A day in the life - Myles

I’m a second-year civil engineering student from London and I chose to study at Sheffield due to its world class engineering facilities and good reputation as a school of engineering.

As a university student I live a flexible life which allows me to pursue my interests and personal goals. These include hobbies such as going on walks in the Peak District and completing work with charities like Engineers Without Borders (EWB) Outreach.

8:00am I wake up around 8am every morning and start my day off by having some breakfast and a coffee. After breakfast I shower, make sure I have all my chargers and wires etc. and then walk down to university.

8:40am I live in Broomhall so it takes me about 15 minutes to walk to university. I usually walk with friends who live close by. The journey is all downhill which is nice in the mornings.

9:00am I generally have lectures from 9am to 11am, these tend to be in the Diamond or Mappin Street. Our lecturers upload all PowerPoints and content to be covered on Blackboard (our online learning platform) before lectures start, this allows students to either print off or download the lecture notes so annotations can be made as content is covered.

Our lectures have a 50-minute teaching policy which means they only teach for 50 minutes in the hour slot; this allows time to travel to the next lecture or during 2-hour lectures to have a 10 minutes concentration break.

11:00am I walk through St George’s churchyard to the Mappin Street buildings for a tutorial session. These sessions are smaller class sizes which is especially useful as it allows you to ask the lecturers questions about the content and complete checkpoint questions to ensure timely progress on the course. On top of this, all lecturers offer ‘office hours’, which means each week they set aside a certain amount of time for one to one conversations with students.

12:00pm I find somewhere to eat lunch; the University has lots of catering options available in the Students Union and in the range of cafés spread around campus, students can use their Genius Cards at university cafes. I tend to eat at the Heartspace café due to its proximity to all the engineering buildings and the range of healthy food.

1:00pm I head to the Diamond to complete individual study; this is where I spend time going over all content learnt in lectures and look at any deadlines I have coming up. I work with my course mates as it keeps me motivated and is handy for any questions I have.

3:30pm I tend to have labs in the afternoons; all Civil Engineering labs are held in the Diamond. To attend a lab you must have completed the pre-laboratory quiz at least 1 hour before the lab is scheduled, this ensures that you are up to speed with the content being learnt in the lab and the potential health and safety risks. Labs allow visualisation of concepts learnt during lectures, they are often run with PhD students helping as teaching assistants. This allows a good chance to ask for guidance from former students and more one-to-one teaching.

5:00pm I head back home, grab my swimming kit and head to the Goodwin Sports Centre. You can either purchase a membership plan, or pay per entry. I have a membership plan as in the long run it works out a lot cheaper.

6:30pm I arrive back home and cook some dinner or sometimes I will get a takeaway with friends. We like to get food from Crookes high street and carry it to eat at Bolehills Park, due to the stunning views towards Hillsborough and the Peak District.

8:00pm I will work in my room consolidating content learnt during the day and preparing for tomorrow’s lectures.

9:00pm I will watch some TV series with my flatmates and relax.

11:00pm Head up to my room and go to sleep.