Monday 18 April 2016

Life at NLU Kolkata -by Aditya Kumar



It was on 29th June when I first entered National University of Juridical Sciences. The campus is not something that excites you at first when you are in there, it’s just 5 acres. But it is what is in the premises that make it one of the three top-tier law schools. Well, for all those materialistic souls, the college is in the middle of the city, unlike the other law schools. The Salt lake stadium is just a 10 minute walk from here. The college is situated in the near vicinity of two malls, and various other eating joints. Also Park Street is quite near for all those folks who enjoy partying. 
 


Law school is quite different from your high school, or if I may put it in this way, a high school with longer hours. Law school teaches you to handle an enormous amount of work load. And here research projects actually mean something, unlike high school, where Wikipedia is the ultimate source for almost every project. We have to submit well researched projects with proper citations and also submit a rough draft before the final submission, just to let the concerned teachers know that we are proceeding in the right direction.



Then, there are teachers who are all experts in their respective fields. There are two categories of teachers, strict teachers, who will kick you out of the class if you are even 5 minutes late and then there are teachers who will not care even if you use you mobile phone right under their nose. But in the end, they are the ones who make it easier for you to study the fat law books and guide you. Here, the subjects are all practical, that you will require at some point and time in your life, but you will all create a fuss while dealing with subjects like sociology, history etc. But believe me, if you want to be a good lawyer you ought to have a good knowledge about everything and that’s the reason you have got to be at a good NLU which provides you with a brilliant faculty. 

One thing that is of prime importance at a law school is reading. Often (almost daily), you will be required to read close to 30 pages on an average (nah, not really if you have the case briefs). It seems terrifying at the first instance but becomes easy as time passes by.    

Moving on, studying for exams begins a week before the exam and continues till the last minute before the exam. Many-a-times one nighters before the exam seems to be the only way to pass.

Time passes by very quickly here. Lots and lots of activities are happening around at the same time. The various societies like the moot court society; literary society, etc conduct their orientations in order to customize the students with the various technicalities. And in the end it all comes down to you, to decide which all committees and societies to apply to. I decided to try my luck at almost every society and in the end couldn’t make to any of them (Life is not great always). But still I could participate in the various fresher competitions that were held. Moreover, this taught me that one should try his hand at everything and then do what one thinks is the best for him.

“You must strive to find your own voice because the longer you wait to begin the less likely you are to find it at all”- Dead Poets Society



 This, I believe is the biggest lesson that I have learnt in the law school(well apart from Law of Contracts) that one should always find something that one is good at and always try to do well there because unless you do that, you would find it really tough to survive in law school, doing nothing. However, you never get an opportunity where you aren’t doing anything, because law school is a crazy place where something is always happening.

Well, NUJS provides you with loads and loads of opportunities for partying. There is an after-party for almost every event that the college organizes, but the biggest of them all is the Annual cultural fest-OUTLAWED and the Annual Sports fest-INVICTA. 3 days of madness with all sort of activities happening around in the campus (Yeah, the bad ones tooJ). The fest is incomplete without the involvement of some celeb-nights. The day (or should I say the night) comes to an end with the DJ nights which goes on till dawn. The party season does not end after this also as we are still left with the after party for the fests. (Yeah, NUJS has close to 15-20 parties in a year)


However, this is not the best part. It is the Hostel life that wins this award. It is here that you learn the basic traits of life and other crazy stuff. It’s like living with a family away from your true home. You share everything with your hostel-mates (obviously, not everything ). Initially, you find it difficult to live and co-operate with the strangers, but you learn to survive as the time passes by. You study with them, you play with them, and you try new things with them. Well, forget it that you will get to sleep for proper hours or maintain a schedule. The madness continues till 5 or 6 and then it is up to you to attend the 9:30 class. 

The initial days are spent in adjusting and adapting to the hostel life and the positive interaction sessions with the seniors. The positive interaction sessions are the only source of enjoyment in the initial days. At first, you want to punch them straight in their faces for being rude to you (I mean why would somebody want to dance in front of a strange senior) but later on these guys become your idols. You want to achieve what they have already achieved. You go to them if you face any sort of difficulty, or are doing a particular moot or have an exam the next day. They have already done what you are doing right now or have been in a similar position, you are in right now. You look up to them as your mentors and idolize them for having the super-human capabilities of performing well at moots, doing well at debates and getting good grades all at the same time while you saw them partying insanely at the last event. 


Well, if I don’t stop here I might go on and on. They call college as the best part of your life for a reason. Indeed, it did turn out to be the best part of the 19 years that I have lived on this planet.

Lastly I would like to thank Bulls Eye Chandigarh for helping me prepare for CLAT.

This article has been contributed by Aditya Kumar, student of NLU Kolkata, Batch 2015-20 
You can get in touch with him on Facebook   

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