Harrison Cruikshank (3L)
If anyone has told you being on exchange is easy, they lied. In actuality, being on exchange is really REALLY easy.
I’m studying in Lyon, considered to be one of the hardest exchange programs. I have mandatory attendance for one-week intensive classes, each with about 16 hours of class time, and a take home exam every weekend. Still, it’s not that bad. “Mandatory” is a more flexible term than you’d think, and the exams are manageable. I drink a lot of wine. Given my experience in a supposedly hard program, I wondered how students were faring in other countries. So, I put on my Sherlock hat and spoke to my peers.
I first turned to the students in London, studying at the prestigious Center for Transnational Legal Studies. The ghosts of exchange students past indicated this program was as challenging as Lyon, or close to it. They too have mandatory classes, but much like my experience at Lyon, no one seems to find classes too difficult. Without weekly exams they also have plenty of time for weekend getaways. The exchange experience, from an academic perspective, seems to go downhill from there.
According to one student, Geneva’s difficulty level is set at “guilt-inducing easy,” with the exception of the law classes in French. Let me emphasize, this student is taking classes in French and still describes the program as “easy-peasey.”* Students in Amsterdam only have 4-6 hours of lectures each week. Still, the courses are so manageable that students often cut class to take longer trips (Out of the city! Get your mind out of the gutter!).
Glasgow was described to me as “like U of T law but you actually get to be happy and enjoy life.” The student could not elaborate further because she was “VERY busy frolicking in the highlands and not reading case law.” Copenhagen? An “insane joke.” Hong Kong? Check Facebook.
Still, it’s not all roses. Some students have had to face the dark side of exchange. Shaanzéh Ataullahjan described to me one challenge she faced in Singapore:
At U of T I’d definitely never moot in front of an expert in the field without going to any of his classes or doing any readings. Oh my God, what am I doing? I haven’t done any work! … what if I fail? … then you win the moot and book some $100 roundtrip tickets to Bangkok because after all that stress you deserve to take a break this weekend.
Harrowing stuff.
Notable pub night attendee Pat Chapman is also having difficulties in Ireland. Strained by his seven hours of class per week, Pat’s stress is compounded as he tries to adjust to his new surroundings: “The water here is a foamy black colour. Quite filling. But it does tend to tire you out after a few glasses. Don’t know why Dublin hasn’t figured out water treatment yet.” As Shaanzéh puts it, the University of Toronto “does not properly prepare you for how to deal with the easy life.”
To be fair, a lot of this comes down to the 3L attitude. If you wanted to, you could probably approach exchange with more rigour, but why do that? You probably have job lined up, and no one at that job expects you to come back from exchange an expert on your host nation’s law. They want you to come back with the sort of travel anecdotes that are the sweetest plum of being on exchange. If you told them you spent your entire semester abroad in some foreign library, they’d laugh you out of town and never hire you back and tell your friends that you are boring.
So, if you’re considering exchange, heed my warning: the Canadian dollar is terrible and things are expensive. Otherwise exchange is really REALLY easy and fun sunny all the time beach party let’s go why not.
*Editor’s Note: Our source in Geneva would like to clarify that, since the school year has gotten underway, classes have gotten a lot more rigorous, the reading load has increased, and she has discovered professors’ rather high expectations. “The University of Geneva is kind enough to ease its students into the school year, but it is far from easy-peasey.”
