A Busy Day in the Life of a Languages Student

Hi all! My recent blogs have been quite topic specific, so I thought it would be a nice change to offer an insight into my daily life as a language student, with a “Day in the Life” blog concerning my Wednesday of Week 9. This was actually a horrifically busy day, which by no means reflects what my everyday life is like, but I thought I would pair this blog with another, which will show what a typically quiet day is like for me as a language student, so you get a sense of how varied it can be…

ALSO: If you’re a STEM student and you’re laughing at how woefully UNbusy this day is compared to your 1 billion contact hours, I don’t want to hear it. 

6:30 Wake up. Sorry, I’m a morning person, so I embrace it! Although I did cry a little when leaving bed. Went for a run around campus and the local area, and did shed a little happy tear for how much lighter it is getting in the mornings!

Morning run views of Tocil Woods

7:30 Home and showered. Ready to prepare myself for the looooonnngg day I have on campus ahead of me, which will mean, shock horror, I won’t even have enough time to run back to Lakeside to change my books and eat lunch. Eat breakfast of porridge and drink tea whilst doing makeup/ deciding on how many layers are appropriate for the day/ try and take artsy aesthetic photo of breakfast and knock my orchid on to the floor. Then I cried because our vacuum cleaner is broken. 

9:00 Fresh from 10-minute walk to Campus, which featured some stops to take photos of the sun shining over the lake, I am ready for my first class of the day, and my only 9:00AM of the week- Spanish translation. We attempt to translate a newspaper article about a mobile library in Colombia, which is moved by Donkeys….

Spring is slowly, but surely coming…

10:00 Hour break, and I usually either head to the Humanities Cafe if I am in need of a coffee, or the TRC (the Transnational Research Centre) which is essentially a common room/ study space for language students, if there is a lot of work I need to get done. Regrettably, today is the latter, so I bypass the caffeine (and the incredible playlist in HumCaf, which regularly features  my favourites, BTS) in favour of being a good student. Attempt to do Spanish grammar homework and check an Italian essay about post-truth journalism. However, eventually head to the Cafe to say hi to friends, as pretty much every humanities student can be found there.

11:00-13:00 Head to the lecture/seminar/class of my one and only culture module this term- Journeys and Cityscapes in Latin American Cinema. We discuss the 2008 Argentine psycho-thriller La Mujer Sin Cabeza, which, I won’t lie, was perhaps a bit too arty for my small brain, but I have been assured on the second viewing is much more forgiving. As a triple language student, I don’t do many of these modules, so it is such a nice part of my week, where I can think more creatively, instead of just crying about various irregular verbs in Russian… Speaking of which…

13:00-14:00 Russian grammar class. This is not that mystifying, it is just a regular grammar class. We spent the hour going over verbs of motion in Russian, because, fun fact, there are about 1000 different ways to say “to go” in the language. Therefore, it is something we have spent many hours on, and will no doubt continue to.

14:00-14:30 Lunch break. I am a good student, and thus I have brought my lunch with me, however, I did also buy biscuits from the vending machine. Moderation is key.

14:30-15:00 Meet with my Spanish grammar tutor, who is conveniently also my lovely Personal Tutor, to discuss my writing assignments that I have done over the year, and how I should prepare for summer exams. This was something she offered to every student in our year, however, is something I could have organised myself, as every tutor at Warwick has weekly office hours where you can visit and discuss any issues or problems. Learned that I really need to revise present tense conjugations…

15:00-18:00 Hit up University House, the best and most relaxed place to study on campus. There is a Learning Grid, which is effectively a library without books, where I met my friend and we studied/ caught up for a couple of hours.

18:00 Went to Leamington for dinner with a friend to celebrate carbohydrates and bond over how tired we are- welcome to Week 9 of Term 2. Only one week left until the Easter holidays….

20:00 Hit up the Clarendon pub in Leamington for the Pub Quiz, which is the best Pub Quiz around here in my opinion, and makes for a nice change on a Wednesday night if you don’t fancy going to Pop. The theme this week for the guest round was first-generation Pokemon, which was not my strength, however we still came second. 

23:00 Home, shower, bed, sleep for a million years. Wake up in a cold sweat remembering there is soil all over my carpet from the orchid, and steal next door’s hoover to rectify this. Bed, again. 

And that was a very busy Wednesday in my life. I feel like towards the end of Term, things always get busier, whilst everyone simultaneously gets tireder, so I will share soon a slightly quieter day in my life, where I spend time doing stuff other than studying and going to class, to give you a better idea about how varied days can be here. I hope this helps any students trying to imagine what life could be like as a languages student at Warwick. As always, feel free to ask any questions, or just provide general sympathy with regards to my busy schedule.

Catherine xxx