Second-year law students were shocked to find all of their exams scheduled within one week when the exam timetable was released on the Tuesday of the break.
“A lot of people lost their shit,” said one second-year student. The mix-up was quickly resolved after a barrage of complaints to SOULS, the law students’ association, and the Law Faculty. “It was a bit of a stitch up, but then again everyone was in the same boat,” the second-year student told Critic.
The second-year law course involves four full-year papers and a lot of content. One student estimated that across the four courses, there would be “easily over 1000 pages” of compulsory readings.
Professor Jessica Palmer, the Law School Dean, noted that the four exams had always been spaced out evenly in the past, with at least four days in between each. She said that each paper has “a demanding 3-hour examination in Semester 2”.
That didn’t get communicated to the Examinations Office before the release of the timetable. But Palmer said “[as] soon as [she] made the Examinations Office aware of the scheduling issue this year, they responded very quickly to correct the timetable”.
SOULS posted on the second-year page the day after the timetable was released. “Second year is stressful enough without throwing in curveballs like this,” they said. They also directed the students towards support through the SOULS mentor programme.
On Wednesday of last week, the Examination Office resolved the problem by providing an updated exam timetable with more spacing between the exams. SOULS told Critic that “everything has since been sorted and there is now much wider spacing between the four exams”.