1. What’s your background, and why did you decide to do the SQE?

I had done a History degree at the University of Kent and then I had done the law conversion course at King's College London when I decided to sit the SQE. I knew that I wanted to qualify as a solicitor after doing 2 weeks work experience at a high street working in their property department. I really liked the work: the research, the people, how fast paced it was!

When I actually sat my exam, I was working as a paralegal in a national law firm and I needed to pass SQE1 in order to start my training contract within that same firm. I knew that I needed to sit these exams to progress my career and decided to do them sooner rather than later as I knew sitting and waiting would only make me more anxious about them.

2. How did you prepare, and what made the biggest difference in your success?

Since I was working full-time while studying, I did a part-time prep course, which meant studying for about an hour each evening and around five hours over the weekend. It was intense, so I made sure to keep one day completely free each week to rest and recharge (normally a Sunday).

Having a good support network made a huge difference. I was lucky to have friends who were also sitting the exam, and studying (or even just venting) together made the whole experience far more manageable. Working full-time while studying can feel isolating, so I made a conscious effort to balance it out by spending time with friends or booking study sessions with others. That balance really helped me stay motivated. Having a flexible course/ flexible materials to study with (such as the Law Drills app which I was able to use on the train to work) also helped massively with this.

3. What was the hardest part, and how did you push through it?

The hardest part for me was staying motivated, especially earlier on.  There were times where I just didn't want to study at all.  It definitely took time and I tried not to put myself down too much if I had a day where I just wanted to stay in bed and do nothing.

Getting a routine in place took time but this was the only thing that I was able to do in order to get over all of my study slumps. Even this meant blocking time out in my diary at work or saying no to plans with friends, because it was within my designated study time. Sticking to a routine and maintaining that became easier.

4. If you had to do it again, what would you do differently?

I would do more mocks. Prior to my exam I'd maybe only done two or three mocks that were the full 180 questions and when I sat my exam I found the stamina and concentration the hardest.

If I'd started doing full mocks earlier I would have found it easier to book out time in a day to actually set a four mock for the six hours that you need in the exam. In reality I only started doing the full 180 questions one month before my exam and I think doing them four months before my exam or even earlier would have really helped me manage my time better in the real exam.

Staying focused during my exam was a massive struggle for me, I also understandably got very tired towards the end.

5. Any final piece of advice for SQE candidates?

Something that someone told me before I sat my exam was that the answer is on the paper. Although this might sound stupid it actually really helped me get through the exam itself.  There were moments in my exam where I sat back, took a deep breath and just remembered that the answer was somewhere in front of me and this helped to make the whole process a lot less overwhelming!