What it's actually like to study biochemistry

When I was in college, what I expected of uni is completely different to what it's actually like. So to give a clearer insight I thought i'd break down a week. (note: lectures, times and all the rest of it at different universities vary, this is only for my university and only this semester)

Mondays: I don't start till 2 on Mondays so I went in late. Caught the 10.36 train with my friend

and got to the uni library around 11.10. Quickly checked emails and booked a quiet room in the silent part of the library. I worked on amino acids and proteins for about an hour and then changed to the bacteria cell wall. This is pretty new to me so it took me a very long time to get my head around it. Even though I ended up not understanding much of it in the end. I left the room at around 1.40 so that I had a break and made my way to the lecture hall. Mondays lectures are on microbes and immunity, the lecturer carried on talking about bacteria for an hour then we had a 5 minute break. Where we would have a different lecturer talking about another topic. But after the first lecture I was so sleepy I just went home. Mondays lectures are recorded live so I could watch the recording at home, which I did later on that night. Every other Monday I have a microbes and immunity practical as well, from 5.30-8.30 these usually last a while, last time I finished around 8. Got home around 8.45 ate and watched TV.

 

Tuesdays: Tuesday is my busiest day of the week. I have a disease biology and public health lecture from 11-1, this one I ended up arriving 5 minutes late because the snow caused my train to come late. Thankfully I didn't have my usual lecturer, she makes the class clap when someone comes late. 2-4 is my molecular basis of life lecture and then 5.30 - 8.30 a molecular basis of life practical, thankfully in practicals you can go when you're finished. I really love practicals, though in college it was so hard to get a decent mark in them for some reason, I think it was because a higher percentage was needed to pass them. Uni practicals you walk in with your lab coat, goggles and work book (depending on if lockers are in the corridor or in the lab.) Get briefed and a health and safety talk, then its all systems go! In this practical we were doing protein assays ( fancy way of saying working out the concentration of proteins)

 

My test tubes pretty much looked like that, except we had to do 38! luckily due to shortage of equipment I had a lab partner that did 19.

 

Wednesdays: Wednesdays timetable is usually weird. At the beginning of the year we did practical's, then workshops, but nowadays it's a stats lecture followed by a stats workshop. Which to be honest I think are pointless, because after the mean and standard deviation we don't include other calculations in reports. These stats lectures start at 10, so that means I need to catch the 9.15 or the 9.21 train, any later and im late. and the workshops start at 11. So my day is usually done by 12.

Thursday & Fridays are my days off :)

Personally most of my revision takes place in the evenings, 6 onwards. The only time I study in the morning is a Monday I think. And most of the time on Saturdays where I usually go to the central library. And sundays are almost always revision free, this is when I tutor, go to mosque and spend quality time with my family.