A week in the life of an Aerospace Engineering student

Monday

The first thing in the week I do as an Aerospace student is look at my Canvas page to see the general layout of content of my week.

I started this week looking at my Communications for Aerospace module which is my first lecture of the week from 5-7pm. I stagger out how I watch any pre-recorded content across the week depending on when my lectures are. Depending on the availability of other students, I have an Aerospace Power Systems (APS) group project meeting where we talk about the progress of everyone and find the best way forward for the next week. Group work has its own set of challenges but is also great to prepare for industry too!

I designate a 9-5 pm working day throughout the week to make sure I get everything I need to do but also have a work life balance. As with timetabled lectures, they are not always evenly spread throughout the week so making sure you are effective with time around lectures is important.

Tuesday

My Tuesdays are a little more full on with lectures from 10-11 and 2-4 for my flight dynamics and control (FDC) module. In tutorials it can range between implementing some of the theory we just learnt to real life aircraft such as the Reims - Cessna FR172J or using flight simulation software through X-Plane to practise collecting aircraft data for our assignment. In between lectures I catch up on any of my additional work and this can range from looking at pre-lab lectures or looking at an assignment briefing.

Wednesday

In general, Wednesday afternoons are kept free from lectures for any sport commitments or societies. But I have an individual research project meeting with my supervisor for an hour to discuss my progress and have some feedback about certain aspects of report writing and approaches in the project itself. For aerospace students, in your third year you undertake an individual research project which often stems from the research being conducted at the university and from the expertise within the department and it really gives you the chance to see what research is like. From my experience it has shown me there is never a single set answer to any problem and there is always more which can be investigated and different avenues which can be explored. The list is endless! But it has definitely been an interesting experience and prepared me more for industry.

Most Wednesdays for me are spent preparing some work for the meeting itself and working on the coding aspects of the project. I also implement any feedback from my supervisor. Wednesdays are often the day where certain careers events and other talks or support sessions are run just to make sure most people can attend. So, my afternoons can also be taken up by looking around these events with my friends.

Thursday

On Thursdays, I just have a single lecture for computational fluid dynamics and finite element analysis (CFD & FEA) which is followed up with a computer tutorial on Fridays. Thursdays are a mixture of working on tutorial sheets for Communication for Aerospace, following up on any of my FDC computer tutorials and catching up on lectures which did not quite sink in during the previous week. I often end up working on my individual research project as especially within semester 2, the workload ramps up a considerable amount! But I couldn’t ask for a better supervisor, especially when I have to ask the same question 3 times because I still didn’t have a clue.

Friday

Fridays are a lot fuller with a 2-hour aerospace power systems lecture from 10-12 followed by a computer practical for CFD & FEA which covers content related to the assignment due after the easter break. These tutorial sessions cover using software for fluid-structure interactions and how to mesh geometry in an effective way to use for simulations. For APS, a group project assignment is 50% of the grade and we pose a hypothetical alternative propulsion system for a chosen aircraft. By the end of the day on Friday, my brain has nothing more it can take in, so I chill out on the evening and probably read a book or have a movie night.

Weekend

After a long and intensive week, I take off most weekends. Sometimes this is not always an option, especially around exam and assignment season. But for balance and rest taking off the weekends are really important to refresh and prepare for the next week. Whenever I have a free hour on a Sunday, I look at Canvas and see whatever needs to be prepared for the upcoming week.

The key steps to my week are preparation and organisation as this helps prevent me getting overwhelmed with the workload but also make the most of the time I spend at university (especially as a commuting student). This is definitely not something which comes easy and as a third year student I am still learning the best ways to be organised and deal with the workload I have, so don’t stress each year is still a learning curve!

Each week is quite different; there are various assignments due at various times and often this will affect how your week is structured. Your priorities each week might change and therefore you might have to catch up on content the following week instead. So, with university it is very dependent on your schedule and self-discipline which is a scary but an exciting thing to do.

Thank you for reading!