When did Easter bunnies and chocolate become equitable interests and chattels?
There’s something about Easter that strikes fear in the heart of law students.
What used to be a pleasant family holiday full of chocolate and roast dinners has morphed into a symbolic “get yourself in gear”, a procrastination cut-off point. It’s universal law student code: Easter is the time to start panicking.
Legal Cheek counts down the 14 reasons why Easter is, in general, a really crap time for law students.
1. The chocolate
You’ve been trying your hardest post-Christmas to lay off the junk food and start eating brain food instead (as a desperate substitute for the ten contract law lectures you missed at the beginning of term). Whatever luck you were having will no doubt be over by Good Friday, when eating half an Easter egg and a Dairy Milk bar for breakfast becomes the norm. Not only are you tired and stressed, you’re now spotty and fat too.
2. Exam timetables have just been released
And somehow you have three three-hour exams in land, company and EU law in the space of three days.
3. Coursework questions have just been released too
You still don’t know what jurisprudence is, but now you’re going to have to write 3,000 words on it (send help).
4. The printing
You’ve blown the final drags of your student loan on printing out 800 pages of revision notes, model essays and journal articles in prep for the holidays, none of which you plan on reading. Even if you had the time to spare, there’s no hope of doing anything fun with your home friends over the holidays because you’re completely broke.
5. The ex-employer hide and seek
You’re even shorter on time than you are on money, and hiding from your former employer is turning out to be a full-time job in itself. The manager of that supermarket you used to work for when you were 18 has seen on Facebook that you’re back home for a few weeks and has left you three pining voicemails offering shift work. On your rare outings from your bedroom, you feel sure that you’ll bump into someone you used to work with and will be guilt tripped into working five eight hour shifts on the trot two days before your coursework hand in. The thought scares you so much you decide to stay inside instead.
6. The post-dissertation realisation
The obligatory pre-hand in selfie is definitive proof that your dissertation is now a thing of the past. After getting wildly drunk in celebration you realise that you’ve been living a totally blinkered existence for the last six weeks. Yes, your dissertation is done, but what about that piece of legal history coursework that’s nearly as many words? And those five exams you’ve got to revise for? You won’t be celebrating for long.
7. The obligatory family time
Your family is your world and you love them all to pieces, but is it really necessary for your mum to arrange three separate Easter dinners? You can’t spare the time, and you feel the whole thing is a ply to give grandma the opportunity to comment on how tired and stressed out you look. Your uncle might even ask you for legal advice.
8. The dreaded book transit
You’ve already lugged two stones worth of textbooks halfway across the country from uni to home and back again at Christmas time, and the thought of doing it again is giving you nightmares. You nearly pulled a muscle carrying your books up the stairs at Victoria station, and it’s best to repress that memory about taking your suitcase on the bus.
9. The weather
For the first time this year it’s stopped raining, it’s not so windy, and you even managed to pop to the shops the other day in just jeans and a jumper. But, surprise surprise, there’s no time for you to enjoy the weather just yet. You’re forced to admire the seasonal sunshine from your bedroom window while you slave away over Herring’s criminal law, and by the time you’ve done your work for the day the sun has well and truly disappeared.
10. The imminent life decisions
The “what are you gonna do in summer?” questions have now started or, even worse, for third years it’s the “what are you gonna do when you graduate?” chatter. You avoid providing any answers like the plague, but you’re beginning to accept that you really do need to start thinking about your future.
11. Law ball mourning
The tiny glimmer of light at the end of the long law student term tunnel was the law ball — and now there’s no more of them to look forward to either.
12. Lecturers going AWOL
It doesn’t matter how much you wave the “I’m paying £9,000 for this” flag, your tutors and lecturers will always disappear from the face of the earth during the Easter holidays. Who cares if it’s the run up to exams and you could really, really do with a bit of help? They certainly don’t. Can’t find an important journal article? Tough. Need a tricky technical question answered? Fat chance.
13. The nostalgia
Easter used to be such a happy time. You soon find yourself slumped over your fifteenth international law coursework draft surrounded by empty Red Bull cans, remembering happier days of Easter egg hunts and family dinners. “How did things go so wrong?” you ask yourself. When did life become so miserable? Ah yes, the day you enrolled on your undergrad degree.
14. Your chilled out friends
Your non-law student friends’ lax attitude to work is stressing you out more than you thought possible. Why does no one else have as many exams as me? Why does everyone keep making expensive, extravagant plans? Why does everyone seem so happy?
Images in order via Awkward Family Photos, Imgur, memes.com, Giphy, Reddit, Giphy, Giphy, Imgur, Instagram, Imgur, Imgur, Ben Kilkelly and Jean Yang, Imgur, Awkward Family Photos, Giphy.