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student experiences
Nayla Chowdhury
Paralegal and LLM in Legal Practice student
I’m Nayla, and I’m working towards my LLM which includes SQE Prep at The College of Legal Practice. I’m studying my SQE full time alongside working part time as a legal advisor. I began my law career with an A Level in Law, then an LLB at the University of Manchester. I graduated in 2020 and saw that the SQE was to be released the following Autumn, so I paused my decision to continue on to qualification and work full time instead. I worked as a legal advisor for two years, and once I began my SQE Prep I began work as a paralegal to build up my qualifying work experience (QWE).
Why I chose to study with the College of Legal Practice
When looking at my options to qualify, the LLM in Legal Practice at The College of Legal Practice included SQE preparation and that really appealed to me. In addition to preparing for the SQE as part of my course, I could pick elective modules where I could look at an area of law in closer detail. I hadn’t worked in a law firm yet and I really wanted to learn about all the different elements of law from an academic perspective.
My course is highly flexible and all online, and it’s one of the most affordable options out there. For me that was important, as I’m self-funding my course. As I’m doing the LLM in Legal Practice, I was able to get a postgraduate loan to cover a lot of my fees, which was really helpful. While there are a variety of options to prep for the SQE with the College, I really liked learning the law more in-depth. I’ve covered commercial property, O shaped skills, acquisitions and finance, and this has helped me decide that I’d like to go down the route of property law once I’m qualified. I found that other providers were much more limited in their offer of a postgraduate degree combined with SQE Prep, so the College’s offer really appealed to me.
Reflections on the programme
With the College you get all the resources you need to prepare for the SQE. Materials are provided digitally and physically, and you also get discussion boards, lectures, and small group discussions. I found that the amount of mock multiple choice questions (MCQs) the College provided was really extensive and very helpful. Every topic you covered as part of the prep was followed by 10 MCQs that you could answer afterwards to really embed that learning. Each set of questions also referred you to the areas of the manuals they related to, so if you were stuck, it was very straightforward to revise the topic.
Planning and preparation are really important when completing your SQE Prep. I put in a flexible working request as soon as I got my offer so that I could reduce my workload. I live at home and don’t have any dependants, but I still have to be highly organised - if you have additional commitments, definitely plan carefully to make sure you can meet all the requirements of the course, and I would recommend choosing a longer preparation course option to make it more manageable.
Notable experiences
I really liked that there was a Master’s option for the SQE at the College. It’s very helpful to support you in working out what area of law you enjoy most and would like to specialise in if you have not worked in a firm before. My course is one of the most affordable options out there but still provides you with everything you need to succeed, and that’s really opened up the opportunities to study.