A Week in the Life: Cambridge edition

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jismith1989

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX5II-BJ8hI

I shall click on the link after Thursday, when I've completed my Existentialism/Marxism essay, my Bourdieu essay, and my Pragmatist method essay :dry:

Reply 61

faber niger

Craghyrax

I shall click on the link after Thursday, when I've completed my Existentialism/Marxism essay, my Bourdieu essay, and my Pragmatist method essay :dry:

Don't lie, you've already clicked on it. :curious:

Reply 62

Craghyrax

jismith1989

Don't lie, you've already clicked on it. :curious:

I haven't

Its context in the thread and the posts that followed make it fairly straightforward to form some idea of the content.

Reply 63

lavalse

ok well this is a week in the life of a 1st year linguist: (only just done my first term but next term will be the same, my timetable isnt changing...)

Monday: wake up at 9.20, have breakfast, get ready etc, cycle to Sidgwick for 2hrs of Arabic 10-12. either have lunch in town with friends or go back to college and eat in the buttery. procrastinate for a bit in my room, but generally work from about 3pm-6pm stressing out about my essay due in on tuesday, but also doing my arabic work. eat in hall at about 6pm, then come back and work on my essay. get distracted and will go to either the dance club in my college or amnesty letter writing. or hang out in the bar.

Tuesday: Arabic supervision at 10, Spanish class at 11. get back to college asap to finish essay, stop for lunch in the buttery and then work on the essay!!! email essay by the evening and then relax and have an evening out.

Wednesday: wake up at 7.40 for an 8am Spanish supervision. feel extremely tired/hungover. skip 9am Sp2 lecture and fall asleep in the buttery on Sidwick site. then force myself to get to my 2hr Arabic class at 10am. Go for lunch, then procastrinate a bit, but generally will do a couple of hours work for spanish supervisions. usually meet friends in the afternoon. go to hall for dinner and then in the early evening do more arabic work. go to Cindies at about 10.30pm. or maybe go to the Spanish society.

Thursday: LIE IN! i.e. recover from the previous night. do nothing all day except maybe read a bit of the book for the next literature essay whilst in bed. Go to supervision at 3pm, afterwards go to Sainsburys. Will normally go to the Union for a debate in the evening. Come back and do some Spanish work.

Friday: Arabic class from 10am-12. Sp2 lecture at 2pm (i often skip this though) Then procrastinate and celebrate its the weekend, but also worry about next weeks essay. try and finish reading the book. give up, go to hall and then do something social instead.

Saturday: lie in again, finish reading book. plan essay. go shopping, chat to people, go out for lunch. do some spanish or arabic grammar stuff/homework. order in pizza with friends. carry on working til about 11pm. then sleep.

Sunday: spend nearly the whole day in the library, write intro and first paragraph of my essay, then get bored and return to grammar exercises/mini spanish essays. spend the evening not working.

in terms of work i get about:

6hrs Arabic classes a week, for which we get about 12hrs of homework a week.
1hr Arabic supervision a week, for which I get about 3hrs of work a week
1hr Spanish supervision a week, for which I get about 5hrs of work a week
1hr Use of Spanish class a week, for which I get about 5hrs of work a week
2hrs of Sp2 lectures a week and 1 supervision of Sp2 a week, for which I get one essay that I invest about 15hrs in (up to 5hrs of reading - working with a dictionary takes forever)
1hr of Spanish translation class a fortnight, for which I get about 1hr of work a fortnight.

Reply 64

Craghyrax

jismith1989

Don't lie, you've already clicked on it. :curious:

I've watched it now :smile:

Reply 65

Ryan the Invincible

Just finished my first term in Cambridge and am bored atm so might as well add my week on here as it may be of interest to some (as I dint see many physics natscis writin in this thread)! I'm a physical natural scientist at Homerton doing Maths, Physics, Chemistry and MMS (Materials),

Monday: Alarm goes off at 7:30. snooze till 8:30 and get to Physics lecture on bike by 9. Go to Materials common room and do work of some sort for 2 hours until Materials lecture. Then a materials practical 2-4, then bike home and maybe do some more work. Have a chemistry supervision at 6.30, then go out to the half price Indian with a few of the lads which is always a laugh. Maybe chill the beans followed by bed.

Tuesday: Maths and Chemistry lectures between 9-11 (the four lectures I have mentioned go in these orders [i.e. alternate days] at these times upto Saturday) Go home do work for most of the day until around 8, then go to the bar maybe with some work and hopefully Champs League is on, if not play pool or Itbox etc.

Weds: Monday lectures, home for 1:30, do some work until Physics supervision at 5, then maybe do some work after, otherwise bar.

Thurs: Tues lectures, followed by massive 6 hour brute of a Chem practical or a hencher 4 hour Physics practical. Go home, maybe do a little bit of work, then get in the bar with a crew, go out for the night (usually bar to Wetherspoons to Vodka Revs), get mashed, stagger back at 3 and maybe go to bed straight away.

Friday: struggle up, feel mingin, get to lectures on your bike (the ride in the cold helps wake you up). Try and listen in the lectures, drink bare coffee, materials practical again, then a materials supervision at 6, then go home, chill for the night and go to bed early.

Saturday: 2 lectures a supervision, then home to do some work for various supervisions until around 6ish. Then stop for the night and go out to Wetherspoons again (as most clubs are proper expensive on a Sat), stagger back, stay up until whenever and go to bed.

Sunday: Up at 1, college Sunday lunch for breakfast, get football stuff and meet wherever the captain said. Play football against other college, go home and talk about it for ages, then get my Physics work which is in for the next day. Spend the rest of the day from 4 or 5 until sometimes 2am doing Physics supervision work in the bar watching the array of football on Sky Sports on the big screen (which is an absolute godsend). Go to bed to start again!

brimstone

If you end up working till that late, you've seriously mistimetabled...
Or your supervisors have :frown:

Reply 68

brimstone

Craghyrax

Or your supervisors have :frown:

Yeah, that too. Like my Psychology supervisor :p:

All other work was ignored that Tuesday-Friday to get that essay done! And for the tiny amount of reading I did for it produced a suprisingly good essay, my best all term apparently! :smile:

Reply 69

Craghyrax

brimstone

And for the tiny amount of reading I did for it produced a suprisingly good essay, my best all term apparently! :smile:

Its great when things pan out that way, although often there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it :s-smilie:

Reply 70

ukebert

All right then, I am suitable bored to want to do this. This is for last term, but is written in the present tense. Also note that this is about the worst that I could possibly get in terms of work to do and labs scheduled.

Thursday - The start of another week. Typically by this time I'm rather underslept, but even so have 9am lectures to go to. I wake up at 0830, eat a slice of toast and orange juice, check my emails and walk the 90s commute to lectures. I then have an hour long Linear Circuits lecture, some of which I will inevitably doze off in, followed by an hours Engineering Applications lecture, which I might as well sleep through. Then there would often be 2 hours of labs, microprocessors or similar. At 1300 I would have lunch. If the CUED lecture looked interesting then I would go to that and claim the free food, otherwise eat a sandwich up in my room or perhaps in Hall if my pocket would allow it. At one point I had two hours of German from 1400 until 1600, but since this ate up so much time I gave it up. Instead I would make my leisurely way to the library and start work, usually getting 3 hours of decent toil, taking into account various delays along the way (i.e. TSR). I would finish promptly at 1800 and make my way to hall, trying to beat the rush. Sometimes I would succeed, often I wouldn't, but no matter. Hall is generally very convivial and is indeed one of the only times that I do socialise within college. To that end I stay some time before walking back to the library, packing up and perhaps finishing off if feeling very enthusiastic before walking back to my rooms (around 2.5 minutes). Once there I would try to find my instruments, music and music stand and then walk across the Deer Park to the music room, where the Ceilidh Band have their rehearsal. This runs from 2000-2200, with a 15 minute break in the middle. Then follows what is often the highlight of my week, a session in a nearby pub. This generally lasts till gone midnight, however I am usually still wide awake by the time I get back and so go on TSR to geet myself ready for bed.

Friday - A start much the same as thursday, although this time with Labs first rather than lectures. 2 hours of either Technical Drawing or Microprocessors, followed by Maths and Structures. Lunch as before, although if technical drawing was on offer it is required for us to sit an afternoon session as well, always unbearably tedious from 1415 to 1630. This doesn't leave much time for work before dinner, so generally I would go into town to stock up on things and to run minor errands. Then dinner is followed immediately afterwards by ringing at St Ben'et's from 1900 till 2100. Then there's the pub and on one occasion a film.

Saturday - Generally allow myself to sleep in a little bit in order to catch up, wake up sometime around 11. Make myself a big brunch, eat it over TSR and afterwards head off to the Library. It is usually at this point that I realise just how much work I need to do for the following week, so I generally put in a good few hours. In the evening I may have a social event or a concert, or indeed more often keep on working, a saturday night invariably being peaceful and quiet. I did try to have a day sail with the Casual Dinghy Sailors, but the occasion in question proved unsuitable for small craft, sadly.

Sunday - Wake up at 0830 in order to be at the church by 0915 or so, ring for the morning service and then go to the ringer's breakfast. This lasts some time, almost until lunch time in fact, and it isn't generally worth starting work until after lunch. Afterlunch however I have archery at Kelsey Kerridge, from 1400 to 1500 (when doing the learner's session). On occasion it should be noted that I have had to skip all of that in order to get more sleep and/or do more work. I do generally get in a few hours before dinner and more after if there is not something else on. Indeed on two occasions I have been forced to work beyond the library closing time of midnight in order to meet the monday morning deadline. On other occasions I have been to plays, formals and other social events. It is worth noting that early on in the term I took a weekend out sailing, leaving on the Friday night and getting back on the Sunday evening.

Monday - Exposition at 0900, taken by my supervisor, who isn't that enamoured of me. Consists of presentation skills and does often require some prethought work. I have debated, talked on energy usage (mostly from memory and a few stats I looked up that morning) written a report and delivered a presentation (disaster, my audience didn't have a clue what I was on about). After expo finishes at 1100 there is two hours more of lectures, this time Maths and Mechanics. After lunch what happens next varies on the week. Every week I have a Maths supervision from 5 until 6 and to my shame there is generally work to be done on the Monday towards it. Every other week however I have a Structures supervision from 3 till 4 and there is ALWAYS work to be done for that. This makes mondays a little strained, comprised of dashing between library and supervisions. After dinner there is a small chance of relaxation before heading up to Trinity to play Bridge (very inexpertly) until 2300 or so.

Tuesday - Engineer in Society lecture, which can be interesting and can be very very dull. There then follows a Structures lecture and two hours of Electrical Instrumentation or computing. Neither are generally particularly taxing (assuming that you do the pre-reading for computing that is :o:

). In the afternoon there may be afternoon labs in the same manner as drawing, otherwise taken up with work, generally rather relaxed. I do however have Mechanics supervisions every other week from 1830 to 1930, which can be a little hectic managing to eat in time. After that I have to rush back to my rooms, grab my Melodeon and head off to Silver Street where the bagman gives me a lift to the Morris practice. That lasts until around 2200, when we go to the pub for a bit. Often I'll go to the late show at the ADC from 2300 till midnight, which is often very good. Reasonably priced tickets as well.

Wednesday - Start off with a very dull Linear Circuits lecture, followed by a rather less than dull Mechanics lecture, followed by an optional examples class. These are classes run by the lecturer in order that the previous examples paper can be gone over. I didn't go to as many of these as I should, sadly. There then follows an hour long Maths lecture. It is at this point that we pick up our examples papers for the next week, usually with a groan unless by some happy quirk of fate they have only given us two. The rest of the day is in theory my own, which makes working bizarrely very difficult. Every other week I have an electronics supervision from 1730 till 1830, but other than that deadlines seem tolerably far off. Wednesday is also the only weekday evening where I do not have something regularly on, although I do often fill it with plays, formals, social events and sleep.

I wasn't disciplined enough last term, and wasted too much time in between things. This will change, indeed has to.

Reply 71

Bobbage

mfb3000

Get over it - I'm a compsci so I have the same 1st year timetable as the natscis. And my weekly life is as above.

I'm a compsci to be. And you, good sir, have made me a very happy man :biggrin:

I've never been one to work very hard (we're talking minimal revision here).. I'm scared that I'll have to straighen up for Cambridge... Or scrape along and get wasted. Hopefully the latter.

Reply 72

The West Wing

Bobbage

I'm a compsci to be. And you, good sir, have made me a very happy man :biggrin:

I've never been one to work very hard (we're talking minimal revision here).. I'm scared that I'll have to straighen up for Cambridge... Or scrape along and get wasted. Hopefully the latter.

Lol.

Reply 73

~charmaine~

Ryan the Invincible

Thanks. Just wondering, how hard did you work for your A-levels? I am a bit scared now because I put quite a lot of time and efforts in my AS and A2 (i don't find them hard but just take a long time to remember stuff). I am not sure how I will cope when I come to Cambridge because I am a a bit of a perfectionist...

Reply 74

FadedJade

A lot of people here consider themselves perfectionists when they arrive. That very quickly goes out of the window because there simply isn't enough enough hours in the day.

Reply 75

Zoedotdot

~charmaine~

Put it this way - I worked so hard and worried and stressed so much over my A levels that I made myself ill. When you come to Cambridge, as Nina said, you realise that you simply can't keep up that level of work and just tone it down. I now cheerfully hand in work that I would have spent many more hours on at A level, because if I put in that level of work for every grammar sheet it would kill me.

Reply 76

NoPurposeTortoise

FadedJade

A lot of people here consider themselves perfectionists when they arrive. That very quickly goes out of the window because there simply isn't enough enough hours in the day.

Perfectionism is overrated after all....

Sorry I had to :biggrin:

Reply 77

FadedJade

see?? This is what it does to you!

Reply 78

RageC

Sooo mathmoths what sort of hours are you putting in daily in term/in the 3 holidays?

Reply 79

Y__

RageC

Sooo mathmoths what sort of hours are you putting in daily in term/in the 3 holidays?

I guess I can't speak for all of the mathmo population, but it's hard to quantify it in hours per day. Think about it that way: You'll have two or three hours of lectures each day (probably 2), including Saturday, and you should spend a similar amount of time to revise them in the afternoon (didn't do that in Michaelmas, wasn't a good idea). Then you will have about 2 example sheets a week, which will take between 6 and 15 hours each to complete (mostly depends on how much time you're willing to spend on the questions that seem difficult to you). The example sheets are supervised, so add an hour each for that. How much time you spend on supplementary reading and whether you have to spend more time than mentioned above to revise depends entirely on the person.