A day in the life of a Mechanical Engineering Student at Birmingham

My day usually starts around 8-9am. Most days, I tend to have the morning free from lectures and I use that chance to cook breakfast and start my day with a study session to catch up on all my uni work. Today, I'm catching up on my Control Engineering module as I've got a quiz due next week which cover the first 5 weeks of my Semester 2 content, so I'm going over some example questions and a tutorial sheet.

At around ~12pm, I take my first break to pray my noon prayer (Dhuhr in Arabic) and take a 30 minute break. I'll usually bring my own food to campus, as I tend to meal prep 5-6 portions of food at a time and store it for the week. Today, I've got pilau, which I made on the weekend in preparation for Ramadan. After my lunch break, I get back to work and organise my notes and other stuff on my laptop. As I prepare for my 2pm lecture, I go over the lecture slides and key examples and jot down some key ideas in my notebook. Whilst I don't extensively review the content, it helps me follow along in the lectures when the lecturer may be going over the content fast.

Once my lecture is over, I pray my afternoon prayer (Asr in Arabic) and if I have time I go over the lecture and review the key questions in my notebook. I find practicing questions by far the best method to remember content, and it comes in useful when I'm revising in exam season. After finishing all my work, it's around 5pm and I tend to start some extracurricular stuff. As the Community Engagement Officer at the Islamic Society, I focus on things like relationships with other societies as well as volunteering work. A lot of the skills I gain through my volunteering work is highly transferrable, so I see it as a good opportunity to gain experience if my CV lacks paid experience. Usually, I tend to spend the end of the day with my friends before I go home - it tends to be a quiet end to the day.

On my way home, I sometimes stop by Sainsbury's to restock the fridge with essentials like milk and eggs, which is on the way and isn't too much of a detour. On most days, I get home at around 9pm, and spend the evening unwinding and finishing off with the night prayer (Isha), which calms my body and mind and makes it easier to fall asleep.

Before sleeping, I might have some tea or water and I get to bed at around 12am, hoping to have another productive day tomorrow.