"Don’t be afraid to take the initiative and try different roles and activities - academic, professional, moot courts, career events or a specialism representative role."
Year of graduation: 2020Name of programme: International Economic LawCountry: Russia
I was particularly searching for the LLM in International Economic Law, but with the opportunity to access a variety of adjacent modules. The LLM at Queen Mary perfectly matched my search criteria giving me the chance to take up to eight modules and audit up to two. Moreover, the quality and expertise of the teaching staff and professors, the opportunities for strong academic engagement, great involvement in career training, the mentorship program (and Central London location), were the perks I fell for when I encountered a QMUL LLM programme.
Most of my modules were from the International Economic Law LLM programme, therefore, I was exposed to the professors teaching on this particular LLM. I was amazed at the level of expertise and experience, academic proficiency, intellectual rigor and inspiration that I witnessed. I learned a lot of new things, deepened my already existing knowledge and connected all the dots in a profound system in my head.
I think the key might be the existence of a variety of modules that covered different aspects of international economic law and provided a chance to build a beautiful, profound and coherent system of knowledge. Moreover, the program provided academic and professional development opportunities - I was a research assistant for Professor Gari throughout the school year, which was a very enriching academic experience, and I also was a specialism representative. We were even planning the trip to the WTO in Geneva, however, the global situation corrected our plans. To sum up, the programme in International Economic Law offers students a myriad of opportunities for academic and professional development, expansion of knowledge and training of transferable skills - you just need to take them!
I mostly took modules from my program. Nevertheless, I audited a module from the tax specialisation.
Don’t be afraid to take the initiative and try different roles and activities - academic, professional, moot courts, career events or a specialism representative role. All of these assist in building up your network, necessary skills and expand the vision not only in the legal field you are interested in but also of market and commercial awareness. Attend all the career opportunities and events possible. From the very beginning, start to explore career perspectives or academic ones (PhD), qualification paths, try to understand what do you want to do in three to five years and take everything CCLS gives you to reach that goal! Try to take everything the faculty is giving but also do not forget to have fun :)
Yes, I definitely connected many dots in my mind and deepened the knowledge and vision in the areas of law I am genuinely passionate about.
Being able to combine academia, including the research and writing and assisting Dr. Gari in his interesting research endeavour, studying things I enjoy, representing the specialism, organising career events, while meeting a lot of new inspiring and great people.