Studying at Georgetown University Law Center is both hard and exciting. Many problems covered in general courses here, such as those in corporation or securities law, are just emerging in Ukraine. I hope that my education at one of the best U.S. law schools will help me to better anticipate these problems and offer practical solutions in my future work in Ukraine.
The course on Corporations this semester was really fascinating. It covered not only rules that govern corporations, but also underlying policies and foundations of corporate responsibility. I believe this course will serve me well, no matter what area of law I choose to practice.
Another interesting course was Contemporary Issues in International Human Rights. This course was designed as a seminar class. We chose specific areas and wrote news briefs about most important developments in human rights, which were then posted on the university's human rights webpage. I chose international and regional human rights bodies and commissions. In doing the class assignments I not only learned about the most recent developments in my chosen areas, but also acquired new skills in research and writing short reports. As a result of taking these two courses, I became interested in issues of corporate responsibility towards human rights. In my final paper for this seminar, I combined what I had learned in both classes to propose issues, which should be central for someone heading a human rights organization in Ukraine.
Two other courses I took were on International Litigation and Alternative Dispute Resolution. Most issues were policy related. I found it very interesting to study different kinds of disputes and the processes different countries use to resolve them. Since it was practically impossible to teach us legal rules of all legal systems, our professor mainly tried to stimulate us to approach these problems by developing our analytical and critical thinking (or as she put it: “thinking out of the box”).
In addition to the knowledge I have gained here, I have been developing some new and valuable skills, such as critical thinking, time management, information search on the Internet, various kinds of research, writing term papers, and taking exams. To acquire them is a real challenge. While most students are enjoying their holiday season, I am still struggling with my paper on international arbitration. To make it perfect requires most of the above-mentioned skills. Also there are two other crucial factors: for me this is a new topic; student paper requirements are much higher here than in Ukraine. So, I do my best and hope to finish my work before New Year's Day, so that I can truly celebrate the holiday and be able to reflect on my American experience and plans for the coming year.
