Back to the Grind
This week has found me back at the University of Surrey. Not only have I moved; unpacked and made my work schedule; I’ve also met up with friends; had no heating in my house and made new friends in the form of my new housemates. My accommodation is a collection of six single bedrooms with bathrooms shared between two people. Upstairs you find the kitchen and two shared rooms and one bathroom. This week the dissertation projects were released and the date for my poster presentation was decided. I’ve paid bills, joined societies and shopped for kitchenware. Overall, this week has been hectic and exciting and exhausting.
A few weeks ago, I received my timetable and move in instructions. Moving in day was the 28th September 2019. The Surrey Angels and I dragged 3 boxes and a bookcase up a hill and deposited all my belongings in my room. My mum took me to the supermarket which was chaotic with every other parent having the same idea and finally I was moved into my accommodation for the next year. Conveniently on campus, my house is close to the train station; next to a bike shed and at the top of the hill that Stag Hill Campus sits on.
I am waiting to receive feedback for my placement report and surrounding documents. Coming soon is a full write up on that part of my placement for those who are interested which is probably no-one but I’ll write it anyway. I will also revisit the first blog post I wrote about placement and probably tear all my hopes to shreds. But its ok because I can replace those hopes with tangible exciting events and progress. As I mentioned I had to do four assessments and on Thursday I will be presenting my poster to a committee for evaluation. More on how that goes in the future.
As well as general prep, I’ve also scheduled new tutoring clients. For those who aren’t aware I tutor children below the age of 16 in Maths, English and Science. This year I am taking on a bunch of new clients. I find that tutoring helps me keep up to date with the school system and keep me confident in my basic skills in all those subjects. I enjoy it especially when I can help the kid become more confident because it helps with all aspects of their school performance.
Study wise, I also have to choose a dissertation project from a list of 156 projects. It can be lab based or computational which puts me in a dilemma because I want to ‘diversify’ my application by doing a bioinformatics project but I love lab work. I want to improve my computer analysis skills but I don’t want to miss out on the chance to do more lab research. I am going to be talking to my tutor to get my hang ups ironed out. I also need to do some work on my PhD applications which I have started in a very non- committal way but are due at the beginning of December. So, I should really hurry up on that.
So, it is full speed ahead here and to add insult to injury after my first day of class today (7th October) every available study space was crawling with people… looks like study spaces will be few and far between in the daytime. However, it is 6:30pm right now and there is not a single person in The Hive (student resource and study centre), looks like I am going to have to be a nighttime student.
