The best thing about university is that every day is unique, bringing with it new opportunities and events! But of course, life is more organized when you’ve got a routine you can follow. I’ve got my own routine, that I try to follow on most days.
So a normal day in my life goes something like this…
I wake up early, around 7, to get some coursework done before my lectures start, at around 10.30 am. My lectures this semester are taught by external lecturers, so I spend my lecture time taking notes and trying to grasp everything they mention about their research. I try to answer the questions they ask during the lecture and participate in the discussion that takes place.
After the end of the lecture, I hang around for a little while longer, asking them lots of questions and having a conversation about the topic. Then I hurry to my next lecture and repeat the same process! I really like asking questions and making the most of the limited time we have with every external lecturer. It can be rather intimidating to ask questions but after the first few weeks, I got used to it. Sure, my questions sometimes are pretty silly, but I’ve stopped feeling embarrassed to ask them. After all, the lecturers are bound to answer them and no one is going to remember what you asked after half an hour!
After the lectures, I head to Biosciences Old Stores or ‘the cave,’ as we fondly call it! It’s a little computer lab my course has access to. I quickly warm up my lunch and have it there, while discussing what we learnt with my course mates. We all have different academic backgrounds and opinions so we invariably end up branching out from the topic and debating something completely different! I’m the Subject Chair for PGT Biosciences so I also collect some feedback about the course and any help that anyone might need.
Then I settle down to get some more work done! A postgraduate taught course has a lot of assignments so I need to be really focused and have to work hard to get everything done in time. When I’m happy with the amount of work I’ve finished, I call it a day and walk back home. I take detours and walk along the pretty walks around Streatham campus, enjoying the serenity and relaxing after a long day.
After getting home, I take some time to check my emails and to update the social media page I and my fellow coursemates created for our course. We wanted to spread awareness about food security and why its important, so we created a Facebook page, ‘Food security and sustainable agriculture‘. I see if there are any new articles related to our subject and share it on the page. We started doing this because we all love our course, and we wanted to practically apply some of the communication skills we’re learning!
After a healthy dinner, I head to bed after some light reading, to relax and get ready for the next day. Some days I have research seminars to attend. Other days I have other meetings or events like public seminars I try to attend. But I spend quite a lot of time doing my assignments or doing coursework. I rather enjoy engaging with what I learn so I tend to do that a lot!