Is this the study tool you've been looking for?

You have probably noticed already that I like to study in cafes – which is a habit I picked up from a friend who is a self-acclaimed caffeine-addict. It’s a totally personal choice, but one that came as a surprise to me.

I’ve listed out some reasons why you too should give studying in a café a go.

1.       The noise is actually good for you

I have for years complained about the noise in the classroom – and preferred the quieter, more controlled university environment where I could study in a relatively quiet hum while listening to the lecturer.

Yet I had my usual study expectations inverted this year when I read about the benefits of studying elsewhere. The bulk of the research about changing where you study encourages individuals wishing to improve concentration to move to different areas in their environment.

This counter-productive measure sounded so incredibly strange to me. After all why would individuals deliberately carry around the arm loads of stuff needed to study only to do it all over again an hour or two later. What possible benefit could I ever get from that?

Actually…a lot.

According to the Journal of Consumer Research, 70 decibels, the noise usually found in a coffee shop is perfect for enhanced creativity. This creativity can help you to create new associations with information that you are learning.

2.       You will learn to minimise what you take

When I study from home, I create a nest of stuff to surround myself with and by that I literally mean I surround myself in towers of books, notes, pens and stationary, magazine articles and blankets. If you want to see excessive just study with me.

But that’s not practical when studying on-the-go. Instead, you’re going to shrink a number of materials you take down the bare essentials. I own a kiki-k planner, and it has in all honesty helped me to prioritise my study so that when I study I can take a notebook, three pens, a ruler and my planner.

This minimization has the ability to help you to narrow down your focus. I wouldn’t recommend it for an assignment because it’s difficult to give yourself the broad spectrum of resources that you need to draw from. But when learning core essentials for exams and tests – even in preparation for an essay. This kind of minimisation method is an amazing key for aiming your focus.

3.       Let’s face it, it’s all about the aesthetic

I’m no cover girl, but there’s a pretty cool feeling about studying in a café. It reminds me of those people you see on Instagram and Tumblr, photographing their coffee in a black and white filter and quoting John Green beneath.

But why do I bring this up?

I bring it up because associating positive things with your study will encourage you to study more. It’s a no-brainer, but there’s more to it than personal experience. Classical conditioning a theory patronised by IvanPavlov and then developed further by John Watson provides us with the theory that behaviours which are associated with positive things will occur more frequently than those which are associated with negative things. When we get our coffee – or hot chocolate, whichever you prefer, it acts as a reward or the positive association.

This positive association is referred to as the conditioned response – and what we learn from this positive experience, is that when we study we get a reward. This is also similar to positive and negative reinforcement principles from the works of B. F Skinner.

Skinner created a psychological theory called operant conditioning in which the limbs are created. The first, is positive reinforcement, second negative reinforcement, the third is punishment. The first two can be grouped together because they are easy ways to ‘strengthen’ an action whereas punishment merely weakens the action.

Hence, positively reinforcing your study habits by making yourself feel awesome and getting yourself a great cup of coffee will help you to build some perfect study habits to boost whatever ever it is you’re researching.

4.       You can’t use excuses

Once you’ve dragged yourself all the way to a café, you can guarantee that you’ll be studying there for at least an hour. This is fairly  self-explanatory. After you’ve mastered minimising your materials, and you’ve become hooked on a drink or cake at your chosen café it becomes an experience. This experience is the kind refreshing time that you need to focus on the essential parts of your course.

Don’t fall into the trap of expecting to learn everything at a café. Allow natural progression in your study, sometimes you’ll want to gloss over details. The atmosphere around you may be loud, there may be distracting conversations and this is okay.

What lots of people forget when they study is that they should enjoy the journey. Learning is an experience, not a chore. Guaranteed that you give yourself time, you can truly enjoy studying and take the time to immerse yourself in what you’re learning.

5.       You can learn to study without electronics

A few months ago I thought that my study was entirely reliant upon my laptop and how wrong I was. While a lot of my notes are on my laptop, I found that it was easy to print out key lecture notes and summaries and then take a textbook or  further reading instead. I then draw all over my notes using the extra information I get from this further reading.

Now, while I still need my laptop for things like assignments I find myself using my planner and notepad more often. It’s always a great feeling to fill a page with colour.

I am a visual learner so it will depend on what type of learner you are. However, I always recommend trying to diversify your study activities. While you may be doing well now, always think about your weaknesses and try to find new ways to fix them up.

6.       You connect better with the work

It’s definitely a subjective view, but in my personal opinion when you study one subject at a time over a comforting pot of tea or coffee you delve deeper into the work. One of my hardest subjects is psychology.

I work very hard to remember and position the massive amount of information in a logical order in my head. One of the best ways I’ve found to do this is to work at overcoming ‘mental blocks’. I’m not sure of the ‘technical’ term, but often my biggest problem is that I have told myself so much that it’s difficult I’m not putting my real energy into it. As I said earlier, when you study in a café you associate studying with positive things.

Studying in a cafe has a very relaxing effect on me and so now when I study psychology even at home I feel less anxious about understanding and applying the information.

7.       It’s all up to you

I hate to be so corny but at the end of the day, studying is a specialised activity for each person. I’d recommend trying out studying in a café. It may not become a regular thing for you, but I hope when you try it, it’s as enjoyable as I find it!

Also for those of you who aren't sure what their learning style is here's a link below with a short test you can use to give you a good idea about your best learning style

http://www.educationplanner.org/students/self-assessments/learning-styles-quiz.shtml

PS: If anyone is wondering. There was no paid endorsements in this article...I just have an embarrassingly big love of cafes. 

Love,

The Underage Lawyer

The public are holding the judiciary accountable for not pandering to public opinion

Dr Ian Freckleton QC grilled a DPP solicitor today. The aggressive interview was challenging a claim that the police had agreed with his decision not to oppose bail for Mr Monis. Mr Monis was the Gunman, who was involved heavily in the Sydney, Lindt Café siege. His granted bail has fired up a hostile inquest from the Police about whether or not there was a case against Mr Monis that could put him in prison. Currently the main issue featured in the inquest is that Mr Monis has been allowed bail by the inquest. This has caught the eye of the media and in turn incensed the opinion of the public.

The nature of the court system is one that experiences severe delays. The relevance to this case may appear trivial but it is clear that if there is any doubt surrounding the case the court should allow time for the prosecution and defence to gather and build their argument. Under Dietrich every person is allowed legal representation. Additionally that representation must be of reasonable standard. Hence, if Mr Monis is charged by the court when he can later prove that his legal representation was not sufficient it could delay the course of justice for years rather than months. So while the public may be out raged by the supposed release of a criminal, the judiciary are not negligent in their actions. The common person must understand the golden handcuffs of law. While the law is our only objective means of justifying punishment it can also be manipulated to delay retribution for wrongs done to society and its members.

Additionally the court must enforce the principle of innocence until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This principle applies heavily to the rule of law. For those who are not familiar with the term, the rule of law is a legal doctrine. The doctrine notes that any person regardless of their previous history, their criminal offence or their social status must be treated in the same manner by the law as any reasonable person would be treated.

It sounds a lot like common sense, but an emotionally charged case like the Sydney Lindt café is evidentially when this principle can be discarded easily. Many of you, as I often do, are wondering if gunmen like Mr Monis should be treated in the same manner as we’d treat the reasonable person.

After all, he did begin a terrorist attack on Australian territory, with clear malice of forethought. He took his gun to our citizens without care for their future, past or wellbeing. He did not think of their families or those who would be forever traumatised by his actions.  

However, it is when we consider his actions and the public reaction that we realise we must uphold the rule of law. No democratic country can be proud of itself unless it has a strong reckoning of democratic and fair processes. These processes must remain even at the public’s outcry. For it is not the role of the judiciary to appeal to the public. It is the role of the magistracy to ascertain whether there is sufficient purpose for prosecution and reason for detainment.

It becomes evident therefore that if the court at its impartial discretion has made the decision that there is reason to provide Mr Monis with bail then he must be allowed bail. Unlawful detainment regardless of the public opinion directly opposes the rule of law and overrides the writ of habeas corpus. The writ of habeas corpus protects against illegal confinement. This doctrine is a vital piece in the balancing act between the power of the state and the freedom of the people. This circumstance could easily be flipped on its head, in which public condemnation occurs without reasonable doubt and creates a modern witch hunt.

Often in our society we are quick to judge however limited the facts. I was privy to a conversation recently on Oscar Pistorius. It is a popular opinion in Australia that this man murdered his girlfriend with malice of forethought and is unremorseful for his actions.

I was surprised to find that those I was speaking with took limited note of the sociocultural surroundings and his personal position in society. While I am of course aware of the issues surrounding his story, I can also see plausible reasoning for the accidental death of his girlfriend.

Those who know about South Africa know of the constant risk of home invasion. It is a common story in South Africa even in gated communities. Just last week Australia received news of a massacre inside a very safe gated community. The fact of the matter is that Mr Pistorius is a wealthy white man living with his girlfriend in South Africa. It is possible when he heard the noise that he did assume it was a home invasion. Given his disability he may have been more alert and wary of his capabilities hence his actions may be a reflection of his fear. Moreover, with an automatic gun five bullets, for me, creates reasonable doubt as to whether it was premeditated.

Australia these days – indeed America and Europe as well – seem keen to judge and less so to consider. So we must ask the question should our judges, who are currently impartial juries of fact, adopt the emotionally charged thinking-process of the general populace or should they continue with their pure application of the law when determining guilt and innocence?

It is clear that while the judiciary is intended to be impartial they have great power over the type of individuals that are released into the community. Should it not be that those in the judiciary make such decisions with the mindset of the common person in the community?

In answer I shall refer you back to what I said before, the rule of law is the basis of our democratic society. The moment that we become overrun by emotion our ability to examine situations objectively and provide democratic and reasonable punishment lessens. Hence, while I will never recommend that we restrict our conversations I encourage us all to remain cautious about condemning those in the judiciary.

Indeed, the legislative whom we have elected as an element of direct democracy in Australia, must be held accountable for any decision they make that is not in public favour. Because the legislative and the executive are irrevocably intertwined we rely intensely on the judiciary for our democratic values to be upheld when public opinion cannot be trusted to be fair.

Therefore, while socially it remains acceptable to question the decisions of the legislature we cannot condemn the application of law by the judiciary unless there is a fault of legal application. 

Why sleep is important to future lawyers

I know I said I’d be blogging about law stuff but in today’s high stress and sleep-deprived world I’d like to argue that this is a very relevant topic for potential lawyers. 

As a mixture of high school and law student, I do not get much sleep. So when studying Psychology at school, I cringe, because just about every fatigue side effect applies to me – hopefully, minus the delusions.

Fatigue occurs when sleep deprivation has become so severe that your normal functioning is impaired. Moreover, it is more than craving caffeine as fatigue is believed to have contributed to half of our yearly road toll according to the Sunday Mail.

So I am introducing to everyone today a crash course in why you should put sleep as the number one priority on your list. Lack of sleep starts out as sleep debt. A minor issue that is causing daytime sleepiness and some coffee cravings. A good night’s sleep can wipe out your entire sleep debt.

What people do not realise is that having a prolonged sleep debt results in fatigue and can potentially cause life changing issues. Including exacerbating heart conditions and other physiological disorders.

Dawson and Reid in 1997 found in an experiment that being fatigued is the same as having a blood alcohol level of 0.1. It may seem like a funny comparison but imagining drinking on a weeknight and then heading into work or school the next day. It is not smart, and you are allowing yourself to fall behind your work.

Today’s dynamic business and the legal world call for young students who can work hard and stay healthy. Remembering that begin healthy doesn’t mean sporting a six-pack but mainly being able to impress clients with a bright attitude and sharp mind. Fatigue can impair your thinking and weaken the immune system. To avoid those nasty side effects sleep hygiene habits are offered by ‘better health’ in Victoria. Sleep hygiene refers to a practice that helps you to have a good sleep. It may seem a childish but if you’re looking for a way to cure your daytime sleepiness, or a little off in your studies lately then it may be time to reconsider your sleep schedule.

Lots of lawyers tend to have high-level stress cases and students’ minds can be occupied with the things that they have to do long after they’ve finished working. To help deal with the anxieties the suggestion is to schedule in ‘worry time’ into your day. During this time, you’re allowed to worry about everything and anything. Whether it’s organising a hair appointment, calculating the calories you scoffed down at lunch or how n earth you’re going to survive THAT interview, worry about it during this time. After that turn your anxieties off and just allow yourself to get through the day. The aim is that by bed time you’re able to switch the worries off – or at least put them aside until you awaken in the morning.

The national sleep foundation suggests that regularly exercising and dressing in the same clothes for bed can promote a healthy sleep. Vigorous exercise in the morning or late afternoon can help to prepare your body for rest.

Wearing the same clothes establishes a connection with sleep. It correlates with exogenous factors. Exogenous factors are things in your external environment that trigger your body to sleep. Often dark lighting and late hours make us feel sleepy, this is the exogenous factors at work. Suprachiasmatic Nuclei in the brain react to the information projected to the brain through the retina and send neurochemicals through the body to prepare it for sleep. By associating the same things with your bed, it will encourage the nuclei to react.

All in all, remember that no sleep can seriously impair your abilities to get efficient work done. As a potential lawyer, it’s important to realise that having something done isn’t as important as having something done right. Your boss will care more for what you succeeded in than what they had to redo themselves anyway.

Below are some links to some websites that provide useful information about sleep and fatigue:

http://sleepfoundation.org/ask-the-expert/sleep-hygiene

http://college.usatoday.com/2014/06/06/effects-of-sleep-deprivation-equal-to-binge-drinking-or-marijuana-use-study-shows/

http://jap.physiology.org/content/106/3/857

Sleep well!
The Underage Lawyer

Top five study activities

Hi everyone, I hope you are having a wonderful day.

It was pretty cold for me today, so I spent a lot of it studying at home at my cosy desk. My brother helped me to kit it out several months ago and I am very proud of the blue dragon and purple flower that he painted me – because who doesn’t like dragons

Today isn’t going to be about a law issue but some study activities I think could help people studying law, legal studies or another subject. Lots of articles on Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter, talk about study tips, which involve things like having enough water, materials and a quiet area. But very few actually discussed ‘activities’ to do while studying.

I’ve picked out a few of my favourite ideas and thought I’d share them with you as we begin the exam time crush!

1. Study Jar

First off, is the study jar. This was something that I created during the mason jar craze and because I often have ten or fifteen different projects on the go, it’s difficult to prioritise these tasks. Instead, I let the jar choose!

You don’t have to use a mason jar any kind of container will do. You’re going to want to decorate it with whatever materials you have available.

I used:

• 1 pair of scissors
• 1 patterned piece of craft paper
• 15 cm of decorative tape
• 1 ball point pen
• 1 Adhesive glitter sticker
• 1 sheet of notebook paper

Method

Firstly decorate your jar by writing any title you want with the ball point pen onto your craft paper. Tape it to the glass with your decorative tape. Next place your glitter sticker over the corner of your label.

To make the inside of the jar, write out all the projects you have to complete onto notepaper and cut them into small strips – but make sure you can read them! Then sprinkle them into the jar.

Give the jar a good shake and then pick one task out and get to work!

2.       Write your information out in a story

If you’re studying law, psychology or even medicine get your creative juices flowing and write all of your new information into a story. 

Perhaps you’re studying tax law and a businessman is cooking up a new tax evasion scheme? Or maybe you’re studying psychology and so you write a story including the exact details of impression management?

It may sound a little nerdy, but I’ve always found this is the best way to consolidate information. Similar creating a mind map, if you have a memory blank in a test just think about the story you wrote and what happened to the character in it.

3.       Go non-verbal

In a total turn around from the last tip, this one encourages you to use no words.

Method:

Make a big checklist of the key concepts (you can sometimes find this at the beginning of your textbook chapter).

Don’t write anything else, but the word is describing it and then draw all the things associated with it.

For example if I wished to draw out the ego-defensive function of an attitude I would bring a person looking proud, then a wall.

This is to represent the fact that the person is defending themselves from the harsh realities of the world by using this attitude function.

4.       Pretend you’re a talk show host

You might want to wait until no one is in the house for this!

Method

Gather all your notes and sit yourself somewhere comfortable.

Read through your notes and elaborate on them like there was an audience listening. If your textbook gives you problems to work through explaining how to solve them out loud.

This helps to reinforce your learning because you are reading and hearing the information as you apply it. Using learned information is going to be vital for your exams.

5.       Write an essay

Don’t roll your eyes too quickly! 

As I said before using information is a critical ability for exams. Recalling a heap of stuff is important but if you can’t do something useful with it you’re in a lot of troubles. So practice writing out answers to essays is invaluable.

Once you’ve finished writing put your articles in double line spacing and put corrections everywhere. You have no word limit so go crazy, add as much information as you can. 

And who knows – you might even get a head start on an assignment you didn’t know about!

Happy studying, 

 The Underage Lawyer

Tax is disillusioning the middle class and crippling innovation

What kind of country has a tax system that can’t be navigated without an accountant or lawyer? Long answer short, it’s Australia.

I was studying in a gorgeous little café this afternoon and reading about Capital Gains Tax – riveting right?

As I was reading, I came to thinking, what kind of equality is our tax system based on? 

In Australia, there is a significant socio-cultural divide. This gap means that the government must make considerations for people who are   illiterate, unable to attend public consultations or challenged in some other way. It is not a prejudicial attitude that I am displaying, but a realization that the Australian Tax System is largely discriminatory towards the middle and lower classes of the Australian population. The system is currently unfair because it is so comprehensive and convoluted, that any individual or enterprise requires at least a bookkeeper to have some handle on their financial affairs. This sort of requirement is an impracticable reality for financially struggling individuals and enterprises.

  

My lovely cup of tea and books J

Imagine, a small group of new entrepreneurs determined to make their way in the Australian business environment. Then they are suddenly, slammed with a bunch of seemingly unintelligible tax demands; random capital gain assessments, audits and dividends and even interest from bank accounts. We don’t get taught about this stuff in High School, and few entrepreneurs are aware of these limitations before they start their first business. By failing to simplify our system, or to educate the youth about it, we are handicapping our entrepreneurial adventurers through this regressive tax scheme.

I will say now, I am not against tax. I just feel that our current tax system is serving a great injustice to the legally ignorant – which with this level of tax complexity is everyone without a law and accounting degree.

A progressive tax system which has been simplified would be far more beneficial. While a progressive system may still tax young entrepreneurs it would never require entrepreneurs to navigate two legislative pieces. Then investigate whether they are accounted for by;

• -           The principle of receipt of mutuality
• -          exempt income
• -          Non-Assessable non-exempt income
• -          statutory income with a contrary intention
• -          merely statutory income
• -           ordinary income
• -          capital gains provision

The time associated with this sort of process is valuable time – and the failure to do so could mean the death of an invaluable and innovative business. The complexity of this process is discouraging to many business people, even those with experience. Extrapolation would suggest that foreign entrepreneurs would be hesitant to start a business in Australia because of the comprehensive nature of the tax system.

As Australia is desperately attempting to revive its innovation and uplift entrepreneurs through movements like innovation Australia and offering subsidies and grants to entrepreneurs. Our tax system seems to be holding us back. What actual benefit do we offer people, to offer so many exceptions, when they lose any financial advantage because of the cost of a financial assistant?

I work part-time at a café, and my experience there in mere by-the-way discussions with my boss and some her suppliers show that this amount of taxation complexity is crippling to their business. Surely we as a nation would be much smarter to take a deep breath, broaden the income and GST base, and deal with the tax exemptions we lose the right to?

Obviously if you don’t make the tax threshold now, you probably won’t if we broaden the base. But the extra revenue and simplicity of administration could mean that the tax rate could be dropped to reflect revenue neutrality financially benefiting most. It may also capture income that previously had helped individuals enormously but was exempt under current provisions.  

This simple change in both revenue and GST tax bases could exponentially improve the socio-cultural perceptions of tax in Australia too. There’s no doubt the perception of taxes – particularly amongst the middle class – is a negative one. While European countries with higher tax rates suffer no such stigma, rather the government is seen to make an efficient use of taxpayer funds and so the people are satisfied. Also, I suggest that the middle class of Australia are amongst the most disillusioned citizens of this generation. In no other country would a ridiculous onslaught of tax complexity be allowed. Justice Edmonds in July 2015 noted that the political environment was preventing our tax system from adhering to the three critical elements of a tax system; equity, efficiency and simplicity.

The Henry Taxation review found 128 areas for improvement and yet less than 5 were acted upon. What does this show but an unwillingness of the Australian government to initiate a fair tax system? It stands to reason that any person should be able to perform their own tax return with minimal issues if they wanted/needed too. Yet, I would like to put forward that no one can. The current Australian system is so complex that only those with specialist knowledge can possibly perform one.

Our Australian Tax system is turning accountants into the next neurosurgeons.

To read justice Edmonds speech follow click:  justice edmonds speeches

Hello, Hi and Welcome!

Hello, Hi and Welcome to my first blog post.

I am a fourteen-year-old commercial law student at Adelaide University and I have been studying there since I was fourteen I am on an advanced placement scholarship and I am looking forward to sharing my journey through third-year income tax law. Currently, I am only studying one subject of law. Previously I have successfully completed the first and second year of commercial law.

I have not yet begun my full law degree. However, I hope you will follow me on my journey to properly starting law school which – all going well – I will commence at the beginning of next year.

I’m hoping to use this blog as an opportunity to discuss legal topics of interest.

As a keen underage law student, I’m finding out a whole lot of things about law. Be it shocking, fascinating, confusing or hilarious; it’s a blog I’m looking forward to writing with a glass of lemonade and a good textbook.

Rest assured I have every intention to explore every corner of the law before the year is over. I have an immense passion for jurisprudence and will aspire to write an article or two on some of the jurisprudential dissertations I have read. I’ll also be writing about my experience as an awkward mixture of a high school and a university student – which isn’t easy. Hopefully, my struggles to balance out the expectations of university and high school will give you all something to laugh at!