How to balance your time at university: STEM edition

Pursuing a STEM subject, having an active social life AND taking care of yourself? That’s three really important things that a lot of us have struggle to juggle during term time. For the longest time I thought to have one, the other two might have to be sacrificed, but that’s just not true!

• Over my first two terms I’ve tried and tested lots of routines but I’ve tried to generalise them to work for anyone with more contact hours than they know what to do with (and I’ve added an extra tips for commuters towards the end):
• Make sure you know your priorities, I’m not saying you need to cut off everything else, but knowing what’s important to you can go a long way into organising your schedule.
• Make sure you leave time for nothing; if you’re always scheduled to be somewhere or doing something, the lack of rest will definitely catch up with you. In the first few weeks of university, I tried to attend as many society events as there were hours in the day. Safe to say that was not sustainable.
• Make sure you don’t leave long pieces of work to the last minute. You’ll often find me cooped up in the library before my weekly assessed problems deadline, but for longer pieces of work (like my year one essay and lab report) I tried to make sure I took my time with it, so I didn’t have to cancel any plans the week it was due in order to finish it.

For commuters

If you’re on the train, try and make the most of that time. I know it’s difficult because there are often so many people that it’s hard to think, but listening to podcasts based on your modules - or even just looking over your last lecture notes - can go a long way.

These are my tips for balancing our demanding schedules, I hope they help you out!