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Week in the Life of a Flexible Combined Honours Student

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Exeter chapter.

Hi everyone, I’m Haowei! I’m a third year FCH (Flexible Combined Honours) student studying English and Management. In this article, I’ll be taking you guys through a week in my life!

Monday

I’m usually on campus by 9am, as I’m a member of the Here to Help Team on campus. If you ever see me in a blue t-shirt in Peter Chalk or the Forum, come and say hi! Usually, I work for 5 hours until 2pm. It’s a good chance to catch up on uni work and meet other lovely Here to Help members.

Then I’ll meet a friend for lunch, maybe even brave the Pret queue? At 4pm I’ll head to the Lemmy for Muay Thai. It’s a great full body workout, I’m usually dead by the end of the session.

I tend to batch cook dinner on Monday evenings, relax, and hang out with my housemates and maybe do some reading if I feel like it.

Tuesday

On campus again at 9am for Here to Help. As a third year my timetable is pretty empty, so I try and use that spare time to make some money! If I haven’t got a shift, I like to hit the library as I’m most productive in the mornings. At the moment I’m working on a 2000-word essay on the Renaissance supernatural. I may also pop in to see my tutor if he has office hours available.

In the afternoon I head to the Lemmy again for a Bodysoc class. I’m VP of Bodysoc (a fitness society where we offer cheap exercise classes throughout the week – please join!) so I have to help 2/3 times a week with monitoring the classes and handing out exercise mats. I like to join in most of the time, especially on Tuesday where I really enjoy the strength and conditioning class. This week the instructor made us do hill sprints 3 times up Forum hill at the end of the class – a total killer!

This Tuesday evening I caught up with a friend via zoom which was lovely. I then watched an episode of Clarkson’s Farm with a housemate – I would highly recommend!

Wednesday

9:35 lecture on the Renaissance supernatural. This week we’re looking at ghosts in Hamlet and how they were perceived by a predominantly Protestant audience at the time. Then I trek up to the innovation centre for my entrepreneurship seminar.

In the afternoon I work at the digital hub – we help students with IT issues such as not being able to connect to Eduroam, we also have a team of experts who deal with hardware problems. Check us out in the forum, it’s such a good service. I got my computer deep cleaned which got rid of all the nasty viruses and junk on my laptop.

Thursday

I like to start Thursday with another Bodysoc class, this time it’s Combat. It’s pretty intense but it sets me up for the day. I then head to my Renaissance Supernatural seminar in Peter Chalk. It’s a small seminar group and I’m really enjoying interacting with fellow students in person again.

I have a free Thursday afternoon, so I tend to head into town to do my weekly shop. This evening I had a Bodysoc committee meeting with our newest social sec. We also talked about the upcoming Christmas dinner which is uber exciting. (Come to the Christmas dinner, it’s at a Deer Park!)

Because I’m not the biggest fan of going out, my housemate and I binge watched Squid Game on Thursday evening. We got through 9 hours of the show in one night! It was definitely worth it.

Friday

I had a massive lie in and got up at 10am. Then I headed to the digital hub where I had a call with my line manager about providing a new service to staff and students. After my shift I met up with a friend for lunch and had a chat, we also stood in the Pret queue for about 15 minutes…

I had another Muay Thai session in the Lemmy (I seem to spend most of my time either working at the forum or at the Lemmy).

In the evening I like to get as much reading done as I can for the following week. I’ve also tried out a new recipe for homemade gnocchi which was surprisingly successful. Maybe I’ll do a recipe drop soon?

Saturday

I head to campus at about 9am for my student ambassador job. This week I’m doing campus tours which involves lots of walking about shouting at big groups of people. It’s definitely good exercise, and the majority of parents and students are lovely. Plus we get free lunch. I love meeting fellow student ambassadors, and it’s such a good job to have alongside uni because it’s super flexible and you can work as much or as little as you want to fit alongside other commitments.

Saturday evenings are super chilled, I might have some friends around for dinner, or I might video call a friend or watch some Netflix with housemates or do some reading for the following week.

Sunday

This Sunday I went on a hike to Burgh Island. As part of the Out of Doors Society (join us!) I try and go on a hike every other week. We go on walks all cross Devon/Cornwall/Somerset and the surrounding area, and it’s a nice way of escaping the Exeter bubble and exploring the beautiful Southwest. I really enjoy the random chats we have on walks, and of course meeting new members. It’s a shortish walk this time, and luckily we didn’t get rained on.

Sunday evenings are again super chilled, I try and get some reading done, and have an early night in so I’m well rested for the week to come!

Thank you so much for reading about a week in the life of a FCH student. I hope you’ve enjoyed learning a bit more about what I do!

Haowei Shi

Exeter '22

your local dark academia wannabe theatre obsessed classical music fan