In May of 2012, when the selectivity ended, while I was undecided studying a catalog of degrees to choose what I wanted to dedicate myself to in the following four years and most likely in my professional career, I became interested in the degree of law of the University of Santiago de Compostela . A degree that from the beginning I was struck by its multiple uses in practice because everyone has found or will encounter a fight, a claim to a bank, a problem with the administration, a dismissal or any legal issue with which we are in our day to day. As I progressed in the grade level, my expectations were diminishing, because I found myself with some purely theoretical classes, where the professor was limited to giving a master class, in many subjects that he had imparted without changing for years so that for him it became a mere automatic procedure, which meant that the student-teacher relationship was in most cases non-existent. On the other hand, the purpose with which the degree adapted to Bologna was born, where the practice was a fundamental pillar in its structure, was invaluable because the only presumable contact with the practice was through the interactive classes, also called by some “interpasivas” in which the professor limited himself to delivering a practical supposition, to be solved by the student at home, while in the majority of the cases they continued with the teaching of the excessive syllabus of their subject.
On the other hand, at the University of Santiago, there are hardly any agreements signed with companies or law firms that allow students to see the practical aspects of their training through the performance of curricular or extracurricular practices. This inability of the student to combine the degree with the performance of practices limit their ability to understand the theoretical concepts while not contributing to facilitate their subsequent entry into the job market for which the degree is conceived.

In conclusion, the formative plan of the Degree of law of the USC should undergo a rethinking from its base, thus eliminating a large part of theoretical content that the student will never see in practice (I still want to see a bill of exchange or an easement in passing or a usucapion … multiple figures that we will never see in our profession) and introducing the method of practical seminars, other than interactive, with a duration comparable to the theoretical sessions, where the teacher really tutorizes the student during the Really practical activities.

Martín Esparís Figueira

Opinion of a graduate in Law and a student of the EPJ Law Degree (USC)