Welcome to another module breakdown blog post! So far, I have done 10 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
- Power, Freedom and the State
- Contract Law
- Legal System of England and Wales
- Legal Skills
- Britain: From Blitz to Brexit
- Public Law
Year 2 Modules
This module breakdown post is on Criminal law. Without further ado, let’s get to it!
Content
Criminal law is a compulsory module on the law degree. There are lots of topics within this module, making it a vast area of law to study. The areas we looked at included homicide, actus reus and mens rea, non-fatal offences, negligence, strict liability, defences, and theft to name a few.
Lectures
Lectures occurred twice a week on a Monday and Friday. Each lecture was 2 hours long, with each lecture focusing on a specific topic within criminal law. We even had some guest lecturers from the Police so we could look at the different topics from an alternative point of view. The lectures were interactive which I quite liked. The lecturers would ask us questions throughout to get us thinking and we were free to ask questions too.
Tutorials
We had 8 tutorials/seminars for Criminal law. Each tutorial was 1 hour long and was primarily focused on exam and essay technique. There were generic questions related to the topic that was being focused on in the tutorial but it was mainly essay questions and problem questions. I found these to be extremely helpful for my exams and the lecturer spent a lot of time going through what she expected of us.
Assessments
There were two assessments for criminal law: an essay and an exam.
The essay was worth 40% of the overall module and was 2500 words. The question was all to do with mens rea, specifically recklessness and the different tests that have been established through case law. I really enjoyed having this as the question as there were a lot of sources to sink into.
The exam was worth 60% of the overall module. We had two questions to answer, with one being a problem question and the other being an essay question. Again, I actually enjoyed the exam which is so strange to say but I just find this module fascinating.
Overall thoughts
Overall, I absolutely loved this module. I found it really enjoyable and fascinating. It was one of my favourite modules from second year. I found each topic really interesting which I must say is a rarity.
And that’s it! Thank you for reading and I will see you tomorrow for another blog post.
Beth
Beth Olivia 
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