A Day in the Life of a Residential College Student

By Claire Stevens, 2nd Year Bachelor of Arts Student, University of Melbourne

My name’s Claire, I’m from Ballarat, Victoria and I live at Melbourne residential college, University College (UC). I’m in my second year at the University of Melbourne studying my Bachelor of Arts. I’m majoring in History and minoring in Media and Communications. In this post, I’ll be taking you through my typical Monday living at UC and studying at the University of Melbourne.

9am

I accidentally miss-set my alarm/s so I ended up waking up at 9am, which was barely enough time to get ready – I had to skip breakfast sadly. I caught the 19 tram from just outside college at around 9:45am and got to my tutorial in the Law Building just in time - I’m doing a law subject as a Breadth this semester.

To explain what a Breadth is, they’re subjects we take as a part of our degrees which are outside our faculty (Arts for me). They allow us to explore different faculties which we might have side interests in, I’ve taken a lot of law subjects and also a language (German).

Another side note, tutorials are one of the two teaching styles in Arts degrees. They’re classroom-style classes where we discuss the week's contents, as opposed to lectures where we are introduced more passively, to the subject’s content. Most of the time there’s one of each a week – although usually in first year there are two lectures a week.

11am

My class finished at 11am. I walked back to college through campus because the weather was on the decent side of the Melbourne spectrum. I was tempted by one of the many fabulous cafes on campus and got a latte. From the Law Building, the walk back to college is about 20 minutes, which is a lot less than one would expect looking at the map (the University of Melbourne Parkville campus is HUGE!).

12pm

I went straight to the Dining Hall (D-hall) to make some raisin toast which I took back to my room. The kitchen has been stocking some scrumptious mandarins recently, so I took three of those to have in my room (brain food). From there I relaxed and did some work in my room before my shift in the library. I also put on a few loads of washing so they would be done while I worked.

2pm

Towards the end of last year, I applied to be a Library Assistant in the UC library, which I got and started at the beginning of this year. Every week I have one three-hour shift and one two-hour shift, both paid. In the middle of the semester, as it is now, the library is busy with students studying but not many students needing assistance. So as a Library Assistant, we spend our time also studying when we’re not doing our other routine duties.

5pm

After my shift, I went back to my room to do yet more Uni work before High Table. High Table is held once a week on Mondays at UC. It’s a common feature of all UniMelb Colleges where the whole college comes together at one time to each a meal together. Normal meals during the weeks are 2-hour periods where we can come and go as we please, so High Table is a nice opportunity for everyone’s busy schedules to line up. Important announcements are made at High Table by our Student Club Executive members and also the Administration Team of UC. So far this semester my favourite High Table meal has been a lasagna they made in week 1 or 2. I’m still dreaming about it.

8pm

Then after High Table, which ends at about 7:10pm or 7:20pm if there are a lot of announcements or a special speaker, I went back to the library for a few hours of extra study, as I’ve got an assignment due date approaching. Then finally, after everything I could put myself to do is done, I did a variety of small relaxing and socialising things. I went to a friend’s room and sat and chatted with them while they played some games on their PC (I also had a turn).