Hey friends, it’s SJ here again, today I’m going to be giving you a run-down of a week in my life! If you haven’t read one of my blogs before, I am now a second-year student studying Renewable Energy BSc on the Penryn Campus at the University of Exeter. My course is pretty full on, with lots of assignments, group projects, practical sessions and lectures all to squeeze into a week. If you’re a prospective student, I’m hoping this blog can give you an idea of just how a usual week for me might run, including when I do my independent studying, socialising, societies and generic adulting tasks!
Living by yourself at uni for the first time can be hard, and there are so many new things you have to remember to do in your week. I am currently living in a house in Penryn with a few of my friends, we all love cooking together and socialising over the weekends around completing our work. Below I have attached an example of my timetable from a couple of weeks ago: while the majority of my lectures change every week, there are a few which remain the same and allow me to plan things like work, food shopping and exercise. Due to this variation of lectures, my explanation below may not exactly match up, buy hopefully you can get a good idea! Take a look…
Monday
Mondays are probably my most busy day of the week… I always love starting the week off right with an energising run and swim at the gym! I have a membership at the St Michaels Gym in Falmouth, and although this one is a little expensive, it is such a relaxing place to escape. They have a sauna and steam room by the pool, along with amazing gym facilities. After this, I’ll drive back home and make myself some breakfast – I personally tend to make something easy like scrambled egg on toast or cereal and a glass of orange juice. I am lucky to rarely have lectures on Monday mornings, which means I can really make the most of my morning. After getting ready for the day, I walk into uni which takes about 35 mins from my house in Penryn. I normally have a Law lecture on Mondays for my module on Environmental Regulation and Redress, which lasts an hour and a half and is in one of the big Daphne Du Maurier lecture theatres. One thing I love about this module is that it is a combination of many courses, including Environmental Science, Law and Business and Business and Environment – which many of my friends are on, so I get to see and sit with them in this time. Between this lecture and my Energy Management module lecture from 5-6pm, I will probably pop home to make a big lunch. When I go back up to uni for my evening lecture, I also have to make sure I’m ready for my Dance Society weekly class after. I attend one of their ballet classes on a Monday and then their Heels class on a Tuesday; we are now starting to prepare for our yearly showcase which I’m super excited for! Finally, after a long day I will come home and hopefully (fingers crossed) one of my flatmates has been kind enough to cook us dinner to eat together – we take it in turns during the week to cook depending on everyone’s plans.
Tuesday
My lectures on Tuesday vary massively, so depending on the week, my self-study time can look very different. The most regular scenario is that I will walk into uni at around 10am, go and sit in the campus library for a couple of hours and crack down on some of my assignments. My course likes to set us a lot of independent work, usually about three essays a term of about 1,500 words each, and so a lot of focus and responsibility is needed to get these completed at a sensible pace. I would like to think I am better at planning my essays then I actually am, but the aim is to always set a series of soft deadlines to myself to have sections of the work completed by certain dates. Of course, our course sets some group work as well. Tuesday mornings tend to be when we might have a group meeting to discuss the week’s progress or assign tasks to one another. One of the most practical pieces of group work we recently had was our ‘Hydro Challenge’. This is where we spent a week entirely off-timetable and had 9am-5pm sessions in our Renewable Energy Engineering Facility (REEF) Workshop every day, where we built a mini hydroelectric power turbine in groups of four. However, in the weeks before this, it required many weekly meetings to sort which design we were going with. This wasn’t a big change of routine for me, as Tuesday afternoons are when I might usually have a session in REEF anyway for a different project. For the past year, we have been constructing in groups, a small wooden wind turbine. While this has taken many hours and a lot of hard work to build, it has been a really fun project to do with my course mates. Tuesday evenings are very similar to Mondays, I will have an Energy Management lecture from 5-6pm and then a dance class to end the day.
Wednesday
My chill day! I rarely have a lecture on a Wednesday, the majority of lecturers won’t teach after midday on a Wednesday anyway as it is when sport societies usually run. I will have a nice relaxing morning, with a lie-in, maybe read my book for an hour and then have a nice big breakfast like a bagel with halloumi and tomatoes. I might sit at our kitchen table or go across the road to a coffee shop to get some work done. Or, depending on the weather, I might go for a sea swim or a hike with my friends. This week (whilst not very relaxing of us) we actually all woke up at 6:15am and drove to Coverack beach for a beautiful sunrise swim – and yes, this was November, however the sun had come out and we had wetsuits on! Or, we might go for a midday walk to Flushing town, stop at the pub or the beach and walk back. On Wednesday evenings, I work at my part-time job. This is an online job I’ve had for years. Working online is ideal for a uni student as it allows me to work when I go home over the holidays too!
Thursday
Now, Thursdays are where my timetable gets busy! Nearly all my lectures seem to be scheduled on a Thursday, which means a long day for me. While in second year I have surprisingly few 9am lectures or seminars, I do have a 10am, and most of the time it will be a RES lecture. This is my Renewable Energy Systems module, where each week we look at a different form of renewable energy – this week is solar! These tend to be 1.5 hours and in a seminar room or a small lecture theatre. It is only my course on this module, so usually only about 20 of us, making for a nice atmosphere and more direct teaching. The lecturer will run through a few PowerPoints and everyone will make notes, and then we will probably do some numerical questions to end the lecture off. They are quite full on and by this point I will absolutely need a coffee. The Sustainability Café on campus do amazing coffees, or even just the Stannary cafeteria downstairs sell cheap drinks. I might have a small break before my next lecture, which might be a workshop or support session. These vary a lot, but at the moment we have weekly Placement Support sessions in order to help us find an internship next year. Next is lunch – ideally, I will have made my lunch the night before to bring in with me, probably just pesto pasta as my cooking skills are embarrassingly poor! Although, the chances are that I am this prepared are slim, and so I will normally head down to the Stannary to buy some nachos – my favourite meal they serve! After this, I might spend some time in the library or I might even have another lecture, before my 4-6pm Green Politics lecture. These are in a seminar room and we always have great discussions on current events happening in the media. Lastly, after a long day, we will probably go to the pub on the way home. Thirsty Scholar is a lovely pub in Penryn which has a student discount on a Thursday and Friday. We normally all then cook a meal together that evening and watch some TV to end the day.
Friday
Nearly the weekend! I will probably head into uni at about midday these days and get some work done in the library or attend another RES lecture. I may have a Green Consultants lecture in the afternoon, or another group meeting. Either way, Fridays are normally pretty relaxed. I like to be the one to cook dinner on a Friday for everyone in our house, either a mushroom risotto or a curry is my speciality! Dinner together is a really nice way to catch up with my flatmates at the end of the week or have some friends round to enjoy dinner with us. Depending on the weather and how much work we have to do, we may go to the beach for s’mores on the BBQ or just have a night-in watching a film.
Saturday
I work at my part-time job again on a Saturday morning, so after staring at a screen for a while, I like to go to the gym again to make me feel more productive. It’s actually surprisingly quiet on a Saturday, so I might spend a good couple of hours here. After this, I’ll make some lunch and probably do even more work (or watch Netflix…). It again is a fairly chilled out day, however the food shop must not be forgotten to do on a Saturday afternoon! We normally head to Lidl for our shop as it is closer and cheaper than the other nearby supermarkets, and hopefully spend under £25 each if we’re being careful! We buy most things together as we eat so often together and share things like milk and bread as they go off so quickly. When we get back, we’ll make some food and then start getting ready to go out. Saturdays are definitely the best for a night-out in Falmouth, there is more of a crowd and atmosphere and all the pubs and clubs are open a bit later. A usual night out for us will probably involve pre-drinks at our house, walk into town, a trip to Weatherspoon’s for cheap drinks, then a nice pub like Chintz or Grapes, and we’ll join the queue for The Kings. Kings is a club in Falmouth, along with other options like Mangos or Toast, however Mangos tends to be more popular for first year students and you have to pay for entry. Kings and Toast are free, so we might go between the two. We will have a dance and then head home after a great night spent with friends.
Sunday
To be honest with you, depending on how late we stayed out the night before, I will probably not do a lot on Sundays! Maybe I will go to a café to do some work, or have a quick swim at the local beach, but normally I will just stay in the house, watch some TV with my flatmates and do some lecture-prep work to prepare for the next week. However, maybe once a month or so, we’ll head into Falmouth town on a Sunday to enjoy a small shopping trip in the sun and get some fish and chips to eat on the harbour. Last week, we actually visited the Maritime Museum in Falmouth. This is an amazing weekend activity to do with friends, they’ve got several boats and exhibitions which are all super interesting! They also have a watchtower which we climbed up to get a stunning view of Falmouth. Sunday evenings, however, are usually spent calling my friends or family from back home to check-in with them, and then a nice dinner and an early night! A roast dinner can be really lovely to make occasionally, especially when it’s getting colder. Me and my friend cooked one for six people this week, it was actually surprisingly straight-forward and it was lovely that our other friends brought around a home-made desert for after.
So, that’s the week summed-up for me! I hope you all enjoyed- SJ.
**Disclaimer, this is a busy week for me! Realistically, I might not be able to attend every single one of my lectures and I may have to catch up over the weekends – however always make sure to go to as many as possible! It is easy to feel drained on a rainy October week so make sure you allow for some self-care time.