Me and my plans for the future

Let me introduce myself. My full name is Paul N. Serov. I’m 17 and have just finished secondary school. Now I’m a first-year student of Rostov State University. I was born on September, 8, 1987 into a family of lawyers. We’re four in the family – my parents and Mike, my brother. We’re very friendly.

My dream has always been to become a lawyer. So I’ve chosen this profession as my future occupation a long time ago. I want to become a lawyer because of some reasons. Firstly, it’s an interesting profession from the point of view of necessity of justice; to meet people’s problems, to solve them, to tell right from wrong, to have an opportunity to acquit the innocent and to convict the offender – that’s what I wish. In other words I’m eager to make this world better.

The University is not far from where I live. It takes me a 15-minute walk to get there. The University occupies a modern three-storeyed building.

On the ground floor there is a gym, a canteen, a cloak- room.

On the first floor there are lecture-halls, rooms for the humanities, maths, foreign languages, Russian.

We have a library with a reading-hall, a language lab, a large assembly hall, several computer rooms where basic computer skills are taught. Needless to say that our University is well-equipped. Language laboratories give us a good chance to improve our English. As for me, I enjoy making up dialogues and having discussions in the group. Even learning new phrases and grammar material brings me a lot of pleasure because I’d like to go for practice abroad. Unfortunately, my teacher says I’m not good at communicating, though I can read, translate and retell texts quite well. But she also says I’m diligent and if I try my spoken language will soon improve.

The curriculum is very interesting – the History of Russia, Ethics, Economics, Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, Russian, Latin, Roman Law and many others.

But my favourite subject is Theory of State and Law though I find it difficult and spend much time working in the reading hall of the library where I prepare for the seminars. Most of the students also devote plenty of time to it. We must know the subject very well because law may be defined as a code of conduct for the people in a given community, which controls their activities towards each other, with respect to their private and business lives and to their relationship with the state. It’s a well-known fact that not all breaches of civil or criminal law are deliberate, that’s why my future profession will serve for the community in order to protect an individual’s rights and freedoms.

We have usually 4 lectures or practical classes a day. The studies begin at 2 p.m. and are over at 19 50 p.m. So I’m usually very tired, nevertheless, when the classes are over, I seldom go home right away, because we can participate in extracurricular activities including all kinds of clubs and societies. For example, I’m a member of the English-speaking club aiming at giving a deeper knowledge of the subject and developing communication skills.

Well-qualified specialists – professors, doctors of sciences, judges work in our University. Very knowledgeable, they do their best to give us important, uptodate, necessary information in our professional sphere.