This post has been posted on behalf of Undergraduate Laws. Please note views expressed on the following blog are those of the students and publication on the Undergraduate Laws blog does not constitute an endorsement.
A First Class result is a significant achievement, but there is no single path to getting there. Behind every result is a different story of hard work, challenges, motivation and personal growth.
Here, two Undergraduate Laws LLB graduates share their different journeys to achieving a First, and the experiences that shaped them along the way.
Diya Aneel Bhatia
The LLB is not as difficult as people assume, if I’m being honest. The material is manageable. What is difficult is doing the work consistently for three years without losing the reason you started.
My academic record before joining Islamabad School of Law was average. Joining ISL changed that. It is where I learned to work with discipline instead of relying on whatever had gotten me through before. Three years ago, no one, including me, would have predicted a First.
My goal when I started the LLB was simply to work hard and to make my father proud. Early on, seniors and peers would tell me to aim for a distinction, since that way I would at least land a merit. Looking back, I do not think that is good advice, and I would not give it to anyone. Setting your sights lower to protect yourself from disappointment is not the same as working hard. Between that advice and my own goal, I ended up with a good result in first year.
However, that result in first year meant people expected the same after it. My reason for working also changed with it. I was no longer studying only for myself, I was studying to prove that I could do it again. This is not a sustainable or a healthy way to be motivated, but it produced something useful. Proving myself to others eventually became proving something to myself.
I also found subjects I was genuinely interested in, not just grades I wanted. Public law, Islamic law, and Jurisprudence were not chosen because they were easy. I found them so interesting that I started doing independent research outside the given readings, because I wanted to see every perspective on a question, not just the ones assigned to me. I think that is what led me to score well in them.
By the final exams, I was exhausted, and at points close to burnout. The degree demands a great deal, and there is no way around that. Getting through it showed me what I can handle. I will get to tell my father about this result before he reads it anywhere else, and that matters to me more than anything else.
But if I am honest, even this does not feel like enough. I do not know if it ever will. The drive to do more did not stop the moment I got what I was working toward. The pressure never fully disappeared, and I am not sure it should have. That is the only thing I would tell someone starting this degree: the pressure does not go away. You just decide what to do with it.
Dylan Justin Goh-Lee
Born in Paramaribo, Suriname, to a Malaysian father, and a Surinamese mother, my name is Dylan, and I was asked to write about my journey on the UoL LLB. As a Malaysian, I grew up on an island of Penang, Malaysia, where “pokok-pokok Pinang” shaded our walkways.
Before studying law, I was unconfident and had no direction. This came after a massive blow after my High School final exams where I scored poor grades, almost failing my papers. Transitioning into the next phase of life was difficult. It was not until a teacher told me that I had great potential in studying law. At the time I thought that was ridiculous, but in retrospect I am glad I took that word of advice seriously. At 19, I made the difficult decision to leave my comfortable life in Penang and move to Kuala Lumpur to study at a recognised teaching centre. It was not easy as it took time getting used to the new environment, I told myself that I needed to “step out of my comfort zone”. I had to endure the rush-hour traffic jam while trying to get to classes and then settling down after the stressful commute to focus on my lectures. At home I also put in as much time as I could to study law after classes to ensure that I understood the law. Importantly, I could not have done it without my family, my mother always ensured that food was on the table for us, and my father worked hard to give us a comfortable home. This achievement is not my biggest, although it is spectacular no doubt, my biggest achievement in life is my wonderful family that loved me throughout my life.
I would also like to thank my lecturers as they supported me throughout my undergraduate years and were a great motivation for me to study hard. My close friends made classes more bearable, and I hope they understand how much I cherish them. Most importantly, I think that God was behind my success, He chose me as His child, and I worked hard to achieve this with the talents that God has given me. God has given me everything that I have in life, and I could not have achieved this without His help. As the great Jurist, St. Augustine of Hippo once wrote “O Lord, everything good in me is due to You. The rest is my fault.” I came to know about this great philosopher while studying Jurisprudence, and he has since become one of my favourite thinkers, his words here perfectly capture how I feel about this achievement. Finally, to anyone who is reading this; do not lose hope in your future, I was in a dark place after finishing my High School, but I had faith that the future held great things for me, and that worked out for me.