UNI LIFE

Hello hello hello!

I'm back yet again to talk about my new life... And this time, it's about university itself!

Oh boy, there's a lot I have to say.

PART 1: attending courses

Here's a number: on average, I have 15 and a half hours of courses per week. For me, this is divided into lectures, labs and tutorials because I am a science student (studying psychology, maths and stats). If you are curious, here are the details:

- in psychology, I have 3 hours of lectures a week and 2 hours of lab every two weeks

- in maths, I have 4 hours of lectures and 1 tutorial hour a week. I also have a so-called lab every two weeks, but it is only a test that I can attempt there and I can stop going as soon as I have passed

- in stats, I have 4 hours of lectures and 1 tutorial hour a week, and 2 hours of lab every two weeks

Yes, I know this is a lot of numbers. But I am a stats student, I need numbers.

Pretty good, huh? The best part of it is, you don't even have to attend it all! I mean, you have to be there a certain amount of times where attendance is checked – and it is always checked in labs and tutorials – in order to gain credits, but you can choose not to attend lectures. Okay, if you want to be sensible, you cannot decide to miss a lecture because you want to go party and you'll find a way to catch up. However, in maths for instance, all the lecture notes are posted onto Moodle (which is kind of the university version of Edmodo) and you can look through them to see if you are comfortable with the material that will be covered in the following lectures...

Or you can sleep in when you have a psychology lecture at 9 A.M because you know it will be recorded...

And one thing that I particularly enjoy: stepping out of the flat at 8:30 in the morning, knowing I will be back in six hours' time... Except for one Wednesday and one Friday out of two, six hours in the longest time I have to spend at uni, and I'm not even in courses for the largest part of the six hours!

PART 2: homework

That's all very fine, you may say, but we all know that sitting in a room for 15 hours a week is not the only work you do. Well, you are right. I have homework to hand in quite often. For instance, I just (almost) completed a psychology essay today that is worth 25% of my grade for the semester, and that I have been working on for about two weeks. Luckily this kind of essay is only due once a semester (or unlickily, because I have to get it right on the first try if I want to get into second year...), but every tutorial requires me to do exercises beforehand. Moreover, maths require me to complete two online assignments and a feedback exercise a week, I have an online quiz for stats every two weeks, and some coding to do after each psych lab. And all of this counts for my final grade, so I have to give it some attention...

I know.

PART 3: personal work

...and homework is not even the main part of the work I have to do outside classes.

Sorry to shatter your dreams that uni work is barely existent.

Every lecture requires me to go through the material and tidy and complete my notes as soon as possible if I want to have a shot at not having to pull all-nighters during exam revisions. And thank you, my crammed revisons before the bac were enough, I will do anything do avoid doing that again. Even staying in on a Friday night okay even if I stay in I will end up in my friend's room watching our series wondering why Adam and Eve have bellybuttons at 2 AM.

Or this may happen on a Saturday night... Wondering what we bought? Pizza, hairdye, pulses and ice cream. I could write a whole article about our night Tesco shopping trips.

And if I don't understand the material, I have to find a way to get help! Luckily the university is very well organised in that regard. Every lecturer has two "office hours" a week where their students can just pop in and ask questions – but that requires you to be able to pinpoint the aspects you don't understant, like "I do not understand the link between the two parts of the proof of a lemma about complex numbers", not "um I do not understand the complex numbers chapter". There is also an organisation called LEADS which organises revision sessions – I always attend the essay-writing ones to check that my OIB technique can be applied to scientific writing (spoiler alert: it's not. I have to announce my plan.) and the maths ones, to go over some things that I did not do in L.

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

PART 4: organisation

So yes, uni is a lot of work. But I cannot really complain – there is also a lot of freedom! On average, I am at uni or on the way between uni and my flat for 5 hours and 42 minutes a day (yes, I just calculated that. Maths and stats are getting to my head).

How I see the world now.

This gives me a lot of time that I can organize however I wish to! Early birds may decide to rise a few hours before needing to get ready for courses in order to start working there, whereas night owls can stay up for a long time without really needing to worry about an 8 A.M on the next day (because we don't have those here in Glasgow!). And of course, the library is really close to the uni so you can go there between classes to do some work, as you can't go home yet!

PART 5: Glasgow itself

And last but not least... The University of Glasgow is wonderful. Okay, the campus is huge and it is possible to have back-to-back classes on two ends of campus, making you have to run for 8 minutes to not be late.

But it is beautiful, the main building looks like Hogwarts, the facilities are really good and there is a lot of them. There is a gift shop, a bookshop, a medical centre and a cafeteria in a 200-meter-radius. And, of course, there is the library. Which. Is. Huge. It has 11 floors, each floor with hundreds of PCs that you can just log into, and you can choose the level of noise to have around you: 1-3 allows you to talk freely, 4-7 allows whispered conversations, and 8-11 is strict silence. Also, it is open from 5 A.M to 2 A.M!

And if I have not convinced you that Glasgow is the best, here is something that should conquer you: we not only have clean toilets, we also have toilet paper in them.

I will be back next time I am on top of my work, see you Charlie!

Judith

Moving out

Hello again Charlie !

Well, as I told you in my last article, I have a lot to write about now that I live in Glasgow. And as I've about settled into my new life, I feel it's time to write about moving out – and into a new place.

First things first, it was very hard emotionally. Like many teenagers, I could not wait to be independent. Months ago, I started cooking for myself every now and then, and I have been doing most of my laundry separately for years – independence seemed like full freedom, and not the freedom of partying every night, but the one of fully getting to decide how my life goes.

But as summer was coming to an end, I started realising that it would be much harder, and having « la flemme » (what a wonderful french expression) of being independent.

Home was as comfy to me as the man's lap for the cat.

And then I actually had to leave. Sadness had grown over me, and for the whole trip I was not able to listen to any kind of music but the bittersweet, upbeat but depressed twenty one pilots, stressed about finding my way to my accomodation from the airport, and breaking down into tears in Amsterdam because I was so lost (okay, I also cried of happiness when the plane touched down in Glasgow airport, but this is to talk about how difficult it is before going back to happy stuff).

Luckily, I found my way to Murano student village and dragged my two huge suitcases up to the second floor.

The first few days were hazy – people were constantly arriving, I had to go shopping several times, and unpacking my suitcases required a lot of emotional effort as it was marking the fact that I was settling into another place and that I had left home. So for the first few days, I was sad a lot, and to forget about that, went out to a lot of events – that's my freshers' week.

But that's okay. A lot of people felt like that, and it is a much bigger step than we think it is to move out.

And now that I have settled in, I can also promise that this sadness goes away, and that I probably have never been as happy with my general life as I am now.

Okay, there are bad sides, starting with a certain number of flatmates that make the kitchen a constant mess – but the good side to this is, the very basic thing to have a clean kitchen sometimes makes me very happy !

And, on the other hand, the most basic "adult" tasks, like grocery shopping or balancing my money became things I love doing. I've learnt to cook quickly, efficiently and without a recipe (and now I actually enjoy my food instead of just having a "meh, I need to eat" relation with it!), and I was able to become a vegan because I only have to think of what I would like to eat. It is truly fulfilling to be taking care of myself on all aspects (hum, aside from receiving money), and helped me grow so much.

Moreover, being away from my family made me realise how much they actually mean to me, and skyping them is not something I need to do to calm down anxious parents, it is a pleasure to update them on my daily life, and hear updates back.

Not in this sense. Figuratively.

If I want you to remember anything from this article, it is that do not be scared to leave your family for your studies, but do not be too eager either. It will be hard at first, but you learn so much about yourself and about life, and at the end of the day, you have the satisfaction to know that you are now controlling your entire life, and when you have it together, it is the best feeling ever.

I will be back soon to talk about the university of Glasgow and how the studying aspect of it is going, because come on, I need to publicise it ! (come to Glasgow, it's great)

Judith