The summit

A week on and I still can't quite believe it - the summit has been reached!

The oral exam for Protection of Human Rights went well as we had plenty of time to prepare and Prof. Vandenhole was really good at asking supplementary questions to help improve your grade. Be careful with the materials though - he refused to accept photocopied materials, all the extra documents that he gave us had to be stapled and bound, and there could be no writing at all. I saw him take one girl's materials off her, and although he let her run out to get a friends he took that off her prep time.

4 days of worry and nerves later, the results appeared on SisA! Not having expected them until Proclamation the next day (someone posted in the Facebook group that they were up), I think my heart stopped beating for a few minutes while I tried to load the page. After it was loaded I then promptly stopped breathing! I had managed to achieve my goal of getting into the top 20% for all of my subjects with two 16's and 3 15's, and even better I got a 17 in Private Law meaning I was top of the class! In my utter excitement and disbelief I called my girlfriend and mum for a bit of 'oh my goodness I can't believe it' and happy-crying, before hot-footing it over to Carrefour before it shut for some celebratory (and I think well-earned) chocolate. Never before has chocolate tasted so good or deserved!

Proclamation the next day was a happy affair since everyone knew their results, and the Law Faculty put on some nibbles and drinks anf gave everyone a little graduation teddy, which was really nice of them. I've decided to call the teddy Arthur Antwerp in honour of my stay - he's adorable! On the way home I came across a band playing a concert at the end of Meir called The Wishing Well so spent a pleasant hour listening to them before getting back to last minute packing. I definitely recommend having a look/listen at their website: http://www.thewishingwellband.com/

Having handed in my keys, packed up my life and cleared out the fridge, I started the 700 mile journey from Antwerpen to Dundee carrying around 65kg in baggage and many happy memories in my head. I may have been doubtful and not especially eager to spend the year living in  Antwerpen at the beginning, but looking back it has definitely been an amazing experience worth having and one I will look back on fondly for the rest of my life.

The final verdict? UA, the IELSP, Antwerpen and Belgium are all worth exploring and participating in - don't miss the opportunity to do something amazing!

Arthur Antwerp

This might be the end of 'Trials and explorations: A law student's life abroad', but it isn't the end of my blogging. I've started a new longer-term project called 'Trials and explorations: Musings on daily life' as a forum for those thoughts that keep whirling around my head demanding to be heard. It updates much more frequently, so take a look!

Thanks for reading and following my journey over the last year.

"I'm sorry, did you just say 'postgraduate'?"

As predicted, my stress level has gotten rather high in the last two weeks! Although it was a relief to finally hand in my Discrimination paper (all 5999 words of it) I then had to work on my preparation for my Globalisation seminar, do the prep for the group assignment in WTO (which was pushed back to the 7th by an act of some benevolent law god) as well as the general course reading. 7 weeks, 5 days and counting - Dundee, here I come!

In other (pretty astonishing) law news, while looking around the UA website trying to find which days the university is closed on next week (Tuesday is apparently a bank holiday and I'd written it down on Monday in my diary) I stumbled across the new and updated Law Faculty page for students wanting courses in English. Imagine my surprise when, the 3rd year undergraduate student that I am, read the following:

     "The IELSP is a postgraduate study programme offering a variety of courses in international, European and comparative law"

After reading that through a few more times, I then saw that the IELSP is apparently one of the two masters level programmes UA offer to international students in law, and that you are supposed to have completed at least three years of law school before enrolling. I did two before I got here... No wonder the workload is so big, the classes are so hard, and the Belgian masters students share some of the classes! On the plus side? It will look even more impressive on my CV that not only did I study abroad for a year but that I studied a postgraduate course while in the middle of my undergraduate course! Employment, here I come!

The weather has here been too fickle to venture out for walks and wanders, and I've managed to visit every museum in Antwerpen with my visitors. When my girlfriend comes for a visit in less than two weeks we're planning on venturing over to Gent and maybe some more of the coast if the weather is nice. There is a light at the end of that dark tunnel which plagues law students as exam season approaches! Well, better get back to working on my three term papers and presentation if I'm to be finished in 7 weeks and on my way back to the lovely UK.