By Gbemisola Emdin | UH Student News
On her weekly schedule, Aya Okereke’s week looks impossible to do. She’s a second-year Law student at the University of Hertfordshire. She has ADHD. And when she’s not in lectures, reading case notes or winding down with friends, you’ll find her working shifts for her family’s business. “It feels like I’m juggling three oranges all the time,” she laughs, “and my brain is the fourth orange that rolled away on the floor.”
Law is already one of the most demanding degrees in the UK, with universities estimating around 30 to 45 hours a week of combined lectures, seminars and independent study for full-time law students. But when you include a paid job and neurodivergence, the pressure becomes difficult to manage. This means Aya’s timetable is stacked before she even opens her iPad and starts being productive.
Yet, she remains an exception. Aya is a part of a growing number of university students trying to balance their studies while having ADHD and trying to make a living.
My Brain Does Not do Linear.
Aya was diagnosed with ADHD in her late teens right before she started university. That diagnosis shapes every part of her academic life, especially in a course that typically demands relentless reading, strict assignment deadlines and long concentration spans.
“Law and structure go together. You can’t have one without the other,” she says. “Case studies, principles, application, all of it. But my brain doesn’t do so well with following structure.”
Research notes that she’s not alone. According to PubMed, around 2 to 8% of university students fall into the ADHD spectrum and often face greater academic challenges over time. Organisation, time management and staying on top of deadlines are a few of the consistent struggles students with ADHD report at university.
For Aya, it looks like this: “spending an hour or two over-planning an assignment I haven’t started, hyper fixating on the same paragraph four times or missing tiny instructions from seminar questions because her mind slipped for a few seconds.”
She explains, “It’s not that I don’t care, I really do.”
“It just feels like I have ten tabs open in my mind, two are frozen and sometimes I can’t see what directly or promptly needs my attention.
Studying Law with ADHD
When some people imagine a Law student, they picture someone who is hyper-focused, with colour coded notes and neon highlighters. Aya mocks that stereotype. “I don’t think I fit the aesthetic Pinterest law girlie,” she says.
“My study notes are an organised chaos made up of post-it notes, voice notes and random bullet points but it works for me though. It really does.”
Students with ADHD usually have to come up with their own systems around functioning academically. Research from UK and European universities found that ADHD in higher education also comes with more stress and a higher chance of burning out. However, it is also reported that the right support and methods can greatly improve development and outcomes.
For Aya, some of her methods include re-listening to lecture recordings when her attention slips, making use of visual planners and alarms for deadlines and emailing lecturers in advance if she needs extra support or feels she’s falling behind.
“I’ve had to learn that I’m not lazy, my brain just needs different tools to stay on track,” she says. “The biggest game-changer for me has been allowing myself to freely work in a way that actually suits me, not the way I think a “normal” law student should work.”
The Extra Weight of Work
On top of her coursework and ADHD, Aya also works full-time as a personal assistant in her family’s business.
“My allowance doesn’t magically appear out of nowhere,” she says. “The cost of food, going out, personal utilities all add up. So, being a part of my family’s work is my way of contributing and supporting but also to earn for myself.
And Aya is not alone in this. A recent survey from the Higher Education Policy Institute found that approximately 68% of UK university students now work during term time, which is up from 35% a decade ago, due to the cost of living pushing more students into part-time jobs. Many students have also reported sacrificing their independent study time just to make ends meet.
For a student with ADHD, that sacrifice can be even more intense. ADHD is often linked in literatures to difficulties with planning, time management and balancing multiple tasks. Throw a job into the mix and every hour of the week has to be used determinedly.
“Some days I wake up and go straight to responding to work emails or joining online business meetings,” Aya says. “So, by the time I get to a morning lecture, my brain feels exhausted. Then I remember I still have pending assignments and that’s when the real panic kicks in.”
Coping, Crashing and Getting Back Up
I asked Aya what burnout feels like for her.
She explains, “I usually get into this horrible all-or-nothing mentality”. “
“It’s either I’m on top of everything or I feel like I’m failing at everything. ADHD kind of makes it hard to see the grey area with things.”
In recent years, studies have begun to explore the connection between ADHD characteristics, stress and burnout in universities, suggesting that neurodivergent students may be particularly vulnerable when workload and support aren’t balanced.
For Aya, support has come in many forms. It’s friends who understand when she needs to cancel plans and catch up on assignments or quiet study spaces on campus where she can work in short but focused times.
“Just having someone be there and say, ‘You’re not abnormal, you just learn differently’ makes a huge difference,” she says. “I stopped seeing ADHD as a disability and started treating it as something I could work with.”
Why This Story Matters
Aya’s story is one person’s experience but it speaks to wider conversations happening across UK campuses about neurodiversity, working through a cost-of-living crisis and what it really looks like to study a demanding course when your brain doesn’t fit the “typical” mould.
Universities are slowly starting to adapt as a recent review of support actions for students with ADHD highlighted the importance of tailored academic adjustments, mentoring and flexible teaching approaches, rather than a ‘one-size-fits-all’ system.
When I asked Aya what she wishes people understood, she is quick with her response.
“ADHD isn’t just about ‘can’t sit still’,” she says. “It’s the reason I reread sentences, forget I have an assignment due tomorrow or just hyper-fixate on one small part of an essay and ignore the rest. But it’s also the reason I can think around problems, manage pressure in weird ways and bring a different perspective to law.”
Her advice to other students in similar situations is simple but effective.
“Talk to someone. Your lecturers, support services, your friends. Don’t carry it alone and don’t be ashamed of needing extra support. Everyone is juggling something of their own, this just happens to be ours.”
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