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Join The Student Room TodayBe part of the UK's largest and fastest growing student community. It's free to join and a lot of fun - Get inspired, express your ideas, interact and share University of Cambridge - A Week in the Life of an Arts/Humanities StudentFrom The Student RoomTSR Wiki > University > University Guides > University of Cambridge > University of Cambridge - A Week in the Life of an Arts/Humanities Student
GeographyUsername: jonov_dingvalla Year of Study: College: Selwyn
Tuesday: Day off lectures. All day library, hardcore reading for said essay. 4pm Insert one of my society/committee meetings here (I didn't do too much, but had a couple of commitments each week, the Staff/Student committee, for example). 7pm - Usually go to formal, bottle of wine, Cindies or hours of drunken JCR fun. Weds: Lectures [hungover], very rarely missed. Lunch. 1pm - Library until hall, possible afternoon lull if hangover returns. 8pm-1am - read again, probably bored with the subject by now Thursday: probably no lectures, start planning and writing essay. Afternoon: may have computer class/supervision/practical etc. 6pm - Hall. Evening: This will either be a steady essay finish and a film, or an essay crisis until 3am. You can never really tell. Friday: Hopefully have essay finished. Print off. Hand in, Go to maybe just 1 morning lecture. Go and pick up some reading for the next supervision, or do some work for a practical bit of coursework/dissertation etc. I usually tried to squeeze in some afternoon sport if possible on a Friday, then maybe a bit more work in the evening, but more likely lazing around and going out/bop if enough people were keen. Saturday: Continue with the work as of yesterday. However, on quiet weeks a lot of Saturday was wasted through turning out for the college 2nd XI football/hockey teams and finding general reasons to waste time. In really busy weeks though, these fell by the way-side to an extent. Spent Sturday evening in the bar/out for dinner most weekends, but again, not always. Sunday: Had a bit of a mantra I would never work Sunday mornings, which I think is a good idea. I recall working about 2 sunday mornings my whole 3 years. Usually, this was a lie-in til 10am, then play Mixed LAX, then brunch. Uber lie-in if no LAX. Sunday afternoon usually quiet too, possibly finishing reading or c/wk type stuff, could be more sport though. One thing I would say is that Sunday evenings on busy weeks (especially with 2 supervision deadlines) could be fantastic essay crises, and you have to be prepared to stay up most of the night a few times. Other nights though, bar and bed by 1am. Workload: In geography, like most arts subjects, you seem to get 8-12 supervisions a term (pretty constant over the 3 years for me at least). The workload picked up in 2nd/3rd year as there was coursework and dissertation to consider as well. I found myself spending 4/4.5 days a week on 1 supervision essay for sure. Then either: 2.5 days coursework/diss, 2.5-3 days for the other supervision or on blissful weeks, had a weekend (or mid-week) off. This framework was pretty set, and seems pretty standard for many 'Arts' subjects. I would like to think that is a pretty honest Artist's week. As for Scientists, their added structure and number of deadlines means they did seem to have more work, although with the Artist workload you could always do more, even when you'd read enough, and some people did.
Oh, and you do more work at Cambridge than for a Newcastle MSc, but not by as much as some people would guess (though the fact it's a Masters probably makes the comparison less extreme). Cambridge is managable, just be realistic between the two extremes. HistoryUsername: FadeToBlackout Year of Study: College:
Tuesday: Up at 9am. Write essay all day in the UL, with lunch break, until 4pm hand-in. Celebrate by dossing, going on TSR, whatever. Wednesday: FREEDOM. Washing, shopping, useful stuff like that. Supervision at 2pm or whatever. Thursday: Up at 7am for a novice rowing outing. Do this, head back to room for 9am. Doss around on TSR or reading things I don't have to. Buttery lunch at 1pm, then go over to the Seeley history library to get a couple of books out. Buttery dinner at 7pm, then college bar, theatre, TSR in room, random pub, staircase chats, library common room or whatever until 2am. Friday: Up at midday. Go to library via buttery lunch. Read a bit more. Buttery dinner at 7pm, then sound engineering until 2:30-3am in Clare Cellars. Saturday: Up at midday-ish, a bit of rowing, some reading, general dossing. Saturday night in college, round with friends, whatever. Bed at 2 as usual. Sunday: Up god knows when, bit of food and mooching, Clare Cellars for a jazz night from 4pm until about 2am. LinguisticsUsername: lavalse Year of Study: 1st year College:
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.
Modern and Medieval Languages (MML)Username: priya Year of Study: Final year College:
Tuesday: Up early, go to the gym (maybe). 10am lecture, followed by coffee. Unless I have a supervision scheduled in, spend all day reading for essays and doing more JCR stuff. Make a trip to Sainsburys too. Wednesday: Library by 9ish again, more reading and translation work. spend afternoon lunching and planning outfit for that night's swap. Go to a translation class in the afternoon, stay at faculty till 6, come back and get ready. Go to formal/swap, then out to Cindies. End up in bed via the tv room at about half 2. Thursday: stagger to library/lecture at ten on some weeks. stagger to coffee shop afterwards. to debrief about previous evening. Read some more, and start planning and writing next essay. Go to afternoon lecture. Panic that translation hasn't been done, spend evening doing that. Finish with hot chocolate whilst regaling friends with tales of previous night's antics. Friday: usually at the faculty, finishing translation and essay. Maybe have another supervision for a particular paper. Veg out in tv room for a bit, maybe go for dinner/cook with a friend, or go to the ADC, if we're feeling cultured. I might have coxed/coached that morning (as a favour) Saturday: work pretty much all day, with breaks for gym/shopping/more JCR position stuff. might end up at the cinema that evening, depends. Sunday: same as a saturday, except JCR meeting in the afternoon (one hour long) and work stops at 6....for another swap. Leave Vodka Revs at about 2am, panicking that essay for monday still isn't finished.....
Lent Term too, so when it got pretty hardcore. Granted, this wasn't every week, but my Michaelmas term shaped up like that. Motto: you can still go out and do lots of other stuff in your final year. Also, when I say work, I mean a few hours of concentrated reading and note-taking, broken up by hourly email/fb checks and chatting in the computer suite. PhilosophyUsername: Jigglypuff Year of Study: 2nd year College:
My days are pretty much identical. Wake up at 12pm, shower etc (I go to 2 or 3 lectures a week, so sometimes I'm up at more like 9 or 10) Watch an episode of something like Lost or Ugly Betty, have lunch Read from 2pm until 5.30pm (with lots of Youtube and Facebook breaks) 5:30pm-7pm Watch Neighbours, Home and Away and Hollyoaks (weekdays only...at the weekend I do work instead) Wednesday I do the same but have football practice instead so don't do any work. Saturdays I play in a football match so it's pretty much wake up at 11am, get ready, watch a DVD, play football, come back, shower, go out. And every other Sunday my parents will visit so I spend the day with them, then write my essay. Oh and Thursdays my bedmaker comes so I normally wake up for 9am, sometimes throw up from the night before, get out of her way and sit in the common room asleep/watching Jeremy Kyle. Or if I haven't been out the night before, I go to the library and do some reading. Nights vary: most nights I'll be in the college bar, often followed up with Soul Tree, Cindies or Wetherspoons (Thursday, Tuesday/Wednesday, Friday/Saturday respectively). Sunday nights are normally spent writing my essay due for Monday. Other nights I'll just watch a DVD, read magazines or sit in peoples' rooms. |
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