Week one, day one.

Hey!

Believe it or not but I survived my first *official* day as a PhD student. I say *official* as over the past two weeks I've been involved in events and coming onto campus a fair bit considering I was meant to be 'taking it easy before I start'. This post is for all you chaps who want to keep up to date with my activities, for those of you who are just curious as to what a PhD student really gets up to and for the rest of you who are a little nosey (I'd probably be the latter if this wasn't my blog).

So let's get to it.

My day started at 7:15, I could probably get up at midday and no one would notice but as I may have said before (or not), I love routine and I'm going to try and stick to a solid routine from the beginning. My first task of the day was to drop by the SBE (school of business and economics) finance office with my passport so they could check I have the right to work in the UK, super simple and easy to ease myself in. Then I made my way to the student enquiries desk, typically when I went to pick up my ID card I didn't take my passport *eye roll* so I needed to swing by and show them as well. I made my way over trying to remember which building this was in and casually strolled in to Hazlerigg when in fact I wanted Rutland, both of which are stunning buildings so can you blame for getting them mixed up? Looking at the queue which was spilling out of the front entrance I thought "sodd this, I can come back when these kids are in lectures" quite funny 'cause I'm definitely still a kid but I just don't have lectures.

Having done attempted to complete a few admin tasks I made my way over to the PhD office I'll be based in - this is basically a big computer room with an unofficial hot-desking policy, so unofficial in fact that all the good desks had been claimed and the desk I was left with was not perfect, I fancied a desk tucked away in a corner preferable near a window but to no avail, I'm stuck in the middle of the room near the door. Beggers can't be choosers though, some of my fellow PhD students have been here 2 years and 8 months and I've been here a day... So I settled in, first thing I did was to write my to-do list. Who doesn't love a list? Like seriously, there's something so satisfying about being able to put a little tick and give yourself a YAY for completing a task. Although, it's probably important the list is realistic, mine was 15 items long. Perhaps a little long but I thought I can carry this over the next few days. I checked my diary to see what I had planned (nothing) and got stuck in. I enrolled onto some events that'll be useful to my development, mainly "what is a literature review?" and "Literature review: best practices" I also booked onto the doctoral college induction, which isn't until November, kinda a little late on but as PhD students start whenever I guess it makes sense, I'm just lucky I started at the start of the academic year. I emailed someone about attending some modules that might be beneficial to my learning, this excites me as I'll get to sit in a lecture environment and take notes, think of the stationary dreamsssss.

I carried this on for a bit, then headed back over to the student enquiries desk, even though there was still a queue I wasn't gonna turn around for a second time. Boring stuff done, I went back to my desk and completed the first part of a teaching module that'll be doing, cause ya know I get to take a few seminars already (I'm still struggling to imagine myself at the front of a class rather than perched on the first row 😆). I was at my desk for an hour or so and I felt my fitbit telling me to move, so I thought perfect opportunity I need to go to the library and IT services so I trekked over there. And yes it really is a trek but I refuse to catch the free shuttle, my legs are fine!

Fast forward a few hours, I've read a few articles, made a few notes, sent a few emails and I'm ready to meet my supervisors. We discussed how I'm going to really get started, in terms of journals to read, papers to search for etc. Not going to lie, I was super excited and I still am! I came away with a new to do list ready for the next day and so here we are. I'm doing #1 which may not be official business but in a way it is, because I'm keeping track of my daily activities and that's a plus for me.

Stay tuned to hear my review of my first complete week, Loughborough's top for so much lets see if they can hit top marks in "Ursula's PhD review: week one".

Peace x
P.S. sorry no piccy this week, and sorry for the excessively long post.