Week in the life of a Royal Holloway student?

... I can't provide you with one of these myself, yet, but I'd really like to read one. :biggrin:

Are there any current/ex students from any subjects who could detail out their typical week studying at RHUL? I was looking at a very similar thread in the SOAS subforum and thought this would be a really great resource for prospective/inbound students.

Reply 1

ChrisTheChross

How I imagine it will be:

11 am. Wake up, realise you missed the lecture, go back to sleep.
12 pm. Wake up for real, debate whether you're going to take a shower or not. Decide not to shower. Go outside the Founders building to smoke.
1 pm. Go and eat lunch.
2 pm. Go down to the mail room and receive package from Amazon student prime.
3 pm. Ask your fellow students what happened during the lecture.
4 pm. Go to the seminar of the lecture you missed earlier in the day having spent 30 minutes reading up on the material.
5 pm. Go back to your room after sitting quiet like a mouse for an hour.
6 pm. Order some pizza
7 pm. Recieve pizza.
8 pm. Mates ask on the group chat whether you're going out to the pub
9 pm. Go to the pub. Order a few beers.
10 pm. More of the same, visit the toilet a few times.
11 pm. More of the same.
12 pm. Go back to you room and play video games 'till 4am.
5 am. Go to sleep. Realise you won't have enough tobacco/filters/rollie papers in the morning for a proper fulfilling cigarette.
5:30 am. Despair.

Royal Holloway

Egham

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Reply 2

Royal Holloway, University of London

Official Rep

Original post by Jinkx Monsoon

... I can't provide you with one of these myself, yet, but I'd really like to read one. :biggrin:

Hi Jinkx,

What a great idea!

I've put together a bit of a breakdown of my first year, but I'd be so interested in reading yours once you've started here!

07:30 – Wake up. I lived in Reid so I would either grab toast from the pantry downstairs, or breakfast from Founders’ Dining Hall. At this point I’d pack the books that I needed for my first lecture. If I had two lectures that day (or a seminar in the afternoon) I generally knew I would pop back to my room at some point so didn’t bother carrying everything with me all day.

09:00 – 12:00 – Lecture on Film Theory. We’d often watch a film (or a few shorts) and have an hour lecture about the film. Lectures will vary from department to department, but for my first year (Media Arts) we had a 9am lecture on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays which were split between theory and practical, followed by a workshop or seminar relating to that mornings’ lecture.

12:00 – 13:00 – Lunch! I tended to go to lunch with my course mates over in the Founders’ Dining Hall because we were all together anyway. I had the catered discount, but even those who didn’t found it a fairly reasonable price to grab lunch here. We would mix it up every now and then and go to the Store on Campus or the Hub. Depending on the gap between my lecture and seminar I’d either go to my room and get some work done or pass a bit of time with friends in Crosslands etc.

Afternoon (13:00-17:00) – Our seminar groups were an hour long and staggered throughout the afternoon to make sure the groups were small enough to allow a free and vibrant discussion between everyone. This is also really good to make sure you meet loads of different people from your course, rather than sticking with a few people.

The seminars would be led by lecturers or PhD students about their specialist topic. I really loved how open a platform this was – there were no bad ideas, which really helped me to start thinking in the way that essays should be written, using other peoples’ writings to back up my ideas and learning how to explore that point of view. Sometimes you might have to do a presentation to your seminar group, or put some work together in small groups. As with lectures, this format will change depending on your department or module. In my third year I had a weekly seminar which was three hours long, so they’re not always one hour.

Evening (17:00-19:00) – At some point during this time we’d head over to dinner. I tended to go to dinner with the people in my Halls, and we had a Whatsapp group to organise what time we’d head up. Unless you had any society or other social things, dinner tended to be quite chill for us. We’d take our time and then head back to our Halls or run off to society meetings. It was so nice feeling like you were going out to dinner every evening with your friends, or (on busier or more anti-social days) grabbing your dinner to take away from the Dining Hall and eating in your room.

In the evening I would either do society meetings, study groups with people from my classes, film nights, or just head back to my room and get some work done (or watch some Netflix).

Wednesdays were my only day off classes, so I’d either spend the day on reading for my course, working on essays, or planning some filming projects. Wednesday afternoons are when most of the sports groups get together, so if you’re taking up one of these you might spend this time doing that. I also found that this was the best time to go into London or Staines and watch movies. This was when it tended to be less busy in towns because people we working, so we’d often go to the cinema or go exploring.

Thursdays and Fridays, my days would look somewhat the same, but with more practical lectures and workshops instead of seminars. Obviously all of this will change depending on your class and your timetable.

Film Society (which I was a part of) tended to have Thursday evening socials, so we would meet up and watch movies or do workshops on filmmaking, or have lectures from outside industry professionals.

Weekends never really had any structure. Where possible I would always recommend starting your weekend with a Hub brunch on a Saturday. It's delicious and wonderful.

Personally I would either go out filming on some various projects, take trips into London, to the Harry Potter studio tour, into Staines, and just generally making full use of this time to be really social. Picnics in Windsor Great Park are always fun, and societies will often run trips or events on the weekends, so you’re never too hard pressed to find something fun to do.

My second and third year were so different from my first year in terms of what my time looked like. Second year I jam packed my days with committee work for a society, and loads of extra-curricular work. I found that I was on campus less and when I was on campus, I spent more time in places like Crosslands and Imagine because I didn’t have my room on campus to head back to between lectures. The work really ramped up in second year too, so weekends would be spent putting together films or writing scripts rather than spending every weekend in Windsor or Staines. In third year I took up part time work in London and had less contact hours, so I’d spend my time commuting to London and writing my dissertation on the train and a lot less time with societies. All this to say that during your first year I really recommend taking the time to explore loads of new things. If there’s a society or club for something you’ve never done before, this is such a good chance to start something new. It’s so much harder to try these things out once you’ve graduated. Explore as much as you can, make full use of having a bit of time during the week to catch a quiet movie or visit London without the crowds and work on the hobbies you have that aren’t directly related to your degree as much as you can find time for.

I hope that helps to give you some kind of idea of the structure and flexibility of your time. If you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them, or if anyone else has their own week in the life of, it'd be great to read them!

:smile: