Very soon, I’ll be working full-time at my placement company which is part of my 4 year degree program. As I’m about to embark on this new journey, I thought it’d be nice to look back at my second year and give you a taste of what a second year student’s life at Surrey University is like.
First of all, let me tell you that having to wake up as early as 7am 5 times a week for the next year is definitely going to be a struggle. As a second year Economics & Finance student, I haven’t had any classes before 12pm this semester. My day usually begins with not having to wake up to an alarm clock but instead allowing my body to decide if it’s had enough sleep. Unfortunately, my body seems to think 8am is an acceptable time to wake up every day but oh well.
The one thing that everyone seems to say is that second year is your hardest year at university. The difficulty in content usually increases considerably across various degrees from 1st to 2nd year. Hence, it means more time spent in the library and less time spent procrastinating. That doesn’t mean though that fun has to take a step back in our lives!
Being a second year student means we’ve been here for a year now and are no longer confused about how to get from one end of the campus to the other. Combined with the fact that second year classes are usually less in terms of hours, there’s lots of free time up for grabs. I spent most of my first semester of second year either revising or working at a café part-time. Though it meant not seeing my friends as frequently, I did made lots of money which is going towards either a Euro trip or a car!
Come second semester though, I decided to resign from my waitressing job so I had more time with my friends as well as be able to attend all the interesting events going on around campus. Second semester was much more fun since I had a good system going on; time for classes, revision, as well as friends. I went for so many interesting events through the semester such as a movie night by the Lake, being part of a dance competition (Battle of Bollywood), Holi 2015, taking part in an Easter Egg hunt (which we came in 2nd :D) as well as nights out with friends for themes such as Pajama night.
Of course, part of being a student means having to take care of myself. Probably the most annoying part has to be feeding myself daily. As many of my friends would tell you, I don’t particularly enjoy cooking so to me, it’s quite a chore. However, don’t be put off as there are lots of different ways to overcome this. I live off-campus with friends and we do make meals together which does make the whole thing considerably better since we chat about our day while preparing the meal.
Besides that, I tend to make food in large portions and freeze it. This way, I can always just heat it up whenever I don’t feel like making something. Don’t ever defrost and then refreeze food though! Otherwise, there’s always Tesco which is a 10 minute walk from university and has a wide variety of readymade meals available.
Otherwise, being in second year has been an absolute blast! All I really have to do is revise well for examinations and give it my best during the exams. Besides that, I’m free to do anything my heart desires which in my case, is usually to find out the latest events going on and attending them with friends.
Definitely going to miss my second year while I’m on placement but hey, that’s another year for me to fill with amazing memories 😀
Till next time; Selamat tinggal!
