Feargus Campbell Talks with Nina Milosavljevic about Pursuing an LLM at Berkeley Law

What are the major differences between Trinity and Berkeley?

I’d say the range of classes that you’re offered, and the areas that you can specialise in. Berkeley’s in the Bay Area of California, which is very technology focused, and that’s part of the reason I wanted to go here. Even if you’re taking business classes, those business classes are focused on things like venture capital and have that technology aspect to them. Every year they introduce new intellectual property and tech law classes, and rotate the core IP and tech classes. In any given year, they offer around thirty to forty classes just in tech law, separate to anything else. Also what’s cool is you can actually go and take classes outside of the law schools. I know in Trinity there’s the broad curriculum, but that’s a quite limited programme. Here, it’s more like the sky’s the limit, in terms of the classes you can take. You can also take classes at the business school, although that is more restricted. With the wealth of classes, depending on what you’re interested in, you can get a really good interdisciplinary knowledge. So for example, if you’re really into tech like me, you can take computer science classes and free coding classes. That, I’d say, was the biggest difference I found.

How much of an impact does the current political climate in America have on your studies?

I’d say that personally it has no effect at all. Student visas are student visas, they haven’t changed. The only difference is that if you get in trouble with the police, the consequences are much more severe than they used to be I think. You definitely would get deported. And of course, if you overstay your visa, the consequences for that are also much more severe than they used to be. But the Bay Area, and California in general, is very liberal, or the people in Berkeley are, so you don’t really feel any of that at all.

What motivated you to move to America and study a masters?

I knew from my time in Trinity that I was really interested in tech, and I knew I sort of wanted to go abroad for that kind of programme, and Berkeley has a really great tech programme. What motivated me to go to America was I went abroad in my third year at Trinity to Emory, and I loved the US style of law schools. The type of classes they have are the typical doctrinal classes but also skills classes, and I knew I

wanted to try out more of those. I really just loved my time in Emory and made a lot of great friends, and so I really wanted to study in the US again.

What advice would you give to anyone who is thinking of moving abroad for college?

I’d say to make sure this is what you want to do, and think about your overall career trajectory. Is this a good option for you? Will you get the things you want out of it? And of course, are you the type of person who’s not going to get too homesick, and is able to establish a life for themselves without missing home too much. Explore your options, and make sure it’s feasible with funding. I think that’s the big thing if you’re going to be moving out of Europe, I think it’s less of an issue in Europe, because European education is more affordable. Work out what appeals about the particular country you’re thinking of moving to, and does it offer the things that you’re used to and that you love. Think about how much culture shock you’re able for. So yeah, the three things would be how it would help you professionally; whether you’d be able to handle being away from home, and definitely sort out your funding.

If you could change one thing about America’s legal system, what would it be and why?

Well, I’d say the health system probably. You don’t really think about it in Ireland, where spending €60 to go to the GP is outrageous, but here, if anything happens to you and you have to have a surgery, the surgery alone costs in the thousands, let alone any hospital fees you may have. Even if you have insurance, it’s not always adequate, it depends on how much it covers, and you still have to pay a deductible. I have friends here who have gone skiing and things, and I’ve had to decline those invitations because I’m just too afraid of anything happening to me, because I don’t want to have to learn how to use this system.