As well as units which have been around for some time (ranging from Commercial Law to Criminology, Medical Law to Regulation of Financial Markets and Institutions) there will be some new units in 2016-17: Economic Analysis of Law, British Immigration, Nationality and Citizenship Law, Comparative Public Law and Reproduction Law, Ethics and Policy.

Taking optional units enables you to pursue areas which you find particularly appealing or which you think will be useful in a future career - or both. Many students find their optional subjects some of the most interesting parts of their degree. That was certainly true in my own case, and now I really enjoy teaching my own optional unit, seeing students getting stuck into an area which they have chosen themselves. We want you to choose the subjects which will suit you the best, and, with that in mind, we are working to ensure that everyone has the information they need to make sensible choices.

Several sources of information are, or will shortly be, available to you. Some of this will be on the undergraduate option choices course of Blackboard.

• The Options Book will give a brief description of the units which are available for 2016-17.
• We are also making available the unit handbooks for units running in 2015-16 which will also be available in 2016-17. There may be some changes in syllabus from one year to the next, but we are doing this to give you a bit more of an idea of what you might expect to be doing in a particular unit.
• Information on units available in other parts of the University can be obtained from the University’s Unit Catalogue.

Once you have looked at this information, you may wish to discuss your choices with your Personal Tutor or with Unit Co-ordinators. Feel free to do so, using their Office Hours. When making your choices, factors to bear in mind (apart from interest) include mode of assessment. Units in the Law School are assessed either by coursework or by exam. Think about whether you prefer one type of assessment rather than the other. Think about the likely timing of coursework assessments, and bear in mind that if you opt for multiple coursework units, some points of the year are likely to be particularly busy. Those going into the final year should also factor in the timing of the Final Year Research Project. If you are thinking about taking units outside the Law School, bear in mind that assessment methods may differ, and also that some units will be taught only in one teaching block, rather than throughout the academic year.

There will be a separate communication with dates and deadlines, so look out for that and get your forms in in time. From a student perspective, it is important to get the choices right first time, because, while there is a process for changing options at the beginning of the next academic year, this is only possible for the first two weeks of term and there is much less room for manoeuvre at that point, since staffing decisions will already have been made and timetables will have been drawn up. From your point of view, it really makes sense to take some time, use the information available to you, speak to staff and make the right option choices now.