Day in the Life of a Graduate Student

Happy Friday everyone! Today I wanted to give y’all a glimpse into what a typical day for me looks like as a graduate student. Honestly please don’t hate me for having such an “easy” life. This is what my day looks like two times a week. 

5:30-5:45 am: Wake up and check social media then eventually hop in the shower.

6:00-7:10 am: Eat breakfast of egg white oatmeal with peanut butter. Read a devotional. Dust on some makeup. Put on some decent clothes. Rush out the door.

7:10 am: Driving to school. This morning was super foggy while I was driving and walking to my building. 

7:50 am-9:20 am: Walk down to the classroom to take attendance for a class I’m a teaching assistant in and keep track of participation points.

9:30 am:  Work on TA duties such as attendance sheets, grading quizzes, and responding to e-mails.

11:00-noon: Everyone is stressing out and complaining about registering for classes in 3 hours. What should I take? What are you taking? Have you had this professor before? Eventually we all figure it out and calm down a bit.

Noon-1:00 pm:  I had faulty lunch planning today and was starving by noon. I had to eat something or else my productivity would be shot so I went and bought a Smucker’s Uncrustable from the mini food store in our building. I forgot how good those things can be. With my hunger temporarily curbed, I continued grading quizzes from the news writing class that I TA.

1:30 pm: Out the door and headed home for the afternoon. (I typically have a TA class to go to at 2 p.m., but I didn’t end up having to go today.)

1:45-4:00 pm: Cook some eggs since I was still hungry. Actually register for classes. Work on building HTML code for my online class. Eat a double chocolate Quest Bar. Change to go to CrossFit.

4:20-5:30 pm: At CrossFit. Our workout was easy-ish today. We warmed up then did 18 min as many reps as possible of 3 power snatches (I did hang), 10 pull-ups, 20 air squats. I stayed a bit afterward and worked on doing power snatches. 

6:00-7:20 pm: Go home to drink a protein shake and eat dinner. Work on this blog post and hang out until I have to leave for work for the night.

8:00-Midnight: Arrive at the computer lab to monitor it for work which is part of my TA assignment. I read some chapters in my book for my theory class on Monday. Then I continue to work on HTML coding.  I always reach a point during the nights I work where my brain completely shuts down, so then I watch Vikings on Amazon prime.

12:30 am: Get home and climb in bed and go to sleep.

And that’s it for my typical day! It appears that I sit behind a computer all day and that’s pretty accurate. I’m either behind the computer working on TA stuff or working on homework.  The other two days of the week my schedule is slightly different and I have class at night instead of work, but basically the same concept. I hope you enjoyed some insight into my exhilarating life as a graduate student. Have a great Wednesday!

Do you have any questions about anything I shared?

What does a day in your life look like?