Interventions to enhance the student experience of a first-year law degree : what they really wanted

This paper reports on the evaluation of a ‘transition’ program for first-year law students at the University of Western Sydney (UWS). The program aimed to establish a personalised pastoral connection between students and academics outside the formal teacher–student relationship and to enhance new students’ sense of social connection to their peers and teachers in the law school. The evaluation of the program found that the strategies of the transition program made students feel welcome and a part of the law school and helped some students adjust to university or resolve the challenges they experienced in the first semester of their degree. However, most students reported that these strategies did not make a big difference to their long-term adjustment to law school. What they really wanted was for all of their teachers to be more approachable and to provide more academic support so they could understand how to be a successful law student. The evaluation also identified a much higher level of anxiety, uncertainty and disengagement among students than reported in national surveys of the first year experience, particularly surprising because law students are expected to be among the most able and confident. Teacher perceptions of the success of the transition program were mixed, but they generally underestimated first-year students’ anxiety and sometimes misread their resulting disengagement