A week in the life of a Kingston University first year student

Monday=
I didn’t have any Uni today, so I gave myself a lie-in and then headed into Kingston town on our free Uni bus to do some shopping with some friends. Before this, I cooked myself some pasta for lunch. My friends were interested in some of the charity shops, so we visited some of them and then finished off our trip with a Wendy’s dinner. We caught the bus back to our accommodation for a chill night home where I watched Netflix in bed while catching up on some University emails and applied for a few jobs on our student ambassador portal. I also prepared for our lessons the next day by writing a plan of what I wanted to talk about to my lecturers.

Tuesday=
Today I had Uni from 10-5. I woke up to get the bus in time that leaves Seething Wells at 9:44. It is only a 5-minute bus journey to Penrhyn Road. From there it is a 10-minute walk to get to Knights Park campus- just in time for the start of my lecture! After an hour of our lecture, we start our seminar from 11-1. For lunch, I went into town with my friends. We got sandwiches from Pret and then walked back to my friend’s kitchen in Middle Mill. It is great having accommodation so close to Uni (right across the bridge from Knights Park) however I do still personally prefer Seething Wells, but Middle Mill has a perfect location. After lunch, we headed back to our class for studio practice from 2-5. Throughout the day we were working on one of the briefs we had been given. It was to create something to help people socially detox. My friends and I decided to create an activity colouring book which has information and drawings about unknown London locations. Throughout today we finalised our book after we gathered feedback from our classmates and lecturers to make it better. We are also now considering making a physical copy of our book in our free bookmaking workshop on campus. I then finished off the day by getting the bus back to Seething with my friends and then heading out at 8 to our local pub the ‘Black Lion’ for the pub quiz until 12.

Wednesday=
After a long day on Tuesday, I again allowed myself to have a lie-in (I tend to do this often lol). Today I didn’t go out until later and caught up with some work, ate my meals and watched some TV. In the evening I made my way to Sainsbury’s in Surbiton which is about a 7-minute walk from Seething. It took me around 15 minutes to walk around and collect everything I needed for my weekly shop. I then used the mince that I bought to cook in the frying pan with taco seasoning. I put the mince into some wraps along with tomatoes, rice and cheese that I had prepared for dinner.

Thursday=
Uni started at 11 today. I caught the bus with my friends to Penrhyn and walked from there to my class. From 11-11:45 we had a class catchup/discussion about this week’s topic and watched some of our classmates’ presentations on this topic. From 12-2 we had our main lecture. For lunch, I caught the bus back to Seething for a quick oven pizza and then back on the bus back to Uni for 3-5 of working on our briefs. Our brief now is to create a product or brand idea on a certain archetype. My group had the archetype of ‘the innocent’. This week we finalised our research on the innocent and could start thinking of ideas we could produce from our research. I left at 5 feeling confident with a food truck idea we came up with as a group. I caught the bus back to my accommodation for dinner and then an early night.

Friday=
After my lie in I had time to think about how to move forward with my work for Tuesdays and Thursdays modules. I was aware that my deadlines for both briefs are in a few weeks, so I wanted to get a head start on the workload and manage my time, so I am not stressed towards the deadline as I have been before. Between working I had some meals. I had some leftover Burritos from earlier in the week and some noodles with vegetables. I then went to my friend’s flat across from mine for some drinks and watched a movie while chatting.

Weekend=
This weekend I helped at an open day on Saturday as a student ambassador. From 8-5, I held campus tours of Knights Park for students looking to join our Uni. Saturday night I went to Weatherspoon’s in Surbiton with a few friends for some drinks. My favourite drink there is the Peach Blush Spritz. I slept a majority of the day on Sunday but woke up in time for a self-care day with my friends, so we painted our nails and tinted our eyebrows together while catching up on our favourite Netflix show ‘Next in Fashion’. We finished off the day with a Toby Carvery which is a 10-minute drive away. I am on driving duty as I have got my car at Uni, but it is worth it for our Sunday roasts!

I hope this gives you some insight into a classic week at university, this week was a chill week, but I hope you get the gist! Let me know if you have any questions 😊

Yasmin (BA design marketing)