Written by an Insight team member.
Returning to Leicester after winter break signified that I was in the final stretch of law school. However, I was not prepared for how fast it was progressing. It is exciting knowing that I will soon be able to go back home again, and never have to deal with the 8.5-hour flight and then the additional 2-hour commute to get to Leicester. It has not hit me how little time I have left. With the ridiculous prices of flights back to Canada, I decided to already book my flight home instead of waiting for the final exam schedule to get released (something I would recommend as the price of my flight increased by $100 as I was booking my flight).
Now that my flight home is confirmed, the semester seems to have sped up. Everyone is planning trips around their tutorials and coordinating with one another, trying to take advantage of the dirt-cheap flights to warmer climates. Amidst the chaos, you find yourself recommending weekends to go to Paris, Dublin, or Italy but only to get shut down because someone has a tutorial. You go through each week trying to find at least one night where nobody has a tutorial, and then the next thing you know, the day you fly home has come.
As someone who was lucky enough to do their first year remotely, I feel like there is so much to do and experience in such a short time before going back. The fact that you can go to Italy for $20 is unheard of back home. A 45-minute flight from Vancouver to Kelowna costs hundreds of dollars. I feel like many Canadian students like me realize we will never get to experience deals like these and want to take advantage of the cheap fairs and short plane rides. The next headache is figuring out what to do with the dishes, pots, and pans that will never be used again. It does not make sense to bring them back, so the next task is to find a donation center. This is now another thing to worry about while dealing with lectures and tutorials. The stress can be difficult, but those weekend getaways are worth it.
With the semester ending, sometimes comes the professor's daunting words: "we are a little behind.” These words to every law student mean one thing: 'speed through the lecture.’ This is not fair to the students given the fact that we are learning a subject in which many of us do not have much knowledge, hence why we are here actively learning. Luckily, we can re-watch lectures online, but this takes time, re-watching a lecture you already attended takes away time from prepping and packing for moving back home. If there is any advice I could offer students, it is to manage your time efficiently and make sure you take advantage of the cheap flights!