Module Breakdown – EU Law

Welcome to another module breakdown blog post! So far, I have done 7 posts in this little series on my blog. Essentially, I break down each module and look at it in detail so if you are doing this module, or something very similar, then you know what to expect!

You can find my previous module breakdown posts here:

Year 1 Modules

Year 2 Module

Social and Political Research

From the title, you can probably tell this post is on European Union Law, which is the second module from second year. This module was in semester one, and without further ado, let’s get to it.

Content

EU Law is a compulsory module under the LLB degree. The focus on EU law concerns sources and general principles of EU law, key provisions of the internal market, key institutions of the EU, and the ongoing relationship between EU law and UK law.

One thing I found with EU law is it’s best to stay updated on any news concerning the European Union, particularly Brexit. It feels like the law changes in this area every 5 seconds. You need to be on top of it.

Lectures

I had two lectures a week for EU law, with each lecture being 2 hours long. These were not interactive at all which is quite weird to think back on. My law modules for semester two were Tort Law and Criminal Law, and the lectures in that were very interactive.

The plan was to look at one topic a week, but the topics were so vast that topics would often be looked at for 4 or 5 lectures. I didn’t mind too much though. I needed to understand EU law, so going into lots of detail was not the end of the world.

Tutorials

There were 6 in tutorials in total for EU law. There was a lot of preparation involved which is to be expected of any tutorial or seminar. However, I can’t stress enough that there was a LOT for EU law. Of course, lots of discussions took place in these tutorials, which is normal. I found them very useful.

Assessments

There were 2 assessments for EU Law, an essay assignment worth 40%, and an exam worth 60%.

The essay was 2500 words long and we had a choice of two questions. I can’t remember what the other question was on but mine looked at whether there was a democratic deficit within the European Union, and if the Lisbon Treaty did anything to solve it. I got 74 which is a first and I was not expecting that. I didn’t think I had done well.

The exam was 2 hours long with an essay question and a problem question. There was a choice of two for each question and I did not have a fun time. I managed to get 55, which is a 2:2. I was a little gutted but because I did well in my essay assignment, I averaged about 63 overall which I will quite happily take and run.

Overall thoughts

In terms of my overall thoughts for EU law, I really didn’t like it. I thought certain parts were really interesting, such as what I looked at for my assignment concerning the democratic deficit. Some parts I couldn’t wrap my head around, such as retained EU law. There’s so much to it, it’s honestly insane.

I couldn’t fault my lecturer at all for EU law. Craig, if you’re reading this by any chance, you are incredible. I loved you and your style of teaching, but I wish you were teaching me something else. In all seriousness though, I have mixed feelings about EU law. I learned some valuable lessons from it, but I’m glad to be done with it.

Thank you for reading and I will see you soon for another blog post.

Beth