Hi there, my name is Sophie and I am a 3rd year English student at the University of Exeter. In this post I want to take you through a typical day in my life to give you a taste of what it is like to study at one of the best universities in the world (not that I am biased…). Whether you’re looking to study English, heading to Exeter this September, or are just curious about student life, I hope you enjoy this post.
8:30am – The first thing I do when I wake up is head to the kitchen to have my first cup of tea. Tea and coffee are pretty essential for uni students, especially near deadline season which it happens to currently be for me. Once I’m feeling more awake, I’ve gotten dressed and had some breakfast I’ll normally head to campus to start work.
10am: We’ve arrived in the Library! I used to work in my room a lot but have recently started going to the Forum Library and I’ve found I work really productively there. Due to the pandemic, you have to book a space and it means that everyone is in their own zone and working quietly which really helps me to focus. The kind of work I get up to involves, unsurprisingly, a LOT of reading.
11:30am: A great mid-morning study break when I’m on campus is a trip to either Pret, Costa, or the Market Place to buy (another) coffee or a snack. There are lots of great places to grab food on campus and sit with your friends when you want to take a break. But beware – the Pret queue is known to get very long at peak times!
1pm: After a morning of work, I tend to head home to make some lunch. A great thing to do in the afternoon is go for a walk around the town and surrounding areas of Exeter. There are some really beautiful places that are easy to get to from student accommodation, such as the Quay, the Cathedral, or if you want to go a little bit further, getting on the train down to the beach at Exmouth! There are loads of great clothes shops in the Princesshay shopping centre, independent cafes, and restaurants in the town so there’s lots of ways to spend the afternoon. Now that the shops are open again, I’ve loved walking around town with my housemates, visiting the vintage clothes shop Sobey’s and grabbing some books from the local charity shops.
5pm: After a fun afternoon off, I tend to try and get a little bit more work done, researching and writing up notes from things I’ve been reading and ticking off the last few things on my to-do list before cooking dinner and relaxing in the evening.
7pm: Most of my evenings are spent hanging out with my housemates either watching a film, chatting or cooking together. I live in a house with 4 other girls and we love to do things all together – one of the best things about uni is living with my friends! On some evenings I also have rehearsals with my society – the University of Exeter Cheerleading and Gymnastics club. Right now that means learning routines and training over Zoom, but normally we would meet up to dance and stunt together and I love being part of one of Exeter’s biggest sports societies!
11pm: And there we go! With clubs being shut and my dissertation deadline looming I tend to start getting ready for bed at around 11pm before having a scroll through Instagram and Tiktok.
One thing I love about university is that no two days are really the same. There are so many fun things to do in Exeter and places to go to eat and explore – even after three years here I still have lots of things to tick off my bucket list!
I hope this gave you an insight into what being an Exeter English student is like, and if you’re heading to university next year good luck and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do :).
By Sophie Davies