Medley: so far in the semester, crutches, and Open Day
With already 2 weeks gone, I am finding that even with the best of intentions, it’s getting harder and harder to manage my schedule. Sure, I have a “day off” during Fridays; even so, I have to do something uni-related so that I won’t be stuck with all that work from my subjects come weekends. I’m just wondering now what on earth I’m going to do if I get a job on top of my studies and volunteer work (and slowly diminishing social life).
Here’s the 411 on my current schedule: I’ve got 2 half day of classes (after one of which, I do my volunteer work in the suburbs) and 2 full-on days in which I’ll just be home at almost 8pm(that is, if I go straight home after uni). All this for a total of 15 contact hours. Not so bad, eh? The catch is, if I actually follow university recommendations, I have to do 25 hours of study out of contact hours. Hmm.. let’s do the maths shall we? I have 3 days (72 hours) off during the week. Supposed I sleep for 9 hours during these days. That would leave me with 45 hours. As I am still living at home, I actually have to do household chores during (but not limited to) Saturday mornings, which would take up to at least 4 hours off my time. So I’m left with 41 hours. If I finally get to work, I’ll be willing to do up to 10 hours a week. That leaves me with 31 hours. Let’s say I spend 2 hours of each day for meals and snack breaks. I’m left with 25 hours. Let’s now take away the 25 recommended hours of study. That leaves me with zero hours. So what happened to the social life part? Gone. When I start working, that is. As I remain unemployed, I still have 10 hours to spare on actually having life. Anyways, it’s probably not as bleak as I make it seem. I actually have so much time in my hands that I ended up wasting the last weekend on non-uni stuff (er.. like watching the Olympics and Inspector Rex)
On a different note, I’ve always wondered what it’s like to get around uni/city with crutches. No, I don’t have crutches myself, but I sorta come close. I’ve gotten another body malfunction, this time it’s my right ankle, so I’m basically limping most of the time. So far, the building that has the best disabled access for me would be the law building. I mean, the lifts are almost just outside the lecture theatres! Less walking, no climbing the stairs (unlike some other buildings, I reckon the lifts actually go to all floor levels). However, since the said building is outside the ‘main’ uni complex, I still have to do a fair bit of walking to all my other classes.
To end with a positive note, I’ll be in the Open Day this Sunday as a student guide! It’ll be pretty cool leading people to places around campus even though I’ve just been in the uni for a semester myself. not anymore 🙁 darn ankle
Keep dreaming large people 🙂
Heh. I did that calculation last semester. It turned out that I needed 34 hours in the day to get all the stuff I was doing done. Don’t mind the calculations too much, it doesn’t take into account multitasking (or the occasional cut corner), and I find that the recommended study hours are usually a bit excessive if you’re reasonably efficient with your work. (I mean, Law recommends 2 hrs for every hour spent in class. That’s about 4 hours a day of reading presuming a 2 hour seminar each day. There is not enough reading for 4 hours unless you’re REALLY intent on memorising every word, you can usually finish it in two hours, three if it’s really knotty stuff. And music techniques last semester recommended 5 hours a week to do the assignment, but usually I could finish it within an hour (albeit not to the highest standard, but more time wouldn’t have helped anyway))
Where abouts do you volunteer Gianina?
Good luck with timetabling your life!
To Suzanne: Yeah.. even one of my tutors recommend speed reading due to the amount of stuff(mostly about sustainability) we have to read before out tute. It’s just too bad that I’m the type of person who reads material from cover to cover.. old habits die hard, but I’ll try a bit of that speed reading thing *cringe*
To Georgina: Thanks! I volunteer at sermrc as a tutor.
Ah yes, the flight of time, I haven’t quite mastered that technique either. *sigh* maybe next semester 😀
Hope your ankle is better now!