After a long day of living, I like to reflect on what I did that day. I find that by doing so I’m able to appreciate everything I got done in a few hours and everything I can still do tomorrow. I find that my Tuesdays are particularly long, and so here’s my day-to-day routine as a second-year student at the University of California, Berkeley.
Without the skip of a beat, I wake up every day at 7:30 a.m. in order to make it to my 8 a.m. lecture, which is luckily a three-minute walk from my apartment complex. Unfortunately for me, my 8 a.m. also just so happens to be an hour and a half long, with my political science lecture starting right after it ends. This means I have to speed walk from one building to another in a short ten minutes so that I can have my unofficial-official seat. Similarly to my 8 a.m., my political science class is also an hour and a half long, which means I have a block of courses from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m.
But once 11 a.m. hits I finally have some peace away from my academics, at least an hour and a half of peace. During this free block, I do a variation of things. Sometimes I’ll get lunch at Golden Bear Cafe, where I’ll usually order a Philly cheesesteak or chicken tenders with fries and water. But most days I’ll go to my favorite library, Main Stacks, and do some simple work since I have class right after this break block. My work ranges, but most times it’s reading responses for classes, research and writing for my clubs and organizations, or just playing the Wordle and watching American Dad!
Then, when the clock strikes 12:30 p.m. I have to head over to my last lecture of the day, a social welfare course. Usually, I don’t go to lectures, but all my lectures just so happen to require attendance, and those points really catch up when it’s the end of the semester and you’re begging for a grade bump. This class is a bit special, in that it’s taught by four professors with vastly different personas. This module (weeks) specifically is taught by a professor who bases their work around poems and such. Like my other lectures on this day, this course also is an hour and a half long. Which means at 2 p.m. I’m officially done with all my classes for the day. Very highschool-esque where my classes start at 8 a.m. and end at 2 p.m.
From this point on, I basically do whatever I find necessary. Typically I’ll spend the next couple hours doing whatever work I need to get done, i.e., homework, club & org. assignments, readings, or internship tasks. Depending on how energetic I am, I’ll either retreat back to Main Stacks, work on Memorial Glade, or go back to my complex to do my work. But alas, once I’m officially done with my laptop and work, I have club & org. meetings to attend. Tuesdays are particularly tough since I have two meetings that fall at the same time so I have to decide which one sounds like it’ll talk about more important/interesting things that day.
By the time my meetings are over it’s about 9 p.m. A trick of mine that really helps save time is to take my backpack with me to my meetings so that way if there’s somewhere I plan on going afterward, I don’t have to go back to my complex. On Tuesdays, I always go to the Recreational Sports Facility, a.k.a. the RSF or UC Berkeley Gym. Again depending on “vibes” I’ll work out for 30 minutes to an hour.
By the time I’m done with the gym all my energy is wiped. So 9 times out of 10, I’ll go back to my complex and break down, also known as getting ready to end my night. However, if I feel like I need a reward, I’ll stop by somewhere near the gym and get a “sweet treat” before heading home. My personal favorite has been Crumbl cookies, which definitely aren’t the best choice after a workout, but sometimes it’s hard to argue with a Key Lime Pie Cookie.
After all that, once I’m back in my home I start my night routine which includes showering, getting dressed, and getting ready to sleep. Except, I’m not going to sleep. Unfortunately for me, the grind never stops so I do about an hour to three of work before officially calling it a night.
Being a UC Berkeley student is almost like a full-time job. The constant feeling of not having enough time to do anything is scary, especially when you look back at everything you did accomplish in one day.