YU YUN, CHRIS (ORIEL COLLEGE, 2009 - 2012)
I can hardly believe one year has passed since I arrived at Oxford. As the BA in Jurisprudence is my second undergraduate degree I enjoyed fully its interesting differences from my first degree.
Five years ago in Beijing I waited anxiously with other forty students for an introduction class to Jurisprudence - the basic of the basics as we are told. Now at the beginning of another course I sat with other seven students in my year listening to Mr. Richard Tur explaining how the intricate system of power separation works. My normal workload in CUPL was two to three compulsory subjects plus four to five optionals, so at first I found it hard to perceive why for two terms we got only three subjects, the pressure of first essay writing soon convinced me that it is demanding enough. I remember one time I felt most helpless not being able to even understand the difficult quotation set as the essay title, and that week I was literally driven by the fear of ignorance into reading and thinking. At my previous university we usually turn in one essay for each optionals as an application of what we learned to theoretical or real legal problems, and for compulsory courses we finish a two-hour exam including multiple choices and corrections testing the precise knowledge of Codes and regulations, and then problems and question-answering. Timed essay-writing may be the best way of mind-training I have experienced - I have to think and absorb during everyday learning to turn all the textbook and journal materials into blocks building up my own opinion. This brings me closer to the marvels of the adversarial system, based on the same knowledge and techniques of argument, I get to take a stand on my very own.
Five years ago in Beijing I waited anxiously with other forty students for an introduction class to Jurisprudence - the basic of the basics as we are told. Now at the beginning of another course I sat with other seven students in my year listening to Mr. Richard Tur explaining how the intricate system of power separation works. My normal workload in CUPL was two to three compulsory subjects plus four to five optionals, so at first I found it hard to perceive why for two terms we got only three subjects, the pressure of first essay writing soon convinced me that it is demanding enough. I remember one time I felt most helpless not being able to even understand the difficult quotation set as the essay title, and that week I was literally driven by the fear of ignorance into reading and thinking. At my previous university we usually turn in one essay for each optionals as an application of what we learned to theoretical or real legal problems, and for compulsory courses we finish a two-hour exam including multiple choices and corrections testing the precise knowledge of Codes and regulations, and then problems and question-answering. Timed essay-writing may be the best way of mind-training I have experienced - I have to think and absorb during everyday learning to turn all the textbook and journal materials into blocks building up my own opinion. This brings me closer to the marvels of the adversarial system, based on the same knowledge and techniques of argument, I get to take a stand on my very own.