A Day In My Life
Ever wondered what it’s like to study at the University of Warwick? Here’s a glimpse of what I get up to on a daily basis.
7:30am: On some mornings I have to be on campus bright and early for cheer training. This is usually just once or twice a week. On other mornings, I try to make it to campus by 9am to start work, although this doesn’t always happen 😬😅.
9:00am: Time for a Nero treat. After training, we like to sit in Cafe Nero for a bit of a chat whilst demolishing their paninis.
10:00am: Time for some quick reading for seminar prep. Ideally, I would have read all the material by now, this is just a quick refresher so that I’m ready for the class discussion. In a pinch, or if I’ve had a very busy/unproductive week and didn’t have time to complete the reading, I might skip the Nero time and just try to get as much as possible done in this time.
11:00am: Seminar. Most English seminars last 1-2 hours. In this time, we usually discuss our weekly reading and ask any questions that might have come up. Sometimes the tutor gives us mini lecture-like presentations, designed to get us thinking and to trigger a deeper discussion. From my experience, this especially happens for modules that don’t have lectures. Other times, we take turns giving presentations, either individually or in groups and then discuss each other’s work.
13:00: Quick lunch break. It’s usually more of a snack, especially if I have a dance class after.
13:30: Dance class. I’m also in the university’s dance club (CMD) so I usually attend one or two dance classes a week, sometimes more if I have time.
15:00: Actual lunch, or quick snack if I’ve already eaten. I usually try to pack my own food because it’s healthier and it also helps me to save money. Sometimes I do like to treat myself to lunch at one of the places on campus or from the food trucks, especially if I’m with friends.
16:00: Time to do actual work. In this time I watch lectures (which have still mostly been online for most of this year) and do my reading for the week. Whilst I do this, I like to make notes on things I could comment on or questions I could ask during seminars. This helps me to prepare and it’s usually what I read through in the hour before the seminars.
19:30: Circling! This happens every Wednesday and it’s one of the most fun parts of the week. All the sports clubs and some societies meet in the Copper Rooms, which is one of our social spaces and sit in their circles playing drinking games. It’s a really lively event because you can hear all the different clubs chanting their own chants and everyone is dressed in the theme that their social secretaries have chosen for the week. Most people drink Purple which is Warwick’s weird drink concoction, but there’s of course no pressure to drink and you could just have squash or anything else instead. At 10pm they take all the tables away and it turns to “POP!”, which is just a club night with really cheesy pop music. It’s just a silly night full of students and no one really takes themselves too seriously.
So here’s an example of how some of my days would look like. The flexibility of our degree means that every day is different and everyone has different schedules depending on the modules they choose and the activities they take part in.
Different modules have differing amounts of contact hours, and depending on the size of the module, we are often given multiple time slots to choose from. There are some days in which I have no contact hours and hardly any other activities, meaning that I can spend all day reading and prepping for seminars. Other days are even busier than this and I might not have time to do prep work at all. If you would like me to share more on how other days of my week look like please feel free to let me know!
