A Day in the Life of a University Student: A Rundown of My Typical Routine

Every day, I wake up early to get ready for class, which typically starts at 10 am and goes on until 5 pm. During this time, we attend lectures and spend most of our time working on assignments related to medical analyses using statistical coding languages like R or Bash. As a result, my screen is usually filled with code, data, and research papers. I also keep track of my university stuff in Notion, which has become an essential tool for me.

My home page in Notion serves as a central hub for all my courses, including the current genomics course I'm taking. The genomics course is fascinating, but it's also challenging, with only a few lectures throughout the week. As a result, I spend most of my time working on assignments and studying, rather than attending lectures. My screen often looks like this:

"DNA sequence from a mouse or worm, I'm not really sure which one, but one of those two."

Notion helps me keep organized with an overview page for the genomics course, complete with handy links and a list of all my lecture notes for years past. Although I've only ever taken notes with pen and paper, I've started taking digital notes for this course due to its practical and computer-based nature.

After class, I take the metro into the city center of Amsterdam to get dinner with a friend, who's also studying at the university. It was my birthday, and we celebrated by dining at a lovely Japanese restaurant called Struggipan, which unfortunately didn't have the best angle for photos. We ordered vegan struggleship, but the name is quite a mouthful!

The first week of this course was challenging, as I found myself completely lost and struggling to keep up with the work. I had to continue working on assignments in the evenings almost every evening, feeling tired and overwhelmed. However, after a few days of hard work, I started to get a grasp of what I was doing, and it felt satisfying to finally understand concepts that were previously nonsensical.

After dinner, I head home between 5 pm and 6 pm, where I usually spend some time grocery shopping on the way. Upon arrival, I make dinner and then dedicate a few hours to extra coursework or editing work for YouTube videos. This is my attempt to establish a clear evening routine that brings structure to my evenings.

One of the activities I enjoy doing in the evenings is yoga. While I haven't been able to stick to it every day (I did manage to do some last night, which was great!), I find that practicing yoga helps me unwind and feel more relaxed. To signal the end of my working time, I dedicate a few hours to just chilling and doing whatever I please. This might involve reading a book, playing Zelda Breath of the Wild on my Switch (I'm obsessed with it!), or watching TV shows.

Occasionally, I'll re-watch an old cartoon that I loved years ago, which is perfect for autumn. Re-watching old favorites helps me relax and feel cozy, especially during this time of year when the days are getting shorter. As I wind down before bed, I enjoy the peacefulness of my evening routine, knowing that tomorrow will bring new challenges and opportunities to learn.

If you'd like to see more content from The Dark Academia Diaries, please let me know! Your feedback is always appreciated, and I hope you'll continue to follow along on this journey through university life. Don't forget to subscribe for upcoming episodes!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everyone welcome to another installment of the dark academia diaries my little vlog series about my life as a university student lover of books art and all things cozy this episode i thought it would be fun to show you a typical day in my life as a student at the university of amsterdam i get up around eight in the morning and then get myself ready to go to uni so hello good morning it's the morning i'm gonna go to amsterdam to the university of amsterdam because that's where i'm doing my master's degree in biomedical science and i'm currently focusing on big data analysis i don't live in amsterdam because that's impossible so i have an hour commute every day to the university of amsterdam just taking the train and the metro an hour is might be considered very long but it's pretty neat because i just have the time to chill and do other things for example i always have a book with me in my bag so i can just read on the train whenever i want for example right now i have pianissi by suzanna clark this is a really interesting very atmospheric mysterious fantasy story about this person who's in this huge house with all these halls and statues and they don't know the outside world but slowly they get these little hints of things existing outside of the house it's very interesting so i'm currently reading this one i will admit that i don't really read as much on the train as i would like because very often i fall asleep when i try to read on the train so often i also just kind of like listen to music or just scroll the internet i think last week when i was on the train i used my time to research zelda theories just on google so there are many ways to use your time on the train i also take with me my big old laptop because most of the things that i do during classes on the laptop because i have to do like coding and statistics and stuff so that's coming with me as well it's very big and heavy because it also needs to be able to process my games and my editing software i just i noticed that the the next few lines that i wrote in the script for the voice over really sound like they could be the first few lines in a young adult dystopian novel so that's great here goes and around nine in the morning i walk to the train station to hop on the train to amsterdam it's the year 2021 which means universities aren't completely back to the way they were before the pandemic my course currently practices a kind of hybrid education where every other day i come to uni to work on site and the other days i work from home and attend lectures and ask questions online but today was an on-site day so i am taking the train i personally really enjoy this style of education because you still see other students and can ask questions in person but also having some days at home saves me a lot of time and energy from traveling most of my classes are in the amsterdam medical center aka the hospital so i'm not really on a typical uni campus gotta hydrate very important so here's a rundown of what i typically do at a day at university folks every day i have class from 10 to 5 in which we will get a lecture and then spend most of the day working on assignments we're learning to do medical analyses using statistical coding languages like r or bash and most of my time my screen looks something like this or like this i keep track of my university stuff in notion as always here is my home page i don't spend a lot of time here the most important thing is the list of all of my courses for example the course that i'm currently following is a genomics course which means my screen when i'm working often looks like this this is dna a dna sequence from a mouse or a worm i'm not really sure i don't really remember but one of those two so in notion i have an overview page of the genomics course with handy links that i often use and also a list of all of my lecture notes for years i've only ever taken notes with pen and paper but since this course has so few lectures and is so practical and computer-based i started taking digital notes then at half past four after class i took the metro into the city center of amsterdam to get dinner with a friend it was still for my birthday and we went to a lovely japanese restaurant with the vegan struggleship oh no not a great angle hello oh i'm toast i'm fried i'm really tired staring at the screen all day so this course is 10 to between four and five every single day because we're just doing practical work the whole day doing statistics coding etc and as you can imagine you're kind of toast at the end of the day the first week last week i was completely lost the whole time and i had to continue doing work in the evening almost every evening because i was very behind but today it was going quite well actually i feel like i'm slowly getting a grasp of what i'm doing so i don't have to be behind all the time it's always just such a satisfying feeling when you notice that you're kind of getting the hang of it and you're starting to understand things that were just complete nonsense to you a few days ago you know then after that i had a really nice dinner with a friend of mine who also studies in amsterdam i had a katsu curry i should eat japanese more often because oh that was really good obviously this is not usually what my days look like this was just kind of an exception normally i get home between five and six and then usually i'll get some groceries on the way home make dinner and then after dinner like right now i will take some time to do a little bit of extra coursework that i didn't get to finish during the class so that's what i'm gonna do now is is all right hi everyone hello i'm really trying to bring some structure into my evenings by having like a clear evening routine that i do every day and i'm trying to do yoga every evening is not really happening um but i did it today and that's what matters but i really like using yoga as kind of a way to end my day if that makes sense so after dinner in the evenings like you just saw i usually take a bit of time to still finish some school work or do some editing work for youtube but then when i'm done with that i will still have like a few hours before going to bed to just chill and do my own thing and i like to kind of end the working time by doing yoga so that i know after i do yoga and shower it's just chill time so for example things i do i can read a book this usually happens like right before i go to bed i am obsessed with playing zelda breath of the wild i know that i'm super late to the hype but i only recently got a switch and this is what i spent most of my evenings playing at least for the past few weeks this is what i've been playing almost every evening but this evening i don't really feel like playing actually and i actually really feel like just watching a tv show so i think i'm actually gonna go and re-watch a cartoon that i really love that i haven't watched in years but that is perfect for autumn and i'm gonna re-watch it now and i hope so if you guys recognize the show because i really think more people should watch it because it's amazing so that's how i'm gonna be spending my evening just chill so i can sleep peacefully and have energy again for tomorrow and that is how i end a day in my life as a student at the university of amsterdam please let me know what other things you would like me to include in upcoming episodes of the dark academia diaries and don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss them i hope you will have a wonderful day and i will see you soon in another video youhello everyone welcome to another installment of the dark academia diaries my little vlog series about my life as a university student lover of books art and all things cozy this episode i thought it would be fun to show you a typical day in my life as a student at the university of amsterdam i get up around eight in the morning and then get myself ready to go to uni so hello good morning it's the morning i'm gonna go to amsterdam to the university of amsterdam because that's where i'm doing my master's degree in biomedical science and i'm currently focusing on big data analysis i don't live in amsterdam because that's impossible so i have an hour commute every day to the university of amsterdam just taking the train and the metro an hour is might be considered very long but it's pretty neat because i just have the time to chill and do other things for example i always have a book with me in my bag so i can just read on the train whenever i want for example right now i have pianissi by suzanna clark this is a really interesting very atmospheric mysterious fantasy story about this person who's in this huge house with all these halls and statues and they don't know the outside world but slowly they get these little hints of things existing outside of the house it's very interesting so i'm currently reading this one i will admit that i don't really read as much on the train as i would like because very often i fall asleep when i try to read on the train so often i also just kind of like listen to music or just scroll the internet i think last week when i was on the train i used my time to research zelda theories just on google so there are many ways to use your time on the train i also take with me my big old laptop because most of the things that i do during classes on the laptop because i have to do like coding and statistics and stuff so that's coming with me as well it's very big and heavy because it also needs to be able to process my games and my editing software i just i noticed that the the next few lines that i wrote in the script for the voice over really sound like they could be the first few lines in a young adult dystopian novel so that's great here goes and around nine in the morning i walk to the train station to hop on the train to amsterdam it's the year 2021 which means universities aren't completely back to the way they were before the pandemic my course currently practices a kind of hybrid education where every other day i come to uni to work on site and the other days i work from home and attend lectures and ask questions online but today was an on-site day so i am taking the train i personally really enjoy this style of education because you still see other students and can ask questions in person but also having some days at home saves me a lot of time and energy from traveling most of my classes are in the amsterdam medical center aka the hospital so i'm not really on a typical uni campus gotta hydrate very important so here's a rundown of what i typically do at a day at university folks every day i have class from 10 to 5 in which we will get a lecture and then spend most of the day working on assignments we're learning to do medical analyses using statistical coding languages like r or bash and most of my time my screen looks something like this or like this i keep track of my university stuff in notion as always here is my home page i don't spend a lot of time here the most important thing is the list of all of my courses for example the course that i'm currently following is a genomics course which means my screen when i'm working often looks like this this is dna a dna sequence from a mouse or a worm i'm not really sure i don't really remember but one of those two so in notion i have an overview page of the genomics course with handy links that i often use and also a list of all of my lecture notes for years i've only ever taken notes with pen and paper but since this course has so few lectures and is so practical and computer-based i started taking digital notes then at half past four after class i took the metro into the city center of amsterdam to get dinner with a friend it was still for my birthday and we went to a lovely japanese restaurant with the vegan struggleship oh no not a great angle hello oh i'm toast i'm fried i'm really tired staring at the screen all day so this course is 10 to between four and five every single day because we're just doing practical work the whole day doing statistics coding etc and as you can imagine you're kind of toast at the end of the day the first week last week i was completely lost the whole time and i had to continue doing work in the evening almost every evening because i was very behind but today it was going quite well actually i feel like i'm slowly getting a grasp of what i'm doing so i don't have to be behind all the time it's always just such a satisfying feeling when you notice that you're kind of getting the hang of it and you're starting to understand things that were just complete nonsense to you a few days ago you know then after that i had a really nice dinner with a friend of mine who also studies in amsterdam i had a katsu curry i should eat japanese more often because oh that was really good obviously this is not usually what my days look like this was just kind of an exception normally i get home between five and six and then usually i'll get some groceries on the way home make dinner and then after dinner like right now i will take some time to do a little bit of extra coursework that i didn't get to finish during the class so that's what i'm gonna do now is is all right hi everyone hello i'm really trying to bring some structure into my evenings by having like a clear evening routine that i do every day and i'm trying to do yoga every evening is not really happening um but i did it today and that's what matters but i really like using yoga as kind of a way to end my day if that makes sense so after dinner in the evenings like you just saw i usually take a bit of time to still finish some school work or do some editing work for youtube but then when i'm done with that i will still have like a few hours before going to bed to just chill and do my own thing and i like to kind of end the working time by doing yoga so that i know after i do yoga and shower it's just chill time so for example things i do i can read a book this usually happens like right before i go to bed i am obsessed with playing zelda breath of the wild i know that i'm super late to the hype but i only recently got a switch and this is what i spent most of my evenings playing at least for the past few weeks this is what i've been playing almost every evening but this evening i don't really feel like playing actually and i actually really feel like just watching a tv show so i think i'm actually gonna go and re-watch a cartoon that i really love that i haven't watched in years but that is perfect for autumn and i'm gonna re-watch it now and i hope so if you guys recognize the show because i really think more people should watch it because it's amazing so that's how i'm gonna be spending my evening just chill so i can sleep peacefully and have energy again for tomorrow and that is how i end a day in my life as a student at the university of amsterdam please let me know what other things you would like me to include in upcoming episodes of the dark academia diaries and don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss them i hope you will have a wonderful day and i will see you soon in another video you\n"