Is Studying Arts Law at UWS a good choice ? (1 Viewer)

[katie2011]

Hey guys
Well I'm new to the site and I'm not too sure if there is a similar post or not so I thought i'd give it a go.
I'm currently in year 12 and thinking about university choices.
I really want to do an Arts/Law combined degree and have been looking at UWS.
Being realistic I know I'm probably not going to get a 95+ so i think UWS is my aim.
Im wondering if UWS is good for this combination and any other information about culture, teaching methods or even your opinions if you study there..

any replys would be greatly appreciated .

 

[muhahahahahaha]

hey katie2011. I dont study arts/law but i study comm/law. At first, I didnt really like university of westen sydney. The students that I first met were really up themselves to be honest, but then I found a few people that were a lot like me. It wasnt too hard making friends. I think in terms of culture, I found that UWS had a buzzing environment of culturally diverse students. The actual law course is good. It is very practical, compared to other universities who seem to focus mor on the theorietical aspects of law. At UWS you actually practice what you learn e.g. yesterday in intro to law, we had an in class moot about some cases that were given to us. we had to interpret the meaning of legislation and apply the different approaches of interpreting law which really helped us to grasp the concept of what the teacher was saying.
As for the Arts, I hear that Arts is pretty good (though you might have to complete the arts degree at bankstown if you are going to do law at parra...not sure how campbelltown is like).
A lot of my friends like the arts/law combination. Apparently, a lot of magistrates and judges tend to have completed the arts/law degree (according to my intro to law teacher)
I hope this helps

 

[katie2011]

Thanks so much for your reply
I've heard the law courses are really good in the way that they are so practical compared to other universities.
I'm looking forward to starting next year hopefully *Fingers crossed* haha.

 

[katie2011]

Thanks so much for your reply
I've heard the law courses are really good in the way that they are so practical compared to other universities.
I'm looking forward to starting next year hopefully *Fingers crossed* haha.

 

[ixswans]

I'm doing Arts Law at UWS Parramatta, and I love the course! I think if I hadn't of had already done a year at USyd and fallen in love with the Uni I would have very little desire to transfer out. I'm not at Uni very much, and the travel time is really convenient if you live in Western Sydney already (even if you aren't, you're generally going opposite to the morning rush).

The course is practical like the above poster said - we did get up and do statutory interpretation in the classes (in Intro to Law) in front of 'judges' and we heard verdicts from them as to who was better and why. The seminars are basically lectures and tutorials fused together into 3 hours (with a coffee break obviously!) which I found much more helpful than the traditional lecture-tutorial I had to do at USyd (I did however do Med Sci which may be a little different to how Law is structured there). Torts Law is pretty much the same course everywhere so I won't comment on that.

Overall, I think the idea that UWS is less favoured by the top employers is kind of right. But if you're a good student with a good gpa (and it'll be ALL your own work as there's no scaling whatsoever), then you don't really have anything to worry about. Good students are preferred everywhere, and its the students that barely pass and have little to no practical experience that tend to suffer with the general misconception.

The Arts course is pretty standard. You have a pretty rigid schedule of pre-req's but they're good subjects so no complaints from me!

 

[katie2011]

Thanks for your reply ixswans.
It sounds overall to be an interesting course. Its a shame that some employers have such an opinion.. a degree IS a degree , and you have to be a hardworking student to achieve it.
I wasn't too sure how the Arts course would be either.. i haven't heard too much about UWS Arts :S
Lots of people at school think i'm strange in my subject choice but they are good

 

[muhahahahahaha]

ixswans are you in my intro class with margaret??? are you kritika??

 

[Deathless]

hey katie2011. I dont study arts/law but i study comm/law. At first, I didnt really like university of westen sydney. The students that I first met were really up themselves to be honest, but then I found a few people that were a lot like me. It wasnt too hard making friends. I think in terms of culture, I found that UWS had a buzzing environment of culturally diverse students. The actual law course is good. It is very practical, compared to other universities who seem to focus mor on the theorietical aspects of law. At UWS you actually practice what you learn e.g. yesterday in intro to law, we had an in class moot about some cases that were given to us. we had to interpret the meaning of legislation and apply the different approaches of interpreting law which really helped us to grasp the concept of what the teacher was saying.
As for the Arts, I hear that Arts is pretty good (though you might have to complete the arts degree at bankstown if you are going to do law at parra...not sure how campbelltown is like).
A lot of my friends like the arts/law combination. Apparently, a lot of magistrates and judges tend to have completed the arts/law degree (according to my intro to law teacher)
I hope this helps

If you can't go anywhere else for Law. Then go to UWS. Don't mind others' opinion of you.

 

[I Study Hard]

I do Law/Comm at UWS (2nd year) and I love it at UWS. UWS was my 'last resort' uni, but now after being here for awhile I have really grown to like it. The law faculty is great at UWS, I can't comment on Arts but I do know that if you want to do Arts you need to go to either Bankstown or Penrith while Campbelltown and Parramatta are where they have law classes.
Also, Katie, I see that you're doing legal studies, I'll have to double check to see if they still use the same system for bonus points as they did when I did my HSC but for UWS if you get a band 5 or 6 in legal studies you get 10 bonus points if you're applying for a law degree =P

 

[ixswans]

ixswans are you in my intro class with margaret??? are you kritika??

haha - i am! who are you?!

 

[DanTarts]

I'm doing a B Arts/B Commerce so I can only comment about the B Arts component. I have looked at other B Arts degrees from other universities and I find that Arts IS Arts at UWS. You cover everything from history, psychology, texts, linguistics, etc. Other universities' B Arts degrees tend to be more free in terms of the number of electives you can pick. That's what I think at least.

Quality wise, it isn't bad. I really love the diverse range of core units you study. You can touch on various fields such as Psychology because you have a general interest in it but don't necessarily want to peruse a career in for example. It isn't a useless degree if you know how to use it or studying it with another degree. There are a lot of misconceptions about BA but they simply aren't true.

UWS as a whole isn't bad. I used to think that in Year 12 and didn't put it down in my preferences but had to when I didn't receive any offers. I applied to transfer courses (both internally and externally to other unis) for this year and received an offer to UNSW which I turned down. It sounds silly, but I really love the relaxed atmosphere and support academics give that you won't get in unis like USyd or UNSW. I believe that's also a very important aspect when deciding unis. Never take the appearance or the size of a uni's campus into account because you're not living there and you won't be studying in every single building. A smaller campus has its own advantages as you don't have to walk around as much.

 

[LoveHateSchool]

I don't have anything to chime in with except this:

I'd always do my preferred course over going to a preferred institute. That is if I wanted to do Arts/Law and could on get into it in UWS (despite liking UNSW more) I'd still go to UWS. So if you heart is set on Arts/Law, you should take whatever institute you can get into (you can be fussy if you could get into a few).

 

[enoilgam]

I'd always do my preferred course over going to a preferred institute. .

This. Also, everyone always bags UWS but most people who go there really like the university and having nothing bad to say about it.