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Prioritising different responsibilities as a law student
Having three jobs and completing a legal degree is no easy feat – but this law student has found that reprioritising different parts of her life depending on her coursework has helped her get better at handling it all.
Lauren Croft
Georgia Fryer is a proud Dharawal woman and University of Sydney law student. Speaking on a recent episode of The Protégé Podcast, Ms Fryer discussed working two jobs in addition to studying a double degree and completing various legal cadetships and internships – and how she manages to juggle it all.
“I’m currently working in family law at legal aid, so I’m thinking either I’ll be staying there or going into criminal law at some point. But yeah, really, at the end of this year, I’ll be going straight into my practical legal training,” she said.
“So, hopefully, I can get that done about midway through next year, but I’m still kind of working out the nitty gritty of exactly where I want to be in my career.”
To juggle all her commitments, Ms Fryer found that she occasionally has needed to prioritise different elements of her life at various points.
“I cut back on one unit, I’d say, about a year, maybe a year and a half ago, so I’ve gone from doing the full four units down to three. So that’s definitely helped quite a lot. I found it hard to put all of my efforts and all of the work that you need to do into your units; I found that difficult with doing the four units plus my job,” she added.
“Being able to go down to the three subjects has definitely made it easier to juggle because it just gives me that little bit of extra time to focus on the units that I have and then doing the work that I’ve got. I’ve also been pretty strategic in choosing what jobs I’ve got so that they’re quite flexible and work around my uni schedule, and that helps as well.”
Particularly during the later semesters of a law degree, many tutors and legal professors are also “more understanding” about the amount of work a legal degree takes, Ms Fryer added.
“They usually expect something ridiculous, like 30 hours per unit a week or something crazy, which it’s impossible if you also want to have a life outside of uni. So, a lot of teachers towards the past couple semesters have been a little bit more understanding in saying, ‘I know that you’ve got all of this extra work that you need to do, so as long as you get down this work, then you’ll be fine throughout the semester.’
“Mostly, uni comes first, especially now that I’m in the last year; this is crunch time. I don’t want to jeopardise anything to push it back any further. So, it’s definitely at the forefront of my mind now, and I’m putting most of my effort into uni. When it comes to work, the jobs that I’ve got are really flexible, so it’s allowed me to focus a lot on uni while still having work just whenever I’m able to do that. And then with my cadetship, that’s like my second priority right now because that is what’s given me the most experience for my legal profession after uni,” she said.
“So, I guess the way that I’m prioritising at the moment is uni, my cadetship, and then everything else is just sort of, it’s there if I need to get that little bit more of an income, trying to also keep a bit of a social life so that I don’t go completely insane. But definitely around mid-semester and end of a semester, that takes a bit of a hit so I can focus on uni. Every now and again, I can sort of fall back on my uni work and have a little bit of fun, do a little bit more work if I want to, but most of the time, uni definitely comes first.”
The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Georgia Fryer, click below:
Lauren Croft
Lauren is a journalist at Lawyers Weekly and graduated with a Bachelor of Journalism from Macleay College. Prior to joining Lawyers Weekly, she worked as a trade journalist for media and travel industry publications and Travel Weekly. Originally born in England, Lauren enjoys trying new bars and restaurants, attending music festivals and travelling. She is also a keen snowboarder and pre-pandemic, spent a season living in a French ski resort.
