Top things I wish I knew before my final year

Hi everyone, my name is Maleehah. I'm in my final year of LLB (Hons) Law – my course also includes a placement year.

I'm going to share my top five tips that I wish I knew before starting my final year. These are not the only tips I would give. But, preparation and organisation of your studies, and extracurricular activities alongside your part-time jobs are key.

Research your dissertation topics early

My biggest piece of advice is to decide on your dissertation topic as early as possible. The earlier the better, in my opinion. It's a good idea to optimise as much time as possible to do your research.

Research your dissertation topics early; I would recommend the end of your second year and during your summer holidays. You're going to be studying in depth, so gather ideas and look at topics that interest you. Doing this can help reduce stress when it comes to drafting your dissertation.

Doing your research in advance and having an idea of the topic you'd like to write on can put you ahead of other students. Once this is done, you can prioritise your other module assignments on top of your dissertation.

Speak to your tutors about your ideas, and if you do need help in formulating a question, make use of your tutors.

Optimise your calendar

Spending some time to optimise your calendar to its full potential is another great piece of advice for your final year.

Your final year can get busy, especially if you have extracurriculars, part-time jobs and studies to juggle.

What worked for me was colour coding. I assigned a specific colour to each of my activities: classes, part-time work, volunteering, hobbies, personal life, health and other commitments. This has helped me focus on my priorities because my university years were busy with extracurriculars.

For example, I have been volunteering with Bradford 2025 on the Youth Panel for UK City of Culture 2025. My work with them has been spontaneous and busy. I found I had to check my existing commitments on my calendar and fill in dates that I had capacity for meetings and projects – colour coding my calendar really helped with this.

Also, I volunteer as a campus ambassador, so my social media workload was busy for both semesters. Optimising my free time to create social media posts on work platforms was crucial.

Get work experience

I don't believe it can ever be too late, but I do believe it's useful to prepare early for gaining work experience. My advice is to prioritise your first and second year to build any volunteering and sector-related experience for your degree.

I did most of mine with the University of Bradford Union of Students (UBU) by volunteering in my first two years. It’s better to build this experience early, and then in your final year, you can choose roles that are flexible with your studies because your final year is worth 80%!

I would prioritise your studies in your final year, but this doesn't mean restricting yourself from building experience. Build your experience, but make sure it's flexible around your classes and assignments. My volunteering with Bradford 2025 has been relatively flexible, and my campus ambassador work is mostly virtual, so these two roles have been a perfect fit for my final year. They've allowed me to balance my dissertation and coursework very well with deadlines.

Focus mode: on.

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