COMING TO LAW FROM SOMEWHERE VERY DIFFERENT: Studying non-traditional A-levels — Christopher Hose
Christopher Hose is a final-year Law student at St John’s. Here he argues for the advantage of studying subjects outside of the essay-based subjects that a lot of Law students study and not being a ‘typical’ Law student applicant.
It’s hard to know what to expect from studying law at Cambridge at the best of times; I’ve yet to meet someone who was completely sure what they’d let themselves in for when they were applying. There’s a special kind of nervousness, though, that’s reserved for those of us that apply with what most would consider ‘non-traditional’ A-Levels for a law student. It can be slightly worrying to think that in the application process, you’ll be competing against students with a lot more experience in essay-writing than you. It can be very worrying to think that, if you get in, you’re going to have to spend 3 years competing with them.
That’s definitely how I felt, sending off my application adorned with A-Levels in Maths, Physics and Religious Studies, and an AS-Level in Music — which, perhaps with the exception of RS, are not really the qualifications that you’d expect a law student to have. Not a very good one, anyway. My hobbies didn’t seem to do much to help; they were very music-oriented, and although I’d done a little bit of public speaking and debating, I definitely hadn’t done as much as I expected others would have.
I know that ‘sixth-form me’ certainly wouldn’t believe it, but having an unusual academic background has its own advantages, and if you know how to use them they can be invaluable. Here are two aspects of that which I think really helped me.
Advantage 1: You’ll know if law’s right for you.
First, if your background isn’t law- or humanities-based, it’s very hard to fall into law by accident. It’s Applying to Cambridge 101 that your application (particularly your personal statement) needs to show off why you’re interested in studying law. If you spend all your time in the science labs during the school day, this means that you need to really put in extra effort to go out and research law — and by having to put in that effort, you’ll work out if you actually are interested.
For me, I started out by picking up some introductory-level law texts: anything from bite-size revision guides in certain topics, to books designed to be an overview of several different areas of interest (‘What About Law?’ is probably the most famous one of these). I also applied to go to law lectures and masterclasses when I had the time to, trying out as many different areas as I could, just to get an introduction. I naturally found myself gravitating towards certain areas, like jurisprudence and constitutional law, and reading in those areas in more detail. I moved towards more detailed books, and looked for articles online, and tried to critically engage with them and form my own opinions. It was hard work — perhaps harder than it would be for someone that had a background in similar areas — but I enjoyed it, and the fact it was so far out of my comfort zone meant that I was always hyper-sensitive to whether I could see myself moving to this area in the long-term.
In short, if you do extra research like this, you’ll prove to yourself and others that you really are interested, and you’ll know why. If you find doing this kind of research unbearable, you’ll know that law isn’t really for you — and it’s far better to find that out before applying. As a ‘visitor’ to the humanities, you’ll be much more critical of your own motivation and interest, and your application and experience of the course should be all the better for that.
Advantage 2: You’ll have different skills.
Second, if you come to law from a different background, you’ll be inclined to think of the subject in a different way to how others will — and whilst that can sometimes feel like a bad thing, the opposite is true. Law is a subject that touches so many different aspects of life and business, and having people who can approach it from different perspectives, with different skills, is so important.
In your application, knowing your specific skillset is really helpful. Every subject you do gives you some kind of transferable skill, which together creates your unique skillset and perspective — and if you understand what yours is, you can use that to your advantage. For example, my background in Maths and Physics meant that I was able to break down complex problems into their components, and scrutinise each individual step to get to the solution. Knowing this meant that, in my interview, whenever I felt overwhelmed by a difficult question, I had a strategy to approach it that others didn’t. The same was true of RS, which taught me how to carefully evaluate arguments that proceed from different assumptions and perspectives, which was very helpful in the Cambridge Law Test. By reflecting on the skills that I had gained from my unusual academic background, I found out how I could use them to my advantage.
However, the benefit of having a different skillset or perspective doesn’t end when you get an offer. During my time studying at Cambridge, I’ve used those skills a great deal in my course — for example, in studying Equity (a third-year subject), it’s really helpful to be able to follow complex financial transactions and keep up with the numbers. Having a background in Maths has made this much easier for me than some of my colleagues without that background — and being able to share my own insights in that area means that I usually get insights in return, from a very different perspective. Being unique allows you to collaborate much more effectively and valuably throughout your legal studies.
Don’t be put off applying because you aren’t a ‘typical law student’!
There’s so many other ways that having my A-Levels has helped me in applying to Cambridge and in following my law degree as well — there’s really no need to think you can’t apply to law just because you haven’t followed A-Levels in History, Politics or Law. I’m glad I took the A-Levels that I did because they were interesting and I enjoyed them, but they’ve been far from useless too.
