I went back to studying law with Agorassas: My Review
Context : I’m writing this article right after taking my first law exams with Agorassas; my opinion may evolve in the coming months, and I’ll try to keep this article updated.
Agorassas: what is it?
Agorassas is the “digital campus” of Paris II Panthéon-Assas University. It allows you to pursue a law degree remotely. You can progress through the program without any geographical or scheduling constraints. You can study from anywhere, at any time. The curriculum and diploma are exactly the same as the on-campus program.
Why did I dive into this?
Here’s my personal background: I have a background in IT, I’m in my mid-30s, I’m self-employed, and I happen to be a digital nomad. That means I travel constantly while working online. Since 2016, I’ve spent about a month in France each year. I’ve been working in the same field for 15 years; it’s a sector I enjoy, but I felt the need for intellectual stimulation by discovering new things.
Somewhat by chance, I discovered last summer that Panthéon-Assas University offered a distance learning law degree. Law has always interested me, so why not? I thought it was too late to enroll for the start of the academic year, so I imagined I’d think it over and possibly enroll next year. In the end, there were a few days left, so I went for it without overthinking. If I make progress in my law studies, I wouldn’t rule out a career change, but I don’t have specific plans yet.
Note that other universities also offer distance learning programs (Lille, Strasbourg, Grenoble, for example). I chose Assas partly for its prestige, but also because it seemed easier for me to get to Paris for exams if needed.
Agorassas: how to apply? How much does it cost?
Enrollment is done online, and you need a high school diploma. Several administrative documents are required, along with a cover letter.
Honestly, I don’t think there’s heavy selection since I sent my application in August (while the university was closed) and received acceptance the day after it reopened in early September, so I doubt I went before a selection committee. There’s likely a maximum capacity since we’re about 1,000 students, but it doesn’t seem very strict. This digital degree must be a nice source of revenue for the university 🙂
Like any student, you have to pay the national university fees of €170, the CVEC (Student Life and Campus Contribution) of €92, so far so good. The unpleasant surprise is that you also have to pay additional fees specific to distance learning of €800 (€400 for students).
Of course, there’s an IT platform to maintain, and courses to record on video, costs that don’t exist for on-campus studies. But on the other hand, there are no premises to rent and maintain for us, no paper expenses, … I’ll let you do the math on what that adds up to by estimating the number of students, but I wouldn’t be surprised if part of it goes into the university’s overall budget and isn’t used for the digital program 🙂
For a working person, the cost remains very reasonable. But for a student or someone who stops working to go back to school, it’s not necessarily neutral. The university even offers the option to pay in 3 installments over 3 months, which is what I did.
Note that as with traditional studies, you can be a scholarship recipient, in which case there are no university fees or CVEC, only €250 for specific expenses.
You can also use your CPF credits (personal training account). I was able to fund about half of my second year this way.
A small clarification: for those still in high school or higher education, you’ll need to go through Parcoursup to enroll. For older folks like me, you had to find your “INE code” (or BEA code), which is on your BAC transcript… I got mine in 2005, so I had to ask my dear mom, who had kept it safe in her archives 🙂
Who is the digital degree for?
Profiles are very diverse. There are people like me who are “working” and want to go back to school, either for a career change or for intellectual interest. There are students enrolled in another program who can pursue a double degree. There are high-level athletes who can follow a program that fits their training schedule. There are expatriates living abroad who can follow a French university program, retirees, …
Concretely, how does it work?
For the first semester of the first year, we have a core module with two subjects:
- Introduction to the study of law and civil law
- Constitutional law
These are the two most important subjects in terms of coefficients.
A complementary module with three subjects:
- Historical introduction to law
- Judicial institutions, administrative institutions
- Contemporary economic issues
As well as a methodology unit with two subjects:
- English
- History of law tutorials
For each of these subjects (except for the history of law tutorials), you have weekly video lessons that are equivalent to what you might get in lectures.
The number of videos varies by week and subject, but expect between 45 minutes and 1.5 hours of videos per subject per week..
In addition, there are supplementary reading materials (especially in constitutional law) and optional or compulsory assignments in the form of quizzes or essays. Compulsory assignments must be submitted by a fixed date and timeand are marked contributing to your continuous assessment grade. Ideally, you should supplement the lessons with personal study; a bibliography is provided for each subject.
There are also what they call “trial runs”, which are exam conditions at fixed times and dates with a time limit. We had one in civil law and one in English during the first semester. These take place on weekends to allow the maximum number of people to attend. If you are in Asia, as I was at the time, you’ll have to wake up at night for the test due to the time difference. The university is quite flexible; during the civil law trial run, I was… on a plane. The university offered me a make-up date (after notifying them in advance, of course, and I had to justify my request by showing my plane ticket). Although they are quite demanding, these trial runs are useful because for other assignments, we have no time constraints. During the semester, we had to submit two constitutional law essays; I had time to think about it for a week, do hours of research, … it’s not the same exercise as having only 3 hours in final exams.
A forum is available in each subject for students to interact with teachers and teaching assistants. The forums are active in main subjects, much less or not at all in others. Special mention to questions posted on the economics forum following an error (I think) in the course, that never got a response… Informal groups are also created on WhatsApp or Discord to help each other out (and bitch too, let’s be honest).
Make no mistake: the curriculum is exactly the same as the one offered in person. It’s a chance, the degree will have the same value (if you get it) but on the flip side, the expectations are high. Don’t think they’ll go easy on you; if your job takes 45 hours a week and you have to manage kids, that’s not the university’s problem. The flexibility is great, you can organize your schedule as you like, but the workload is heavy. In theory, it’s a program that requires full-time commitment, which is far from easy when you also have a job.
Exams
While everything can be managed remotely, exams are the exception and take place in person. This seems logical enough to prevent cheating. However, they can be taken outside of France. You need to contact the administration in advance to express your wish to take the exams in a specific location. They will then contact embassies and/or French schools to arrange it. Keep in mind that this isn’t guaranteed (in which case, you’d have to go to France… or get zeros on the exams…) and any costs will be on you. Some who took them abroad had to pay 100 euros, others 250, others nothing at all. Either way, it’s more convenient and economical than organizing a trip to Paris.
As luck would have it, I was able to go to France for my first exams in January 2022, but I’ll probably need to ask to take the next ones abroad.
EDIT: The second-term exams are happening while I’m in Vietnam. As soon as the dates were announced, I informed the administration of my wish to take them remotely. The administration then contacted the French institute in Hanoi, which will organize a special exam session just for me. It comes at a cost: €170 (for 4 days of exams), but it’s still cheaper than a round trip to Paris 🙂 Everything went smoothly, and I’m very happy with this exam relocation.
My first exams took place over 3 days with 5 papers total. My previous exams were about 15 years ago, so it felt strange to be back in a lecture hall! In my daily life, I barely use pens and paper anymore. I had to buy new pens, highlighters, erasers, … the full student kit. I had wrist cramps by the end of the essay papers because I’d lost the habit of writing so much. !
It was an odd experience to feel like a “real” student again. I had to show my student ID to get in, I waited in the library between papers, and although I didn’t, I could have had lunch at the CROUS cafeteria, …
Exams are also a good time to gauge how many “survivors” are left. A proctor I chatted with told me about a third of those scheduled were absent. This was during the COVID period, and the university had a make-up session to avoid people coming in while infected. But I also think there have been many dropouts already, even before the first exam. I believe the dropout rate is also very high in the in-person program, but the autonomy required for distance learning must not help.
What I appreciate
Overall I’m very happy with this first semester. It’s really nice to be a student at such a prestigious university while being at the other end of the world. Most of the subjects appeal to me, and I genuinely enjoy exploring a new field.
It requires a great deal of personal organization and discipline. but I’ve been working from home for years, so I’m used to working independently without needing to be managed. When I see the number of questions on the WhatsApp group about information that’s already been shared, I realize not everyone has the same level of organization ^^. I’m stating the obvious, but I think it’s one of the keys to success: stay organized to keep up with the courses each week and don’t fall behind.. Some people listen to the videos on their commute, while working out, or cooking… It won’t be as effective as active listening with note-taking, but it does help you absorb a certain amount of knowledge.
As everywhere, the quality of teaching and pedagogy varies and depends on the professor; there are good and bad everywhere. Special mention to the civil law professor, who is a highly renowned expert and whose eloquence makes the lectures very enjoyable (even though some videos were filmed years ago, it feels like a private lesson ^^).
The forum makes it easy to interact with professors. One teaching assistant mentioned that he has far more exchanges with students from the digital program than with his in-person students, whom he only sees for 1.5 hours a week during his tutorial. So distance is not a barrier at all in that respect.
Informal WhatsApp/Discord groups are also invaluable for mutual support. Since everyone has different constraints and profiles, and we’re all in the same boat, a sense of solidarity emerges that you don’t necessarily find in more traditional programs.
What I appreciate less
This isn’t necessarily specific to Agorassas; I hear it’s quite common across universities, but I struggle to understand why course handouts aren’t provided.Videos are great, but they’re very time-consuming, especially if you want to transcribe the lecture properly. A 30-minute video will take me a good hour if I want to transcribe it correctly.
Admittedly, professors don’t hesitate to promote… their own course books… which typically cost between €20 and €40… I understand the intellectual property issues, but I really struggle with this. A very concrete consequence: I only have time to seriously study the two main subjects; I manage as best I can with the rest, in a degraded mode, and it’s very frustrating. I wouldn’t find it unreasonable for a “digital” degree to provide course handouts in PDF.
Fortunately, the forum has “transcription forums” where kind souls share their lecture transcriptions. That’s very valuable, but it’s still not as good as “official” course handouts; the transcriptions are often literal (and therefore very long), and it’s not uncommon to find errors in these student-made transcriptions. A digital library is available, though, providing access to a very large catalog of resources.
In the end, for this first semester, the only books I bought are the Civil Code, a collection of foreign constitutions, and a collection of French constitutions. Total budget: €40, but above all 2kg more in my suitcase 😄 I bought these 3 books because they were allowed during exams, but I only used the Civil Code. I see on the WhatsApp group that some people buy a myriad of textbooks. It’s probably reassuring, but between the courses, online resources, and the digital library, I think it’s enough. Only the Civil Code seems essential; you’ll need it for exams, and as (future) legal professionals, you must learn to use it.
Another thing that irritates me, specifically in constitutional law: The professor decided there would be a “participation” grade that counts toward the continuous assessment grade. This participation concerns posts you make on the forum, either by starting current events topics or commenting on classmates’ exercises. The calculation of this grade is completely opaque. Grading an essay is already subjective, but evaluating the participation of 1,000 students on a forum… it’s bound to be arbitrary. As a result, stressed out by this prospect, many students force themselves to participate more or less clumsily… In my view, it’s counterproductive because you end up flooded with messages of zero relevance (yes, that’s subjective too ^^). For my part, I haven’t participated, since constitutional law is already the most time-consuming subject because it requires a lot of reading and learning a new methodology. I’ll just have to see what I’m in for…
Still on constitutional law. Optional essays are offered. To get feedback, you have to post it publicly on the forum. We’ll get comments from the teaching assistants. But also from students, whose feedback counts toward their participation grade… The quality of “student” feedback obviously isn’t the same as that of the teaching assistants. Furthermore, no model answer is provided, which I find quite a shame as well.
The learning platform works, but it could use a modern update. It’s pretty far from current MOOC platform standards. I’m mainly thinking of the videos, which are static shots of the teacher talking. There’s room for improvement. It’s quite laughable to see a professor holding a paper with a diagram of the “hierarchy of norms” when it could easily be embedded right into the video.
Lastly, it’s worth noting that some videos are outdated. You can tell because some of the laws mentioned are sometimes obsolete. Nothing too off-putting, but it’s a bit annoying to realize you’re watching a video shot 4 or 5 years ago.
Conclusion
Despite these criticisms, I’m overall very satisfied. Agorassas allows me to pursue a university degree under good conditions, which would be impossible otherwise in my situation.
If I go all the way, I could earn a “real” law degree from a prestigious university. The only minor drawback is that while the “digital program” mention doesn’t appear on the diploma, it is mentioned on the transcript and according to some feedback, this can negatively affect the selection process for the most sought-after master’s programs.
Even if I drop out in a few months, I’ll have learned things; just for general knowledge, it won’t have been wasted time.
If you’re considering a career change, I strongly encourage you to look into what law really entails (borrow an introductory law book and a constitutional law book from the library). The image you get from movies or TV shows can be misleading, and some people drop out quickly when they realize law isn’t for them. If you regularly follow current events and political debates, you’ll already have some insight (especially in constitutional law) that will come in handy. Also, research the reality of the job market in this fairly saturated field. For example, the average salary for lawyers is quite surprising, especially after so many years of study.
In any case, it’s an adventure you’re about to embark on; the journey will be long and full of pitfalls, but it’s fascinating !
If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments, and I’d be happy to try to answer them.
