A Day in the Life of a 2nd Year Psychology Undergraduate at Cambridge
Yasmin - Mentor Communications Officer, Mentor Engagement Team
Hi, I’m Yasmin, a second-year undergraduate studying Psychological and Behavioural Sciences (PBS) at Cambridge. I just got back from the winter vacation and wanted to give you a flavour of my uni experience by telling you what happened on my first day of lectures.
9:00 – Wake up. I’m not a morning person at all, so I make a cup of tea and lie in bed until 10am scrolling through my phone, waiting to fully wake up.
11:00 – First lecture of term. This lecture was on language and the brain, and it was really interesting and well structured, meaning I could follow it easily.
12:00 – Head to the library. I sat in the common room (the ‘Psych Sanctuary’) with a friend, ate lunch and chatted about the lecture and our holidays. At about 12:30 we went into the actual library and got down to work, writing up the lecture to consolidate our knowledge. When I’m doing this, I like to make my notes a bit more coherent and write definitions for the things I didn’t understand so that I don’t have to do that later on!
14:00 – Practical class. Todays practical was about data analysis, and we were taught the concepts behind statistics. The idea is to help us better understand why we are doing something, in the hope that we are more likely to get the right answer if we understand the method!
15:00 – Go to a different library. The practical ended an hour early (usually they’re 2 hours) so I went back to the library. To prevent myself getting bored I always try to switch up my workspace, so I opted for a different one this time. I worked on an essay for an hour and managed to get it finished for my supervision the next week.
16:00 – Watch a film. When I was done with my essay, I went home and watched Legally Blonde with a friend. This was a great way to chill out after working for 2 hours and gave me a break.
19:00 – Dinner time. Today I went out for dinner, to have a catch up with another friend. It was really nice to hear about her holidays and not talk (too much) about work.
20:30 – Go home. I don’t have too much work at the moment, so I debated reading for a bit but decided to have a shower and get an early night. On a night where I have more work I probably would have worked until 10:00 or 10:30pm, but luckily term has only just started, so I don’t have too many deadlines yet.