled in the country.
Your teaching in College goes hand in hand with your lectures in the Faculty: the supervisions tie in with lectures. Indeed, in many areas it is Trinity Law Fellows who will lecture you in the Faculty, write the book you study from and be there to thrash out and debate the issues in supervisions. The University’s teaching and research facilities are located in the Law Faculty Building and undergraduates spend much of their working day there either at lectures or in the Squire Law Library. In addition to supervisions, the College provides a stimulating academic atmosphere. The College also has its own Law Reading Room, which is open 24 hours a day and contains all the essential books on law, law reports and law journals. It is a special resource which is amongst the best in the Cambridge and a huge advantage to your study. There is also special law-book loan scheme under which you may borrow a basic textbook in each compulsory subject and retain those books until the end of the academic year.
It is possible to study Law at Trinity either for the full three years of the Law Tripos or for only two years if you switch from another subject. With an intake in the first year of a dozen or so students, a couple of changeovers (those switching to Law in their second or third years), and a few from abroad taking the one-year postgraduate course, the total number of law students in the College at any one time is around 45.
In most years, at least one or two Trinity students participate in an exchange scheme organised by the University which allows them to spend their third year at the Universities of Poitiers in France, Regensburg in Germany, Utrecht in the Netherlands or Madrid in Spain. The students then return to Cambridge for a fourth year of study. You apply to take part in this exchange at the start of your second year, not when you apply to Cambridge
Outside of Law, the College is a warm and lively place with activities, facilities and groups to support everything. The College provides excellent pastoral care, if you should have difficulties while in Cambridge. Trinity also has beautiful historic buildings and some amusing traditions if you care to find out about them! If by some chance you don’t find what you want in Trinity, you need only look to 200 other law students in the faculty, the 30 other Colleges, the hundreds of University clubs and societies or the 120,000 people in the city of Cambridge. No one need be bored, lonely or lacking another pair of hands for table football.
Of course, you might come to Cambridge for many reasons, but a desire to study must be one of them. Law is a fascinating subject. To get the most out of your time and the opportunities in Cambridge you will have to work hard. Law is often said to be one of the most demanding subjects in Cambridge if done properly. But we think it is one of the most rewarding too.
For more information on studying Law at Trinity you may be interested in Following:
Information on how to apply can be found on the Access at Trinity pages. It has been planned to tie in with the afternoon events of the Law Faculty Open Day to allow participants to get an in-depth understanding of the Cambridge Law course