hi,

i'm looking for a general LL.M. program in the U.K.
My main interest is to improve my englisch skills with the program and to gain life experience in another country - with different people from all over the world. It is not my interest to improve my law skills in a very special way, i'm just interested in learning a little bit about a foreign law system.

It is important for me, that there is a lot of collegiate & cultural life, parties and spare time activities at the university / town - so that it is possible to connect with a lot of different people. Anyone who can give an advise for a town or university like that ?

I reckon an LLM may not be the best option given what you want to get from it.

Firstly, you shouldn't look at the LLM as an opportunity to improve your English skills. At graduate level, you're supposed to engage in discussions regarding given topics within your field. So if you're planning on taking on graduate studies in the UK, a good command of the English language is a pre-requisite. Furthermore, law is premised on extensive reading. One more reason why English skills are something you ought to have prior to pursuing academic studies in the UK.

As any graduate programme, you'll have a lot of free (i.e., without classes) time whilst in the LLM. But it doesnt mean you havent got things to do and books to read. If you want more than just the LLM life experience, you must grasp your laziness and seal it off somewhere inside your brain and study. A bored student will surely give in to this laziness and toss aside the books in order to party all day long. Moreover, the LLM specifically is focused on students who want to deepen their knowledge of some specific area (for instance, commercial law, international law, labour law, human rights and the list goes on).

Therefore, enrolling on an LLM aiming at the life experience alone (I'm not saying it's not an important part of the "LLM experience") seems somewhat reckless to me.

You'd probably end up bored of classes, lectures and academic activities... and that would inevitably lead you towards lack of interest in any specific area, low marks and (worst case scenario) a failure in the exams and dissertation. To make matters worse, you'd have a permanent unpleasant feeling that you're wasting your money (about 25,000 to 30,000 pounds a year, depending on whether you're an overseas student or not) on something not worth it.

If you really want to have lots of parties, partake in cultural activities and improve your English whilst at it, you'd probably be better off in some language programme. I believe this kind of programme tends to be shorter than a full teaching year, but anyway I reckon you'll probably enjoy it much more. I think you'd take many more advantages out of it. An LLM, as I gather from your post, would not be suitable for your interests in my humble opinion.

in my country, the ll.M. for a lawyer is just a proof, that your're able to speak english in an appropriate way. It doesn't really matter, what kind of subject or town your studying in.

So my question is, what cities have the most cultural attraction for students ?
It does not have anything to do with laziness or something. Jobwise it does not make sense for me to participate on one of these very specialized programs, like "oil and gas law", "commercial law" and so on. Because i'm from a country without common law - so my main interest is to get a valuable insight of the common law system in general - and of course to get an impression of the foreign country and it's people.

Lots of things to do -> London? i.e. LSE, UCL, KCL
Best reputation? -> Cambridge? Oxford (MJur)?

Just to be clear, I didnt mean to say you were lazy, but rather that on account of all the free time every LLM student has, ones laziness will inevitably set in and you'll need to struggle against it to find the strength to study. But if you're really focused on pursuing an LLM (with no regard to the underlying reasons), you'd want to get a degree from a good university. So, in the UK, you can't go wrong with colleges of the University of London (UCL, LSE, KCL or QM) or Cambridge and Oxford, or even Edinburgh. Im friends with a bloke who got his LLM from Oxford. He said there wasnt much to do about Oxford so given your interests, youd probably cross that one off. I reckon Cambridge is likely to be as quiet as Oxford in terms of city its probably all centred on the university. Citywise, youd probably be better off in London or Edinburgh.

Finally, may I ask where youre from?

Of course London and Edinburgh are two of the most expensive cities to live in. If you're really not bothered about the qualification you're getting then Manchester, Newcastle, Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield are vibrant cities. Oxford, Cambridge and Durham are great little university cities, they offer something different.

That said, why not just have a year working in the UK? You don't seem to care too much about actually obtaining an LLM.

Try University of Sussex. It's on the outskirts of Brighton which seems to me like one of the cities in UK with most going on. It's a respectable university too which is perhaps not as famous as it ought to be.

I don't think Brighton has much going on unless you're gay. It's not particularly big for a start, very provincial. There are a lot of far more important cities where you'd have more to do.

My last comment on this pretty pointless thread:
1) Read the rankings, I suppose you can do that yourself.
2) If the city means that much to you, go to London
What further insights did you expect anyway?