Case Study

I chose to study at Sunderland as it was close to my hometown of Washington. I love living in the North East and had no interest in leaving. I had the opportunity to take the integrated foundation year, and this enabled me to live university life and become familiar with the campus and its facilities prior to commencing the first year of my LLB course.

During my GCSEs, my mother unexpectedly died, following a 4-year battle with cancer. I did not feel I had the time to properly mourn or process what had happened. After I completed my GSCEs I decided that I needed to take some time out to deal with my grief, so I worked for EE in a call centre and during this time became determined to study and pursue a career in law. Despite my atypical route into legal studies, I have performed well, and I gained a First overall.

My favourite part of the course was the opportunity to work in the Student Law Clinic on live client cases. This gave me invaluable skills and extra learning opportunities that included becoming a dementia friend. My advice to prospective students would be to take notes from day one, do not be afraid to ask for help or have work reviewed from your lectures and don’t leave it to the last minute.

Pursuing the Bar is a difficult and expensive process, so I applied for an Inn’s of Court scholarship specifically with Inner Temple, I chose this Inn due to being part of its outreach programme ‘The Pegasus Access and Support Scheme’ (PASS) that gave great insight into the Inn and their inclusive modern ways. Each year around 500 people apply and around 100 scholarships are awarded. I was invited to interview with a panel comprising of Barristers and Judges. After 3 weeks of waiting, I was successfully awarded a large exhibition scholarship and Duke of Edinburgh Award from the Inner Temple and in addition to this I was lucky enough to be contacted by Northumbria University to advise that I had successfully been awarded a fee waiver scholarship from them.

My future career goal is to complete the Bar course, obtain pupillage and become a Barrister, ideally practicing criminal law with a view of working for the Crown Prosecution Service.

I can say with honest conviction that my experience was enjoyable and extremely successful after achieving my results and that there are no negatives, I believe the University of Sunderland for Law should be highly regarded."

Published 12 July 2021