From 8-hour school days to 1-hour seminars: Finding Your Balance at UCL

• Consider your coursework as a full-time job
• Explore as many clubs as possible
• Use the libraries
• Book office hours (for whatever reason)
• Remember to budget

Everyone knows that your life in uni will be drastically different from your time in high school. We idolize the freedom that this whole new world will offer to us, being able to finally never do chemistry (or only do chemistry, if that’s what you oddly find interesting), and live independently for the first time ever. Having only 1-3 hours of class per day seems like a much better deal than having to be at school for a full 8 hours. While this newfound freedom is exciting, it can also get you carried away and miss out on important deadlines; that essay you were assigned a month ago is now due in the next 3 days. The reality is even more daunting for international students - many of whom have never been to London, let alone the UK. To prepare for your new life in this gloomy city, here are 5 tips to maximize your time, energy, and money at UCL: 

1. Consider your coursework as a full-time job

After experiencing the amount of reading I had to do in uni, it seemed rather impossible for me to finish any of my work. I’ll start off with the advice my personal tutor, Dr. Noële Crossley, gave me during my second week at UCL. She said, “treat your time here as a full-time job - where you have to clock in and clock out at certain times every day.” At first, I was very skeptical - it felt like it was a forever job since all I’d do is spend my time eating/finishing my reading and my notes. I soon realized that I was wasting an unreasonable amount of time in the library/working in my room just because I didn’t time block.

Upon receiving this advice, I set aside 2 major time blocks throughout the day to finish my work - 9 AM to 12 PM, and from 2 PM to 4 PM. Everything outside of those two-time blocks could be used for anything else I wanted to use it for. To my surprise, this actually worked. I had to be doing a specific task at 9 AM every day from Monday to Thursday (since I didn’t have any classes on Friday), and always finished all my studying before 4 PM every day. To be fair, your first year is supposed to be much easier than any other year, but I assume the same technique would work well into the future since you’re giving yourself a set amount of uninterrupted hours to complete your tasks - rather than lag behind on assignments without any clear objective. While this might sound restricting and somewhat intense, you’ll find that it actually gives you much more time to do everything else you want to do (i.e. explore London, go out with friends in the afternoon, and - most importantly - sleep). Nobody’s perfect, but making sure your time spent studying is actually spent studying is probably the only piece of advice you need to succeed in your uni studies. 

2. Explore as many clubs as possible

Aside from considering your work as a full-time job, it’s important to remember that uni offers alot of other opportunities outside of academics. If you pop over to the UCL Students’ Union website, you’ll find more than 300 clubs to choose from - whether you’re keen on learning how to argue competitively under the Debate Society or to simply café hop with the Bubble Tea Society, there’s something for everyone at UCL. 

This opportunity comes at a cost, however - because while there are many societies in UCL, you need to genuinely commit to a few to fully experience uni life. My suggestion to all of you international students (and beyond) is to keep a very open mind and learn about as many clubs as possible and let your experience throughout decide the ones you like the most. This way, you don’t have to commit fully to one just yet. Remember - there’s no rush to have it all figured out in your first year. It’s supposed to feel like a burst of opportunity and an entirely new, unexplored world so not deciding on something is kind of the point. 

3. Use the libraries

One of the only reasons I chose to study at UCL was because of their libraries. Just kidding. But seriously, this school has some really beautiful (and pretty historic) libraries - the Main Library, SSEES, and the IOE (just to name a few). I’ve gone to a library around 2-3 times a week and still haven’t visited half of the libraries here. Studying in one of them is always a great idea - especially when you’re surrounded by other students who are hard at work. 

Aside from how pretty they are, it’s just a great idea to get out of your room everytime you’re studying/chasing a deadline. Because of the pandemic, a lot of lectures and seminars have moved online. I’ve found that studying in my room likely means that you won’t get anything done as there isn’t any separation between your workspace and your place of rest (unless you’ve got a really big room, but I doubt any of UCL’s student halls are big enough). Using the libraries is a great way to feel like you’re in university despite the shift to online learning. 

4. Book office hours (for whatever reason)

While I don’t speak on behalf of the UCL professors & staff members, I’ve found that booking office hours has been a great way to not only get clarity on your assignments but to also just engage with your lecturers. I’ve booked office hours for a bunch of reasons (at this point my profs/seminar leaders are probably tired of me showing up every two weeks). Regardless of that, however, it’s always a great idea to communicate your ideas with your professors and show them that you find the material interesting. Even if you don’t, talking about it with them often gets you much more motivated to learn more about it, and as an added bonus, gives you the confidence that your assignments are of high quality. It isn’t a great idea to be annoying to your professors/seminar leaders (like I sometimes am), but it’s always a great idea to show them that you care about the material being taught. Office hours will always be useful for you - even when you’re not too sure what questions you should be asking.

5. Remember to budget

London is super expensive, and if you’re not careful you might just spend double or triple the amount that you’ve set aside for yourself. As someone who’s lived in Indonesia all their life, spending 8 pounds on a noodle soup seems so wasteful when that same meal would cost around 2 pounds back home (except, you’d get a complimentary drink and a snack to go alongside the noodle soup). You’re bound to spend more here as things are just more expensive. While I won’t go through every single budgeting app in existence, my main advice to all of you international students who are looking to spend a modest amount of money is to get yourself a digital bank (i.e. Monzo, Starling, Revolut, etc.).

I’ve used Monzo from the day I stepped foot in my UCL accommodation, Ramsay hall, and it’s been really helpful to get my finances in order. Since there’s this feature called a ‘Monzo pot’ - where you get to set aside as much money that you want - I’ve been using it to keep all my money. That way, I only take what’s necessary for every month (which is anywhere around 300 to 400 pounds, though this might differ depending on how good you are with your money). This has helped me a lot since all we see when we open our bank account is the amount we have left for the month (rather than the amount we have left for the rest of the term/year if you keep all your money in that account). I promise that Monzo isn’t sponsoring this article, but they really should be - it’s a great way to budget if you’re a newbie like myself.

By Judah Purwanto, Bsc Politics and International Relations