Student contribution: Sophie Lean
Recent studies on law student class participation found that those who 'swore they would attend every class this trimester' had a 75 per cent chance of missing every class by week 5. Additionally, students who had an 'accountability buddy' had a 90 per cent chance of missing classes by week 3. These statistics held constant across all year levels.
One student, Michael Boucher who is in the third year of his Arts/Law degree, said he “started off with good intentions" but that this "dropped off pretty quickly because of the mid-trimester break.” He was found in the library trying to learn the last 5 weeks of his Evidence content 30 minutes before the only mandatory seminar he has this trimester. "We have a mock trial," he said.
Another student claimed that she "didn’t even attend the online classes.” Anna Richard, a second-year straight Law student, “just sort of…forgot." When asked if she was also trying to catch up on content, she hopefully joked, “whoa, it’s not June yet buddy. I’ve got time.”
The final student we interviewed is Luis Ivanov, a final year Law/Criminology student. Confirming that he is in the same boat as Michael and Anna, he affirmed that he would “never do this again.” When we asked if he had done this in previous years of study, we received no reply. Luis only has one trimester remaining in his degree. Whether he will finally heed the advice he has given himself for almost half a decade remains unknown.
